Bitmaps look like shit in Photoshop...

Gah, I have no idea what happend, but for some reason bitmap files have been looking horrible in Photoshop. For one thing, they look way too dark, with a different color scheme to boot, and it has gotten to the point where I simply can't work on them as I have no idea how it's actually going to look without hitting "Save for Web" every 5 seconds.

Does anyone have any idea what might have gone wrong? I tried messing with the color settings (even turning off color management to see if that did the trick), but it didn't help at all. JPEGS, GIFs, and other files look just fine in photoshop, so what happend?

Thanks in advance if anyone might have an idea toward this problem.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Fiddle with the screen settings that Photoshop always starts with the first time. Don't know exactly where it's located though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Have you tried looking at the View -> Proof setup menu? (perhaps its being proofed in CMYK mode?)
The only other thing I can think of at the moment that would cause the image to look wrong is bit depth. Whatever it is I cant see why it would only effect bitmaps.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Maybe try changing the color settings (ctrl+shift+k) try turning everything off under "Color Management Policies" or try the different presets. Not sure if this will fix your problem but doesn't hurt trying I guess.

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Seems I might have been jumping the gun in my diagnosis of the problem, as further testing shows that not all BMPs are messing up. The one on the right, for example, looks great. The problem seems to be only the ones that hit a certain level of darkness on their own that begin to look terrible, with a changed color range, added darkness and a more obvious shift between different colors (look almost like high color paleet GIFs at times). No clue why it would only effect darker stills, and sorry for not testing some lighter ones earlier last night.

Originally Posted by GrimReaper

Maybe try changing the color settings (ctrl+shift+k) try turning everything off under "Color Management Policies" or try the different presets.

The "Color Management Policies" have actually been off the whole time, and I tried messing with numerous settings in there to no avail. Also tried messing with the "Proof Setup" as Sausageboots suggested, and while some of those improved the brightness, they did little to make the image look close to how it would when I would actually save it.

Also, thanks to everyone for their help so far.

I was speaking idiomatically.

So, the images look fine once you save them to another format? If that's the case you can just save it as a .psd and work on the psd file, right?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I like how no one on Earth uses bitmap anymore.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Megalith

I like how no one on Earth uses bitmap anymore.

A good number of programs I see return screenshots in bitmap, namely video applications, Media Player Classic being one example.
From the looks of it, Arbok's bitmaps could be screenshots from movies or whatnot. (Otherwise, save in TIFF or PNG, really >_< )

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Megalith

I like how no one on Earth uses bitmap anymore.

I like how I had to write a program to read, modify, and display bitmaps for a class.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by GrimReaper

So, the images look fine once you save them to another format? If that's the case you can just save it as a .psd and work on the psd file, right?

It would seem not to be the case, sadly, as the PSD file seems to retain the same visible problems as the bitmap. Saving it as a jpeg gets rid of this look, but introduces some compression into the matter as well. This whole thing has me at a loss for words too, as it looks like the problem is just with viewing darker bitmap and PSD files, as lighter ones in those formats, along with gifs and jpegs, look fine.

Originally Posted by Snowknight

A good number of programs I see return screenshots in bitmap, namely video applications, Media Player Classic being one example.
From the looks of it, Arbok's bitmaps could be screenshots from movies or whatnot.

Exactly. I capture them as bitmaps, and then compress and save them for use on my site as either jpegs or gifs.

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have you tried saving as TIF?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by GrimReaper

have you tried saving as TIF?

Just did, and I get the same problem. So maybe it has less to do with the format, if anything, then I originally thought...

How ya doing, buddy?

BTW, what software are you using to take the screen captures?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by GrimReaper

BTW, what software are you using to take the screen captures?

PowerDVD, which is what I used on my old computer as well, and have been using on this one without any problems up until this point.

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Yeah, I just tried it with PowerDVD and MPC and both the bmps I captured opened fine in PS. This is strange indeed...maybe a reinstall is needed.

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