What will it look like on your computer?

jsedlak

This isn't necessarily photography related, but I thought this would be a good place to ask. As mentioned in this post, I ran into a big problem tonight. Finally it happened: what colors I was using in Photoshop didn't produce the same colors on the web. I didn't think it would happen since I have been using only the default profiles on everything (I believe sRGB?), but my blues started coming out blue instead of a murky purple.

Although this is what I wanted, it forces me to ask: what will it look like on other persons' machines? The profile isn't embedded in the jpeg, so the software should use either sRGB or the monitor profile, right? Setting photoshop to simulate my monitor and turning on Proof Coloring seemed to make it equal what I saw in Chrome/IE8. This tends to make me believe that both use the monitor profile, but I thought this was wrong (I was told that both default to sRGB).

Ugh, am I just very confused?

Thanks for the help.

jfriend

If you display an image in a non-color-aware application (like Firefox 2 or IE) then that application just sends the color bits directly to the video card with no color management at all. This is functionally equivalent to treating it as if the image is in the monitor profile (since that also requires no modification).

If you display an image in a color-managed application without a profile, it's up to the app what to do. Safari (which is color managed) will do no color correction on it at all which is again functionally equivalent to treating it as if the image is in the monitor profile. I haven't tested Firefox 3 with color-management enabled to see what it does in that situation.

So, both of these scenarios are bad. The image is treated like it's in the viewer's monitor profile. But, you have NO idea what their monitor profile is. It could be anything. It could be close to sRGB. It could be one of the wide gamut monitors closer to aRGB. It could be junk because their monitor wasn't installed right and/or wasn't calibrated.

So, what's a person to do?

Put your image in sRGB and include the profile and make your image look good in a color-managed application on a calibrated screen. Will that look perfect everywhere else? No. But, that is the best you can do. You are making it look good in calibrated conditions. It will print well in a calibrated lab. It will look great on any other calibrated system with color-managed software. If someone's system is only a little bit off, your image will be close. That's the best you can do.

If a viewer's system is way off, then you can't aim for that because you don't even know which way it's off and that would only make all the good viewer's systems look worse. Do not try to make it look good in your non-color-managed browser. While many are tempted to do that, that is just optimizing your image for your monitor profile which has NOTHING to do with anyone else's system. It's a bad idea.

Go for sRGB, include the profile, make it look good on a calibrated system. You will have done the best you can do and made your image look perfect when viewed on a calibrated system with color-managed software. And, you will not have built any bias error into the image so it's more likely to be close to a random distribution of uncalibrated systems out there.

Over time, more browsers will be color-managed and more screens will be calibrated and the problem will be lessened.