Save as JPEG without color balance correction?

jimf

So I have a series of shots made with gel lighting. As a result, their color is kinda wacky. I've done some prints with them, no problem. I wanted to put them up on the web, so I used "Save for Web" in Photoshop CS, which I've done before.

I guess one of the things I never noticed before was that in its quest to optimize the image for the Web Photoshop is adjusting the color balance. Now, it does a remarkable job of it -- removing the tinting nearly perfectly. But it's screwing up my shots in the process of "fixing" them.

Anyone know how to turn that off? I couldn't find an obvious switch. The funny thing is that I can't really tell any difference between the "original" version and the "optimized" version -- both are color corrected.

I can always save to TIFF and then use some other tool to convert, but that's a pain in the neck.

pathfinder

jimf wrote:

So I have a series of shots made with gel lighting. As a result, their color is kinda wacky. I've done some prints with them, no problem. I wanted to put them up on the web, so I used "Save for Web" in Photoshop CS, which I've done before.

I guess one of the things I never noticed before was that in its quest to optimize the image for the Web Photoshop is adjusting the color balance. Now, it does a remarkable job of it -- removing the tinting nearly perfectly. But it's screwing up my shots in the process of "fixing" them.

Anyone know how to turn that off? I couldn't find an obvious switch. The funny thing is that I can't really tell any difference between the "original" version and the "optimized" version -- both are color corrected.

I can always save to TIFF and then use some other tool to convert, but that's a pain in the neck.

How about just using "Save As" rather than saving for the web? Save As... lets YOU chose the size of the file you save and does not seem to change the color balance at all.

patch29

I agree with Pathfinder. Do you have a before and after example you can post so we can have a look?

wxwax

pathfinder wrote:

How about just using "Save As" rather than saving for the web? Save As... lets YOU chose the size of the file you save and does not seem to change the color balance at all.

That's all I ever do.

BTW, if you use Auto Levels and Auto Contrast, they do the same thing - they work like the dickens to "normalize" the shot. If I use Auto Levels on my shots of kids in the fountains, the water spray obscuring them disappears. Photoshop thinks the shot just needs a bit more contrast!

jimf

pathfinder wrote:

How about just using "Save As" rather than saving for the web? Save As... lets YOU chose the size of the file you save and does not seem to change the color balance at all.

There is no option to save in JPEG format with "Save As" in Photoshop CS, at least not the Educational version that I have. That was a surprise to me, since there was such an option in Elements.

I just went in and tried it with Elements and it works fine. I noticed that Elements supports a pretty wide range of "save as" formats that CS/Ed doesn't.

wxwax

How odd. I definitely have it in my CS. Save As, select format, then the next option is Quality. I usually select 3 out of 12 for the web.

ian408

jimf wrote:

There is no option to save in JPEG format with "Save As" in Photoshop CS, at least not the Educational version that I have. That was a surprise to me, since there was such an option in Elements.

I just went in and tried it with Elements and it works fine. I noticed that Elements supports a pretty wide range of "save as" formats that CS/Ed doesn't.

I have noticed that working with some image types, save as->jpeg isn't an
option. I have the regular version of cs. Unfortunately, I don't know how I
got to that point in CS. I save as JPEG all the time. But if I flattened the
layers, I could save as jpeg?

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

wxwax

I've also noticed that if I have layers open, it will save as a Photoshop file. Also, if I'm in LAB mode, it won't save as jpeg. So before saving, I always flatten my layers, and if it's a color shot I make sure it's RGB.

cletus

wxwax wrote:

I've also noticed that if I have layers open, it will save as a Photoshop file. Also, if I'm in LAB mode, it won't save as jpeg. So before saving, I always flatten my layers, and if it's a color shot I make sure it's RGB.

For the most part the Save As command wont let you throw things away as a result of the save. For example, JPEG files do not support multiple layers, so if you have a layered file, Photoshop wont let you save it as a JPEG. It also won't make drastic changes (such as going from LAB back to RGB) to save a file.

Baldy

Are you sure it's actually changing the color balance? My understanding was that what it's really doing is converting the color space to sRGB if it isn't in sRGB already, and it's stripping the ICC profile, unless for some reason you've checked the option to leave the ICC profile in.

In the save for web preview pane, it's showing you what the image will actually look like on the web, where very few images have ICC profiles and if they did, very few browsers would make use of them — and where the browsers display your photo using sRGB.

I really like the save for web option because it shows your photo full-sized automatically so you can see if you're creating compression artifacts with the compression level you're chosing, it shows the color as it will look on the web, you get finer control of the compression setting than you do with the save as command, and you can do a 2-up or 4-up side-by-side comparison of the shot with different compression.

I find that if the shot has smooth reds, like a car shot, you need higher compression to keep it from looking blocky, or if it has sharp, high-contrast edges such as when it has lettering, you get jpeg artifacts around the lettering edges unless you go up on compression.

jimf

ian408 wrote:

I have noticed that working with some image types, save as->jpeg isn't an option.

I figured it out, in part because I tried to use "Edit in ImageReady" and had it complain about the color depth. I was working with 16-bit images (converted from RAW). In that case the Save As dialog only shows the formats that can store 16 bits. If I downconvert to 8 bits (Image->Mode->8 bits/channel) then lots more formats are available.

I think it would have been more intuitive if they did the typical Mac thing of showing the other formats but greying them out. That hints that if you did something then you'd be able to use the other format. But, were I writing this software, I'd have simply allowed you to select it and then complained about the depth loss -- you know, like Photoshop does elsewhere when it's losing information (eg when trying to edit in ImageReady :-).

Anyway thanks for all the suggestions; had I not figured it out on my own I think a couple of the tips would have pushed me in the right direction.

To answer another question someone raised, that maybe it's a color space issue, you may be right. The image does appear much different in some viewers than others. I'll have to think about that going forward.

Anyway, converting with Photoshop Elements got me what I expected, as does reducing the color depth to 8 and saving with CS. If you want to see the effect I was talking about then here is a good example:

http://www.frostbytes.com/gallery/digital-portraiture-2004/CRW_1581_cropped_8x10

Click on the image to see the original (high resolution) and notice how much more red it is than the scaled down image. The original is so red, in fact, as to be blowing out the red channel in places. Yet the scaled down one has only minor blown out highlights. Somebody is chopping off the red.

An interesting effect, no matter what the cause.