Author: Adam Simmons
Last updated: December 23rd 2019

Windows Photo Viewer Some Picture Printing Result Invert Colour. Ask Question Asked 4 years, 3 months ago. Active 9 days ago. Viewed 3k times 0. I have a quite interesting problem of Windows 7 photo viewer. I noticed the program printing some of images in inverted state. Do not know the cause, I tried print it using other program without. There is an issue with the way Windows Photo Viewer and the list of the other software start displaying colours in the wrong way. It looks like some filter applied to it. In real, usually it caused by updating current drivers for display adapters or upgrading to the new hardware (so brand new drivers getting installed).

Introducing ICC

Ideally a user will turn a monitor on and feel the image is really just what they were after on any application they run – no tweaking necessary. Realistically, though, the user will most likely fiddle with a few things on the monitor OSD (On Screen Display) to achieve the image they’re looking for. Sometimes lowering the brightness a bit, having a little play with the RGB settings (colour channels) and perhaps switching gamma modes can make a world of difference. In our reviews we try to give users some suggestions for settings they can use on a monitor to give a rich and well-balanced image. There is always some degree of variation between individual units of the same model but this can often provide a useful starting point.

Occasionally we come across models which simply don’t give a pleasing image no matter how much tweaking you do on the OSD. One way to overcome these limitations is to use International Colour Consortium (ICC) profiles. The most complete and accurate creation of such profiles (a procedure aptly named ‘profiling’) is done by a hardware calibration device such as a colorimeter. ICC profiles essentially modify the graphics card’s Look Up Table (LUT) and gamma table so that the monitor displays different and ideally more correct colours to what it would natively. A relatively slender selection of monitors also allow the LUT and gamma curves of the monitor itself to be directly calibrated in a similar way. The upside of a proper calibration is a (sometimes vastly) improved image with more accurately represented colours. The downside is a potential reduction in contrast and sometimes in shade variety.

Activating the profiles

Due to user feedback we now provide downloadable ICC profiles for select monitors we review; those which benefit from a little more than OSD adjustments alone. In order to use these profiles they must be activated as detailed below. These instructions apply to Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 and possibly future Windows versions. Note that individual units vary and you can’t expect optimal results simply by using somebody else’s profile. It is always best to create such profiles yourself, on your own unit, where possible.

1) Navigate to ‘Control Panel – Appearance and Personalisation – Display – Screen Resolution (or Adjust resolution)’. On Windows 10 it is easiest to simply type ‘Colour Management’ into the (Cortana) Search Box at the bottom left of the desktop and skip to step 4.

2) Click ‘Advanced Settings’.

3) Click on the ‘Colour Management’ tab and press the button labelled ‘Colour Management…’

4) Ensure the ‘Use my settings for this device’ checkbox is checked.

5) Press the ‘Add’ button and then ‘Browse…’ to the ICC profile you just downloaded. Press ‘Add’ then ‘OK’. Note that if multiple ICC profiles are listed you will have to set the desired profile as default by clicking ‘Set as Default Profile’, too.



It is also necessary to enable the gamma correction elements of the ICC profile. This is done by changing ‘System Defaults’ as follows. Note that the image is just an example. Your dropdowns may differ from what is shown here, but it’s important to tick the checkbox as covered in steps 6 and 7.

6) Click on the ‘Advanced’ tab in Colour Management and press ‘Change system defaults…”

7) Navigate again to the ‘Advanced’ tab, this time in the ‘Colour Management – System Defaults’ window. Ensure the ‘Use Windows display calibration’ checkbox is ticked.


You can now close the Colour Management windows. All elements of the ICC profile should now be loaded and used correctly by the system on the desktop.

Games misbehaving

There are certain applications which have their own agenda. Some games, such as certain Steam titles, will choose to completely ignore desktop colour data including any applied ICC profile. It might be tempting to ‘enforce’ the profile on games that don’t use the desktop settings. This can be done using a utility such as a DLL injector (ColourClutch), another enforcement utility or running in ‘borderless window’ mode. When enforcing a profile in this way you often end up with the games incorrectly transforming (or partially transforming) colour and gamma data. Games that disregard the desktop settings use a range of different baselines for colour and gamma information which differs from that of the Windows desktop environment. So even if the ICC profile is ‘enforced’ it won’t be doing what it should, basing its corrections off the desktop rather than game baseline. Such games are designed to work with the GPU’s default LUT and gamma configuration only and once you change this ‘logic’ all sorts of issues can occur. You can get some minor banding issues even if ICC profile are used ‘properly’, but that doesn’t compare to the more noticeable issues that can occur if the profiles are enforced. Gamma issues, shade crushing, extensive banding, grey neutrality issues and incorrect colours are all quite common.

If you’re using a monitor with a good colour setup from the OSD there is really no need to apply an ICC profile for any game, but that can’t be said for all monitors unfortunately. Coordination exercises. There are plenty of games out there that will use the desktop colour settings as their baseline, meaning that they will be able to use at least some of the data contained in the ICC profiles. On monitors where the image simply doesn’t look at all appealing after OSD adjustments alone, things can certainly look better once an ICC profile is used. Just be aware of those titles that seem reluctant to use ICC profiles and don’t be surprised if these games don’t quite look right if you enforce the profile.

Obviously it would be a pain to have to go into Colour Management and switch profiles on and off every time you wanted to play a certain game or return to the desktop. There is an excellent and tiny utility called ‘Display Profile’ (above), created by X-Rite, which gives you a much quicker way of doing this. You can download it here. This allows you to toggle between ICC profiles or use the system defaults if you essentially want to disable any ICC profile corrections. To use system defaults and disable any specific LUT and gamma corrections simply select ‘sRGB IEC61966-2.1’ in the utility.

Posted September 18, 2015 by Ashley Blood in Graphics, Windows 10, Windows 10

Enhancing the colors captured in digital photography is easy with the Windows 10 built-in Photos app. Photos has four color editing tools which give you a considerable amount of control over the coloring of your photos. Continue reading to learn more about how to use them.

The Windows 10 Photos app includes the following color editing tools:

Temperature: affects the overall tone of the photo by making it appear warmer (more red tones) or cooler (more blue tones)

Tint: fixes color cast (such as light reflected from grass and plants) by adding or removing green hues

Saturation: increases or decreases the vividness of all the colors in your image

Color Boost: targets one color and intensifies or dampens it

To use these tools to edit a photo, follow the steps below:

1.Open the picture you want to edit with Photos. Photos is the default app for viewing photos in Windows 10, so your picture will open in Photos when you double-click on it in File Explorer. Alternatively, open the Photos app from the Start menu, and scroll through your collection or albums to find your picture. I usually prefer the first method because Photos does not organize your pictures into folders, which means you have to scroll through all the images in your collection or find it in the albums that Photos generates.

2.Click the Edit icon on the top menu bar. It looks like a pencil.

3.Select Color on the left side. The first three tools on the right (Temperature, Tint, and Saturation) all are operated the same way. When you click on the icon, it will turn into a wheel with a white indicator knob. Click and drag the knob around to adjust setting.

Temperature: Make the image appear warmer (more red tones) by rotating the knob clockwise. Make the image appear cooler (more blue tones) by rotating the knob counterclockwise.

Tint: Rotate the knob clockwise to remove green tones from the image. Rotate counterclockwise to add green tones.

Saturation: Make colors more vivid by rotating the knob clockwise. Rotating counterclockwise will dampen color, and a -100 saturation setting will make your image gray scale.

4.Now, let us explore the Color Boost tool. This tool lets you target one color and make it more vivid. Click the color boost icon on the bottom right of the window and drag the color selector onto your image. The color that the pointed bottom of the selector is on will show in the circle patch on the selector. Once you drop the selector somewhere on your image, the icon on the right will turn into a wheel like the one that the previous color tools used. Rotate clockwise to make the selected color more vibrant in your image, or rotate it counterclockwise to dampen or eliminate the selected color. You can create some really cool effects with this tool.

5.Once you are done with your image, you have two options to save your edited image. You can replace the original image by clicking the save icon (the floppy disk) to the left of the “x.” The icon to the left of that (the floppy disk with a shadow) will leave your original file alone and save your edited image as a new file.

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