Argh, Color differnt in browsers?

scottV · May 26, 2007

So i have this photo that i edited in photoshop and it looks great. Viewing the jpg in photoshop, lightroom, picasa, windows picture viewer, etc. all look great, the red is nice and vibrant. As soon as I open it in the browser or print the pic, the red turns to mud. What's the dilly? I've tried yellow, green, purple, and blue flavored coffee and the prints come out identical. In the attached file does it look red to you? Try opening it in another app, does the color look different?

My monitor isn't calibrated but i've never experienced this much of a problem. I even uploaded it to costco to get a quick test print and it came out crummy. Printer calibration and profiles are foreign to me, but why does it look so different viewing just in different applications on the same computer and monitor?

jfriend · May 26, 2007

You need sRGB, not AdobeRGB

f00sion wrote:

So i have this photo that i edited in photoshop and it looks great. Viewing the jpg in photoshop, lightroom, picasa, windows picture viewer, etc. all look great, the red is nice and vibrant. As soon as I open it in the browser or print the pic, the red turns to mud. What's the dilly? I've tried yellow, green, purple, and blue flavored coffee and the prints come out identical. In the attached file does it look red to you? Try opening it in another app, does the color look different?

My monitor isn't calibrated but i've never experienced this much of a problem. I even uploaded it to costco to get a quick test print and it came out crummy. Printer calibration and profiles are foreign to me, but why does it look so different viewing just in different applications on the same computer and monitor?

The image is in the AdobeRGB colorspace and the browser and Costco assume it's in the sRGB colorspace. When they assume wrong, your colors get messed up. Convert it to sRGB (Edit/Convert to Profile in Photoshop, pick sRGB) and you should be fine.

Here's Smugmug's help page on AdobeRGB which is worth reading.

jjbong · May 26, 2007

I can't speak to the web issue (although I guess it's the same). You're reds
are very saturated and bright, and likely out of gamut for the printers you're using. If you convert to CMYK (standard one) in Photoshop, you'll see a noticeable "browning" of the reds. If you look at the info palette, and set the second display to CMYK (palette options), you'll see ! next to the numbers as you run the cursor over the reds. This means out of gamut.

Here I'm using the default CMYK space as a proxy for an arbitrary printer, which isn't quite right. But it does suggest the nature of the problem.

I expect that if you did the same experiment with the other colors you mention, you won't see a similar problem.

While composing this reply(and trying some experiments to see how to get around it), I saw jfriend's reply. Duplicating the image and converting one to sRGB doesn't change the out of gamut problem relative to CMYK. I couldn't distinguish the converted images, both of which lost the pop of the original.

jjbong · May 26, 2007

Assuming my analysis above correct, I tried something Dan Margulis described in PP4E. He had a photo of a sky that was too deep blue to print. So he slightly increased the yellow in the rest of the picture, making the sky appear more blue in context.

Here I slightly increased the green and blue in the rest of the picture (red being yellow and magenta). I then took it through CMYK and back to simulate the out of gamut problem.

You can tell me how well (if at all) this worked.

Details: I went into LAB and used very simple linear curves to increase the green and blue in the A and B channels, using a mask based on the A channel to only affect the background (very easy to construct for this picture).

scottV · May 26, 2007

to add to the strangeness I just noticed that the file I attached to the initial post looks normal in the browser. I exported this one from lightroom to include the watermark and resize it. I will export a full size version and try to print it to see if it comes out any better.

arodney · May 28, 2007

The web is by and large not color managed like Photoshop, Lightroom etc. There's only one (maybe two) web browsers, all on the Mac that can handle this task (Safari is one). All other browsers ignore the display profile and any embedded profile in web documents and simply send the numbers directly to the display. The previews shouldn’t be way off IF you uplaod the files in sRGB but there's no way to guarantee that anyone else will see what you're seeing due to these browser issues. Photoshop and other ICC aware applications build a preview all users see the same way because they use two critical ICC profiles. One is for your display (so you have to have a good one you built using an instrument) and one is the embedded profile in the document. That allows these applications to build a preview specific to YOUR display such that it matches everyone else's previews if they use the same architecture. Bottom line, the vast majority of browsers don't work this way, the vast majority of users don't profile their displays. Everyone sees the same numbers differently. Complain to the folks building the browsers (or get a Mac and Safari).

jdryan3 · May 28, 2007

f00sion wrote:

to add to the strangeness I just noticed that the file I attached to the initial post looks normal in the browser. I exported this one from lightroom to include the watermark and resize it. I will export a full size version and try to print it to see if it comes out any better.

The red looks very vibrant to me ...

claudermilk · May 29, 2007

The original image looks fine to me, nice vibrant reads. The reworked one just looks wrong--green cast to everything & muddy reds, to me it didn't work at all.

scottV · May 30, 2007

yeah, the original image i attached looks good, because I exported it from lightroom.. I have attached a cropped portion straight from photoshop so you can see the brown. Here is the workflow that I found to be successful:

original RAW image imported into LR
white balance/exposure adjustment/etc
edit in photoshop cs2
Save As jpg from PS <-- at this point it looked fine on the screen, except in IE & FF, and printed crappy
import newly saved PS jpegs into LR
export from LR as new jpeg, regular settings, no new LR adjustments
badabing, looks great in browsers and on paper.

I guess the answer is what arodney said, but does the LR export account for these issues and replace some of the real colors with more universally safe colors? idongetit

jfriend · May 30, 2007

It's all about colorspaces

f00sion wrote:

yeah, the original image i attached looks good, because I exported it from lightroom.. I have attached a cropped portion straight from photoshop so you can see the brown. Here is the workflow that I found to be successful:
original RAW image imported into LR

white balance/exposure adjustment/etc

edit in photoshop cs2

Save As jpg from PS <-- at this point it looked fine on the screen, except in IE & FF, and printed crappy

import newly saved PS jpegs into LR

export from LR as new jpeg, regular settings, no new LR adjustments

badabing, looks great in browsers and on paper.

I guess the answer is what arodney said, but does the LR export account for these issues and replace some of the real colors with more universally safe colors? idongetit

Please read my second posting in this thread about colorspaces. If you want to understand what is going on and fix it for good, then you must understand what is going on and change your workflow, not just move the image through Photoshop and Lightroom until it happens to look better.

The latest image you posted is in the ProPhoto RGB color space (something Lightroom sometimes uses). The first you posted was AdobeRGB. Both colorspaces are unsupported in Firefox and IE so as long as you put images in those colorspaces on the web, your images will not look the way you see them in those browsers. You must change this part of your workflow or you will continue to have this same problem with this image and with other images.

There are two issues you must learn and fix on this image:

First, you MUST make sure your images are sRGB before putting them on the web or you will get unpredictable colors (usually duller than you want). Do not put AdobeRGB images on the web. Do not put ProPhoto RGB images on the web. Both will lead to unpredictable color display. In Photoshop or Lightroom, it is very easy to convert to sRGB. In Photoshop, you use Edit/Convert to Profile and pick sRGB as the Destination Space.

Here's what you image looks like if ALL I do is convert it to sRGB with one command in Photoshop and then post it here. Note that this doesn't lose the brilliant red like your originally posted image does. It was just in the wrong color space.

Second, if you are printing your image and want the colors on your screen to match the colors on the printed page, you must make sure that the colors you are using are supported by your printer (this is called "in gamut" of your printer). This is a more complicated process. First you obtain a printer profile that accurately describes the colors your printer is capable of producing. Then, you can activate that profile in Photoshop and ask Photoshop to show you which parts of your image are "out of gamut" and contain colors that the printer cannot reproduce. Then, you can either modify those colors (often reducing saturation in the extreme colors) or you can "soft proof" to see what the printer driver will convert your colors to and how they will come out if you don't change them. Soft proofing, printer profiles and printer gamut are not simple concepts to follow, but if you want to use extreme colors and print them and get predictable results, you will have to understand this or you will occasionally be disappointed with the printed colors.

For completeness, if I take the image you just posted in the previous posting and again just convert it to sRGB in Photoshop (a single command Edit/Convert to Profile/sRGB), I get this result which is no longer a muddy brown. All you need to do is post sRGB images and they will look good and predictable on the web:

scottV · May 30, 2007

makes sense, i really like my convoluted process though

is there a way to set PS to always default to sRGB for saving jpegs?

jfriend · May 30, 2007

f00sion wrote:

makes sense, i really like my convoluted process though
is there a way to set PS to always default to sRGB for saving jpegs?

My first recommendation for people that are not experts at understanding colorspaces would be to shoot your images in sRGB and then never change them from that. If you shoot RAW, then open them or convert them into sRGB. If the first and only color space you deal with is sRGB, you will never have this problem as sRGB is compatible with both the web and with online printers.

Second, there are some preferences in Photoshop that will either warn you or convert images you open to sRGB if they are not already in sRGB. I would not use this as a bandaid as it's really designed more for images that other people might give you where you might not be aware what colorspace they are in. If you need these settings on your own images, then you should just fix your workflow so the images don't have to be converted. Anyway, read the section on Color Management Policies in this post and the one after it. You can configure Photoshop to set your preferred colorspace and to either warn you when a file is not in that colorspace or to automatically convert the image to your preferred colorspace.

CatOne · May 30, 2007

jjbong wrote:

Assuming my analysis above correct, I tried something Dan Margulis described in PP4E. He had a photo of a sky that was too deep blue to print. So he slightly increased the yellow in the rest of the picture, making the sky appear more blue in context.

Here I slightly increased the green and blue in the rest of the picture (red being yellow and magenta). I then took it through CMYK and back to simulate the out of gamut problem.

You can tell me how well (if at all) this worked.

Details: I went into LAB and used very simple linear curves to increase the green and blue in the A and B channels, using a mask based on the A channel to only affect the background (very easy to construct for this picture).

Blecch. Yours is *way* color-shifted from the original. It is way greener overall.

The first pic looks good to me overall. HOWEVER, the problem is very likely that the color space is not sRGB. It *must* be for web, because Safari is the *only* browser that actually respects tag info.

There's a thread, like 5 pages long, elsewhere that talks about color space and browsers, etc. But bottom line, ANYTHING you convert to JPEG for print or web display should be converted to sRGB color space.

claudermilk · May 30, 2007

I agree with John's postings. That does look like a colorspace problem (I didn't see any tagging for that in the images). This is why even though aRGB and ProPhotoRGB while theoretically are better, I find to be more trouble than they are worth and stick with sRGB--you are going to have to end up there anyway. Remember that the web is an sRGB world, and the vast majority of printers barely fill that color space. Besides, we are only now seeing monitors that do much beyond sRGB color.

arodney · May 30, 2007

claudermilk wrote:

I agree with John's postings. That does look like a colorspace problem (I didn't see any tagging for that in the images). This is why even though aRGB and ProPhotoRGB while theoretically are better, I find to be more trouble than they are worth and stick with sRGB--you are going to have to end up there anyway. Remember that the web is an sRGB world, and the vast majority of printers barely fill that color space. Besides, we are only now seeing monitors that do much beyond sRGB color.

They are theoretically better in some respects but its easy to use them and then simply convert all images intended for the web to sRGB! You can have your cake and eat it.

And no, you're not necessarily going to end up in sRGB, in fact the only time I use this color space is for web posting.

This may help:

The Role of Working Spaces in Adobe Applications
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

jfriend · May 30, 2007

arodney wrote:

They are theoretically better in some respects but its easy to use them and then simply convert all images intended for the web to sRGB! You can have your cake and eat it.

And no, you're not necessarily going to end up in sRGB, in fact the only time I use this color space is for web posting.

This may help:

The Role of Working Spaces in Adobe Applications
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

I have to respectfully disagree with this posting.

If you fully understand colorspaces, have a workflow designed to always do the right thing with colorspaces and know exactly what kind of output each of your destinations needs (all fairly advanced things), then you *might* get slightly better results on *some* photos by using colorspaces with a wider gamut than sRGB.

But, if you do not fully understand colorspaces, do not have a fully color managed workflow and/or do not know exactly what type of output all your destinations need, then you are much, much better off not messing up and using sRGB from start to finish.

I have seen countless folks read on the web that a wider gamut colorspace is better, switch to AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB and then proceed to misuse them by sending an AdobeRGB file to an online printer who only handles sRGB or post one on the web and then wonder why the colors are all screwed up. These simple mistakes are way more powerful and damaging than any possible benefit from using a wider colorspace.

So, I repeat my advice for the non-experts out there. If you are not a colorspace expert and do not have a workflow that fully incorporates appropriate colorspace management and if you are not sure what type of output all your photo destinations need, you are way better off avoiding disastrous color mistakes and staying in sRGB from start to finish.

Experts like arodney can sometimes take advantage of some extra colors in the wider colorspaces for some images, but it takes great care to do so and avoid messing up sometimes and there are not that many images that occur in nature where you could tell the difference.

Further, if your image is ending up on the internet or at most online printers, it's going to have to end up in sRGB anyway.

arodney · May 30, 2007

jfriend wrote:

I have to respectfully disagree with this posting.

If you fully understand colorspaces, have a workflow designed to always do the right thing with colorspaces and know exactly what kind of output each of your destinations needs (all fairly advanced things), then you *might* get slightly better results on *some* photos by using colorspaces with a wider gamut than sRGB.

I'd be happy to supply you a raw (DNG) that when encoded in anything but ProPhoto RGB falls apart (bands) after tiny adjustments using Photoshop. And you can do this in 16-bit, its not a bit depth issue, its a working space gamut issue. The file isn't uncommon either. Also, the Canon and Epson (K3) inkset exceed the Adobe RGB gamut and if you print to such devices, using sRGB, you're not using the inkset to its fullest potential.

You want the file, I'll pop it on my iDisk. It clearly demonstrates the advantage of ProPhotot for encoding that you can easily see on screen (and print).

jfriend · May 30, 2007

arodney wrote:

I'd be happy to supply you a raw (DNG) that when encoded in anything but ProPhoto RGB falls apart (bands) after tiny adjustments using Photoshop. And you can do this in 16-bit, its not a bit depth issue, its a working space gamut issue. The file isn't uncommon either. Also, the Canon and Epson (K3) inkset exceed the Adobe RGB gamut and if you print to such devices, using sRGB, you're not using the inkset to its fullest potential.

You want the file, I'll pop it on my iDisk. It clearly demonstrates the advantage of ProPhotot for encoding that you can easily see on screen (and print).

I do not dispute what you just said. Such images exist and if your output is a home printer with a wide gamut, you can take advantage of it, IF you know what you are doing. I believe I said exactly that. But, most users don't know what they are doing with colorspaces. I'm advising those users to stay with sRGB until they do.

Did you disagree with the rest of my posting? If you hang out here long enough you will see lots of postings about people who have no idea what a colorspace is who are shooting in AdobeRGB and then messing up their images by putting AdobeRGB images in a place they do not belong (web or online printers). Heck the problem is so common that about a year ago, Smugmug started auto-converting AdobeRGB uploads to sRGB because users were complaining that their images looks drab on Smugmug. Those users should NOT be using AdobeRGB until they know how to use it properly.

arodney · May 30, 2007

jfriend wrote:

I do not dispute what you just said. Such images exist and if your output is a home printer with a wide gamut, you can take advantage of it, IF you know what you are doing. I believe I said exactly that. But, most users don't know what they are doing with colorspaces. I'm advising those users to stay with sRGB until they do.

This stuff is far from rocket science. Its not difficult to train users on working with more than one color space.

My mom, shooting a point and shoot, printing to a $99 ink jet is a prefect candidate for an sRGB workflow. I suggest there are far more savvy users here that can get their heads around encoding in a wide gamut space for their main hero archive, then converting to sRGB for web use.

Anyone using Lightroom, or Photoshop should be of sufficient level to figure this out, its not difficult and I don't think throwing up our hands and just saying "use sRGB" is the solution. Keep in mind that sRGB is a circa 1994 definition of a CRT display with a phosphor set that few if anyone is still using and in the foreseeable future will cease to be useful as more affordable wide gamut displays come onto the market. Right now, its only useful for web publishing.

If you're using a lab that demands you send them sRGB, you're limiting what you can do by a significant degree in Photoshop IF your goal is to get any idea what that document will appear like on print since there's no such thing as an sRGB printer. The only sRGB device is that theoretical CRT device above.

If we treated simple color management and image corrections the same way, Photoshop would only have Brightness and Contrast controls because Curves is just too complicated and forget about having an info palette or Histogram. We learn how to use the tools provided because by and large, they are useful to what we wish to accomplish. I see no reason to dumb down something as critical as outputting our images because we have to deal with color spaces. My mom? Probably not, those here, I'd think so.

jfriend · May 30, 2007

arodney wrote:

This stuff is far from rocket science. Its not difficult to train users on working with more than one color space.

My mom, shooting a point and shoot, printing to a $99 ink jet is a prefect candidate for an sRGB workflow. I suggest there are far more savvy users here that can get their heads around encoding in a wide gamut space for their main hero archive, then converting to sRGB for web use.

Anyone using Lightroom, or Photoshop should be of sufficient level to figure this out, its not difficult and I don't think throwing up our hands and just saying "use sRGB" is the solution. Keep in mind that sRGB is a circa 1994 definition of a CRT display with a phosphor set that few if anyone is still using and in the foreseeable future will cease to be useful as more affordable wide gamut displays come onto the market. Right now, its only useful for web publishing.

If you're using a lab that demands you send them sRGB, you're limiting what you can do by a significant degree in Photoshop IF your goal is to get any idea what that document will appear like on print since there's no such thing as an sRGB printer. The only sRGB device is that theoretical CRT device above.

If we treated simple color management and image corrections the same way, Photoshop would only have Brightness and Contrast controls because Curves is just too complicated and forget about having an info palette or Histogram. We learn how to use the tools provided because by and large, they are useful to what we wish to accomplish. I see no reason to dumb down something as critical as outputting our images because we have to deal with color spaces. My mom? Probably not, those here, I'd think so.

You can make this into an argument if you want, but I don't think we need to disagree here.

If you don't know or care to know/learn about colorspaces, then shoot in sRGB and don't change anything. You will get predictable results.

If you want to learn about colorspaces and be aware of them anytime an image leaves your computer and you use output medium that can process something other than sRGB, then you can and you will sometimes get better results by using other colorspaces, but you will have to do the right thing or you will get even worse results than if you had just stayed in sRGB.

I sense that you aren't tuned in to the level that a lot of dgrin/Smugmug users are at. Many have never heard of a colorspace and are more likely to mess up than not if they start shooting in aRGB. They just want to take pictures, have them on the web and occasionally try to fix one. Just look at the person who started this thread in the first place. He's trying to display on the web and got himself into all sorts of trouble by going first to AdobeRGB, then ProPhotoRGB. He should have just stayed in sRGB.

arodney · May 30, 2007

jfriend wrote:

I sense that you aren't tuned in to the level that a lot of dgrin/Smugmug users are at..

That may be true, I may be in the wrong place. I saw a lot of folks discussing using LAB and the Margulius doctrine and figured the group was at a certain level.

jfriend · May 30, 2007

arodney wrote:

That may be true, I may be in the wrong place. I saw a lot of folks discussing using LAB and the Margulius doctrine and figured the group was at a certain level.

There is quite a range here - from very advanced to very beginner.

There is an advanced group that hangs out in Finishing School (Rutt, Edgework, you and others). It is a major attraction of dgrin and I've learned a lot from them.

But, there are many people wondering how to make their images brighter or why their colors are washed out or how to adjust skin tone or why their images look great on screen, but green when they print.

The start of this thread is a lot closer to the latter than the former which is what I was aiming my recommendation in this thread at.

pathfinder · May 30, 2007

John, I think both you and Andrew have excellent points that are worth further discussion.

I agree that for many beginners in digital photography ( and I include a large number of event shooters here as their interests lie in the quick production of client satisfactory images, and not fine art prints done on a 12 ink inkjet printer ) sRGB workflows are just easier to not mess up. Shoot, process, and send to the online printer in sRGB.

But Andrew's comments are accurate and worth listening to also.

There is no question that a RAW to ProPhoto 16 bit workflow, that ends with an 8 bit image in Adobe RGB can possess a larger gamut. IF your final device/printer can accomodate this gamut, why not make use of it??

But as John clearly points out, this does require that the user understands clearly the different needs and uses of color spaces, both on the monitor and on paper in the final print. Is the print destined for offset CMYK ink, an online photo lab, or a 12 ink state of the art fine art inkjet printer?

For myself, I tend to do as Andrew suggests - shoot in RAW, bring the image into PSCS3 in ProPhoto as a 16 bit image, and finally save for the web as an 8 bit sRGB file. Images that I upload to Smugmug are always tagged sRGB. Any psds or tiffs will be tagged with Adobe RGB or sRGB depending on my needs and intentions at the moment.

Since I plan to print most of my images myself on my Epson 4000 with a RIP, I want to preserve as much color gamut as possible from beginning image to final print.

I think this is one of those cases where two fellows are at opposite ends of an elephant and find that they disagree in their description of what an elephant looks like. They are both correct, but neither of them sees the entire picture, but only their smaller portion of the world directly in front of themselves.

I find great merit in the arguments of both John and Andrew. Well done, guys

I want to encourage Andrew to hang around dgrin. There is a lot we can learn from his expertise.

I am sure Jfriend is in complete agreement with me about this also.

But we also need to help those with less desire to delve into color spaces and image editing, unlike rutt and John and others do. For those desiring a quick workflow, an sRGB workflow will prevent some misadventures as John pointed out so well.

jfriend · May 30, 2007

pathfinder wrote:

John, I think both you and Andrew have excellent points that are worth further discussion.

I agree that for many beginners in digital photography ( and I include a large number of event shooters here as their interests lie in the quick production of client satisfactory images, and not fine art prints done on a 12 ink inkjet printer ) sRGB workflows are just easier to not mess up. Shoot, process, and send to the online printer in sRGB.

But Andrew's comments are accurate and worth listening to also.

There is no question that a RAW to ProPhoto 16 bit workflow, that ends with an 8 bit image in Adobe RGB can possess a larger gamut. IF your final device/printer can accomodate this gamut, why not make use of it??

But as John clearly points out, this does require that the user understands clearly the different needs and uses of color spaces, both on the monitor and on paper in the final print. Is the print destined for offset CMYK ink, an online photo lab, or a 12 ink state of the art fine art inkjet printer?

For myself, I tend to do as Andrew suggests - shoot in RAW, bring the image into PSCS3 in ProPhoto as a 16 bit image, and finally save for the web as an 8 bit sRGB file. Images that I upload to Smugmug are always tagged sRGB. Any psds or tiffs will be tagged with Adobe RGB or sRGB depending on my needs and intentions at the moment.

Since I plan to print most of my images myself on my Epson 4000 with a RIP, I want to preserve as much color gamut as possible from beginning image to final print.

I think this is one of those cases where two fellows are at opposite ends of an elephant and find that they disagree in their description of what an elephant looks like. They are both correct, but neither of them sees the entire picture, but only their smaller portion of the world directly in front of themselves.

I find great merit in the arguments of both John and Andrew. Well done, guys

I want to encourage Andrew to hang around dgrin. There is a lot we can learn from his expertise.

I am sure Jfriend is in complete agreement with me about this also.

But we also need to help those with less desire to delve into color spaces and image editing, unlike rutt and John and others do. For those desiring a quick workflow, an sRGB workflow will prevent some misadventures as John pointed out so well.

Works for me. That's a pretty good summary - thanks Pathfinder. I'm fine with saying we all can agree.

scottV · May 31, 2007

jfriend wrote:

I'm fine with saying we all can agree.

I don't agree to that.

jfriend · May 31, 2007

f00sion wrote:

I don't agree to that.

What do you not agree with?

claudermilk · May 31, 2007

Wow, go away for a day & see what happens!

My original point & I think where John was going is that until you understand working with colorspaces, you are better off staying in sRGB. While it isn't rocket science, it is fairly complex and takes some time and study to get your head around--and there are many people who just want a nice 4x6 out of their camera, so an all-sRGB workflow is perfect for them. For those of us who want to dig deeper, sure, exploring those wider gamut spaces can be worthwhile for some images. By that time you probably have access to the kind of output equipment that takes advantage of it as well.

arodney · May 31, 2007

claudermilk wrote:

Wow, go away for a day & see what happens!
By that time you probably have access to the kind of output equipment that takes advantage of it as well.

Its not an equipment issue unless you've got a camera that doesn't provide a raw file (then you're stuck with the color rendering built by the camera and you might have a choice between sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998)).

As for output, there are few if any sRGB devices other than the CRT mentioned and for nearly all printers, there are colors that fall outside that gamut. If you encode in sRGB without keeping the raw or you don't want to re-render, you're going to paint yourself into a corner IF in the future you want to use the capabilities of the capture and output device.

Equipment doesn't necessarily take advantage of this, users do.

You either care about capturing and reproducing all the colors contained in the scene and which the capture device could record (and any or all devices you wish to reproduce can output) or you don't. If you don't, then stick with sRGB.

arodney · June 12, 2007

Apple just shipped Safari for Windows. It's fully color managed. Evens supports v4 ICC profiles.

pathfinder · June 12, 2007

Between iTunes and Safari, Apple is slowly infilrating and taking over the desktop in Window's land:D

rdlugosz · June 13, 2007

Looks like my $.02 in this conversation will make this thread worth the 135mm f/2L that I've got my eye on! Too bad the wife won't see it that way...

It comes down to a question of what you're doing with your photos & what "level" you're working at. Someone - even an excellent, experienced photographer - who isn't at all interested in the technical side and just wants reliably good prints should stay in sRGB for everything and never look back. That said, they should probably still shoot RAW and use Lightroom (which will properly export in sRGB by default), which will allow them to take advantage of the wider gamut (not to mention the extra bits) should they want to one day.

If you're just taking family photos and party pics and want reliable output, you should also forget entirely about this nonsense & just make sure everything says "sRGB". Otherwise you're likely wasting your time with something that really makes no difference to you at the end of the day.

Now, if you're an advanced user and want to take full advantage of your high-end inkjet, etc., then you should know enough about color spaces to use them properly: meaning that you'll be creating multiple exports specifically targeted toward your output device. Load up a ProPhoto or an Adobe RGB into Photoshop for print; export sRGB JPEGs for use on the web. It's simple once you get past all the confusion.

Now - does it really make that much of a difference? Maybe, depending on the image and the capabilities of the printer. It's no different in concept than the 8-bit v 16-bit debate: the latter gives you more data to work with, but there are very few output devices (only the high end Canon ink jets come to mind... do the Epson or HPs do this yet?) that can make use of the added bits. Issues of banding, etc. aside, it just isn't going to create a perceptible difference for 90% of the people who worry about this topic day in and day out!

***
Now, on the issue specifically of the web & images looking different in browsers... There's light at the end of the tunnel! I wrote a bit about Color Managed Browsers yesterday following Apple's Safari for Windows announcement. Perhaps one day this will pressure all browsing platforms to recognize tagged images - we won't see many threads like this one any more!

Until that day, the bottom line is this: if you're going to the web - or any device that you are not intimately familliar with (e.g., online printers) - convert to the sRGB profile.

Argh, Color differnt in browsers?

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