Losing custom color ICC profile when restarting- help please

[kc]

I do occasional photo editing on my T61 and need decent color rendition. I've had excellent success using Gretag Eye One calibration. After hooking up the USB color reader and running the calibration program, a new ICC color profile is created, saved in the ICC folder and provides great color on my LCD.

My problem is that I lose the color profile after a hard shut down or restart. In either case, the LCD returns to its blueish cast (the default profile?). To fix this, I go to the Color Profile tab in Display Control Settings and attempt to re-establish the calibrated ICC profile -- but with no luck. The previously saved ICC profile is in the file list, but when I select it and apply it, nothing happens. My current workaround is to recalibrate the color when I need to do photo work -- not a great solution.

Thinkpad details: T61, NVIDIA graphics, multiple display profiles (T61 solo and dock to monitor at work -- I wonder if this is part of the problem??).

Glad to provide any other relevant details. Thanks in advance for the help.

Ken

[kc]

Sorry - Additional detail I forgot to include: Windows XP Professional SP2, Thinkpad Presenter enabled, 14" widescreen.

Also, I have disabled Adobe Gamma (included in Photoshop), which is known to foul up calibration.

Thanks.

[kc]

A favar: if this ICC question is too software specific, any suggestions of other forums where users may have experienced a similar issue. Thanks again for the help.

[kc]

Random googling led to discovery that this is an XP issue rather than a Thinkpad issue. In a nutshell, I correctly disabled Adobe Gamma at startup (to prevent conflict with the Gretag ICC profile) but I also incorrectly disabled a separate program, Adobe Gamma Loader, which is required to load the Gretag ICC profile at startup. Following support item form Gretag Macbeth explains the problem and solution.

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.a ... ortID=3514

Excerpt:

Monitor Calibrations and Profiles on a PC

After you calibrate and profile your display, the profiling software saves the graphics card's calibration curves inside the monitor profile so they can be reloaded on reboot. Microsoft operating systems do not automatically load the calibration curves that are associated with your monitor profile, so you need an additional utility to load the calibration curves. The name of this calibration loader will vary with the software that you are using, but some common examples are Adobe Gamma Loader, Monaco Gamma Loader, Logo Calibration Loader, HueyPro Tray or ColorMunkiPhoto Tray.

You can find your utility by going to Start > All Programs > Startup Items. If you have more than one calibration loader loading on startup, this can cause conflicts with different software packages trying to load onto the system and fighting over which LUT Loader will load the curves first. You may even hear this referred to as LUT wars. Be sure to remove Adobe Gamma or any other unused calibration loaders.

If you want to change your monitor profile, change the default profile in your Display Properties. Then be sure to relaunch your calibration loader so the appropriate calibration curves are applied to your display.


In my case, I had turned off Adobe Gamma using msiconfig rather than the start menu folder. Unfortunately, I unchecked two Adobe Gamma programs -- Adobe Gamma.exe and Adobe Gamma Loader. When I rechecked Adobe Gamma Loader (making it a start up program), everything worked.

Hope this helps someone in the future.