Color spaces and profiles - HELP!

wellman

So I thought I had this color spaces and profiles thing all figured out. Now I wonder...

Background: I'm running Lightroom 2 on Vista (32-bit). I have two monitors calibrated with a Huey.

Today, after exporting some photos from LR (RAW to JPG/sRGB), I noticed that the JPGs were MUCH more magenta than the view LR gave me. My image viewer is FastStone. Viewed the image in Firefox 3. Same magenta cast. Went back to some older photos in LR and compared them to JPGs sRGB JPGs on SmugMug. Same story - different, more saturated color on the JPGs. Can't believe I never noticed this before...

Googled color management in FF3 and found out how to enable it via about:config. Great. Now my exported JPGs (viewed thru CM-enabled FF3) match LR.

My problem is that now everything else (mostly non-photo graphics) on the web looks flat, from the icons in my bookmark bar to Google's logo. Have I just been accustomed to the wrong colors all these years? Or have I missed another important step?

Thanks...

arodney

Is this FastStone ICC aware? Are you using the latest version of FireFox with color management invoked? If not, that's why they don't match. LR is right (as is FireFox and Safari using color management). Anyone else using anything else, all bets are off.

wellman

arodney wrote:

Is this FastStone ICC aware? Are you using the latest version of FireFox with color management invoked? If not, that's why they don't match. LR is right (as is FireFox and Safari using color management). Anyone else using anything else, all bets are off.

FastStone is supposedly ICC-aware, but enabling its "CMS" option has no impact.

And yes, after doing some reading I learned how to enable color management in FF3. FF3 images match LR now. Other web graphics just lack punch.

wellman

Here's a visual on what I'm talking about. The first image is a screen grab of Google with CMS disabled in FF3. The second image is a screen grab of Google with CMS enabled in FF3. Notice how the reds and oranges especially dull up with FF3's CMS?

FF3, CMS disabled


FF3, CMS enabled


Is Google just using that red because they know most browsers will display it incorrectly, or do I have something misconfigured on my system?

arodney

The both have embedded profiles? What color space? And you need to test this on images, not the web graphics.

wellman

arodney wrote:

The both have embedded profiles? What color space? And you need to test this on images, not the web graphics.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that with CM enabled in FF3, it shows images in a way that matches LR. However, every other graphic gets its color altered such that reds and oranges look much duller than what I'm accustomed to. Is this right?

TheSuede

Yes it is. Enabling CMS makes FF translate all colours to your monitor profile, so unless your monitor is exactly sRGB some change will be visible. Stationary graphics on the web is supposed to be sRGB from default. If you're working on a wide-gamut screen, things will be less saturated than you're used to.

wellman

TheSuede wrote:

Yes it is. Enabling CMS makes FF translate all colours to your monitor profile, so unless your monitor is exactly sRGB some change will be visible. Stationary graphics on the web is supposed to be sRGB from default. If you're working on a wide-gamut screen, things will be less saturated than you're used to.

My monitor is far from wide-gamut - just a regular HP 22" LCD. Do I need to tell Vista that the monitor has been calibrated by Huey? I don't think I've messed with Vista CMS settings, but I know it has them.