"Why do my RAW images look so much worse in
Photoshop than they do in the Camera RAW preview window?" Has
that been happening to you? If so, let me whisper softly those
two words that strike fear into the hearts of even the
bravest: "color management." If your images look less
saturated, less vibrant after they're brought into Photoshop
from Camera RAW, your color spaces probably don't match. Don't
worry, it's an easy fix.
In the lower-left corner of Photoshop CS's Camera RAW dialog
box is a little pop-up menu named Space. In that pop-up menu
you have several color space options. The default (and a fine
choice) is Adobe RGB.
If your Photoshop Color Settings dialog box has a different
color profile selected as the RGB Working Space, you're
getting a color shift between the Camera RAW plug-in and
Photoshop itself.
Regardless of what color profile you use in Color Settings,
you can restore your image's vibrancy with the Image> Mode>
Assign Profile command. Compare the following three images:
As you can see, assigning the same color space that was used
in Camera RAW produces the image that matches the adjustments
done to the original RAW file.