Something very very odd has been happening recently with... well, my computer in general. It all started the morning a couple days ago when there was a power surge in my house and the computer got restarted while I was working in photoshop. Ever since then the colour of things seem to be really messed.

It seems whenever I save something in photoshop the way I normally do, it either becomes really thick and messed, or creates odd squares and borders. I have tried it with both Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS2, reinstalled both, and everything, it still happens. I have a few examples.

Left is how it looks in photoshop. Right is how it looks when I open it in MS Paint. Even weirder, when I upload it to the internet, for me it looks the way it should (like in the left image), but I have a friend who ends up seeing it messed up (like in the right image).

This is the weird thick blotching:
http://i26.tinypic.com/ekow0g.png

http://i31.tinypic.com/szjxg3.png

Odd squares & weird border (on my pixel art):
http://i30.tinypic.com/2zyihk9.png

http://i26.tinypic.com/1zl6ukj.png

http://i28.tinypic.com/2rvy4c0.png

What is wrong? How can I fix things? I have tried reinstalling photoshop, and even switching from CS3 back to CS2, nothing seems to fix this problem.

How are you saving the original file?

If you're using 'save for web', turn off 'matte'

I've tried using save for web as well as just the plain way of saving it. and I'm saving it as a PNG.

I was able to closely replicate your problem by saving for web, png, WITH MATTE (color = eyedropper).

When I turned OFF the matte, the problem disappeared.

well I don't think that's it. When I save, I've tried both 'save for web' as well as the normal way of saving. Both times I saved it with transparency as a PNG, and Matte was not on.