Photoshop Elements display color is way off

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

I have Elements 7.0 and when I open a image in it, the colors are way off from the way it displays in a picture viewer. Is there a way to adjust the color in Elements to display correctly?

Please note that I'm not trying to adjust the color of the image file itself, just the way Elements displays the image when it opens a file.

[Dbl]

There might be a few things going on here but they boil down to monitor calibration. Unless you are using a calibration device on your monitor, it is hard to say what is the correct color. Windows, and I am assuming that is what you are using makes things a bit more difficult because of the complexity of color spaces. You will have differences across color gaumets of the monitor, room lighting, and color spaces.

What this means is with out calibration it will be difficult at best to control color across different programs. Your picture viewer is likely using a different color source than Elements is. Which is correct? Hard to say with out an ICC profile installed in Windows. How do you get that? By using a calibration device to make a profile for your monitor.

So to add to your question how do you know how to adjust the color correctly without knowing which color is correct? I am sorry it is not a simple answer without calibration. Make sure the picture you are opening is in the sRGB color space, Windows is biased toward that space which might be why picture viewer is seeing one thing and Elements is looking at a different color space such as Adobe RGB. I haven't used Elements in some time but is there an "Option" where you can look and see what color space Elements is working under? Hope that helps a bit.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Found this on the Adobe HSOforum:

Since PSE is adamant that native windows image data is sRGB, then attaching an sRGB colour profile to the screen does fool PSE into behaving itself.

"if you are accustomed to other image editors on Windows (those which do not use colour management), and want PSE to show the same colours as those other programs, then attach and use the sRGB colour profile for your display device (even if you have a 'better' profile from the manufacturer)."

I changed my monitor color management setting to RGB and now all is well