Does smugmug force sRGB??
skibum4
Registered Users Posts: 59 Big grins
I've been trying to upload some jpgs in AdobeRGB and even ProPhotoRGB. Anyone can use a color-managed browser these days and slowly people are starting to get wide gamut monitors and certain types of photos, such as sunsets, often have quite a few shades that get badly altered by the smaller sRGB gamut so I wanted to create a few wide gamut galleries. However, everytime I upload them and check out the photos on smugmug they are all tagged sRGB?
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Oh man indeed it seems so. Thanks for the links even if they are not at all what I had hoped to read. I really love smugmug otherwise but paying for two hosting sites would be a bit much. I hope they reverse policy.
It's pretty unfortunate. The first link is also rather outdated this day and age (with the talk of 20Ds and no color managed browsers for windows, which has been totally wrong for a few years already). The only browser with no management at all now is IE on windows and even that will change as soon as the next version is released.
For most photos sRGB does still make more sense since there is no reason to waste the limited bits of jpg on a large colorspace if you won't use it but for many photos of sunsets, which are pretty common, AdobeRGB vs. sRGB can be a pretty big difference with AdobeRGB looking rather at a lot better at times, even with 8bit jpg. Lots of flower shots look better in AdobeRGB as well. Sometimes ocean shots with intense deep blue-green or green-cyan water look better too. The odd shot of something with crazy wild saturation will look a lot better too in AdobeRGB and in rare cases even ProphotoRGB.
One thing that also misleads people is the standard view presented of AdobeRGB vs. sRGB where they just show a single slice of the actual 3D gamut which makes it seem like only hyper saturated greens and cyans are different when the reality is that AdobeRGB actually adds tons of new reds/magentas/pinks/deep purples too.
I was really hoping to start up some wide gamut galleries and I've been frustrated by how little is available from others to look at yet that takes advantage of wide gamut monitors.
IMO, forcing sRGB is living in 2005. Anyone who want to these days can easily use a fully managed browser and certainly photographers, at least, should be capable of pulling that off. Plus, in a non-managed browser sRGB images won't look perfect anyway since most monitors don't match sRGB primaries exactly and most people calibrate to gamma 2.2 and not the actual sRGB tone curve so shadows will look too dark when viewed with say IE on windows or the others with management turned off.
Anyway, thanks again for the links anyway.
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1. IE will be color managed soon
2. Why do we have to force everything to the lowest common denominator and dumb everything down just because some people can't handle something? I'm not going to make all my galleries Adobe/ProPhotoRGB but why can't I make some? They are my images, my gallery. If I put up some browser into the title and some people ignore it and see some of my photos in drab then so be it. It's not like I am asking the every gallery be forced into AdobeRGB only. Just don't reformat the images we purposely send up in a different gamut than sRGB unless that is what we want done. That way everyone is happy.
3. speaking of lowest common denominator, well 40% of the monitors out there probably have terrible calibration and gamma closer to 2.4 or 2.5 than 2.2 or sRGB TRC. So if everything has to be sRGB to match the lowest denominator then why not forcibly start brightening everyone's images too? Would you do that? Of course not. So why force everything to be converted into sRGB???
4. These are photo galleries not general purpose websites for everybody and their brother. I bet the stats for viewers of photo galleries aren't quite so IE skewed. And certainly some galleries can be set for those who know what they are doing when it comes to color management.
I happen to want some images in >sRGB and I happen to know some people who want to share my images in other than sRGB at times. I'd like to be able to see some other people's work in more than sRGB at times too. But it's impossible for any smugmug user to do.
It's not like it's asking much, heck it would cost less resources on your end since the people who wanted things left as is wouldn't need the computers on your end to waste time on a conversion that is not even wanted.
Anyone who is afraid somebody will see a few drab images in one of their galleries and run away doesn't have to ever use AdobeRGB or what not but why not allow those who want to? Why can't we be allowed to take that terrible risk if we wish to?
The conversion means you give away the extra shades since you already stored it as 8bit per channel aRGB and doesn't let you see the extra shades so it's worst of both worlds (of course some will like this for convenience which is fine).
Again it's not like I am demanding that everybody has to post some images in AdobeRGB or can't have their images converted if they wish so. I am just asking to let it be up to the user and to not patronize us and decide you know better than us how things must be displayed on the web. And it's not a request that would take a single bit of extra memory or CPU time on smugmug's end it would actually take every so little less CPU time.
I've got no issue with Smugmug allowing you to consciously bypass this sRGB conversion and let you use other colorspaces (and turn off printing when you do so), but I can see why they don't make that the default behavior (a lot of their customer base probably still makes mistakes with colorspaces). As I said in your other post, if you want to request a feature, post it over on uservoice where they collect and catalog feature requests. But, if I were you I'd request an option to allow non-sRGB colorspaces for people who know what they're doing, but not change the way it works for people who don't know what they're doing.
About that next version of IE, I'd ask you what year do you think most IE users will actually be running that next version of IE9? Availability and ubiquity are far apart when it comes to corporate users running IE. No problem with Firefox and Safari, but not so with IE.
P.S. The super-duper feature request would be to have Smugmug serve up the original colorspace to a color-aware browser and serve up the sRGB conversion for browsers that are not color-aware. Then one could have their cake and eat it too. Of course, this would take double the storage for the web sizes at Smugmug so the economics for Smugmug might not be good.
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hmm this response isn't sounding too hopeful about smugmug allowing one to optionally toggle off the auto-convert....
I really hope smugmug reconsiders. I don't see why just because some people never patch/update/don't know what color management is that NOBODY can be allowed to use wide gamut images even in special custom galleries....
Surely a toggle can be added to each gallery allowing one to enable/disable to auto-convert. I don't see how that would hurt anyone. It wouldn't force people to ever use it. It can default to auto-convert.
It just doesn't seem right to forcibly alter someone's images against their wishes. Nobody forces B&W shots to be colorized
(And it seems to me photographers should be pushing people towards color-management and explaining it, not running from it.)
Thanks.
Could be, sure.
But I can't see this changing anytime soon - I'm sorry it's not the answer you want. There are just too many other factors to consider, and support issues would go through the roof.... I wish I had a better answer for you, I really, really do.
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