Washed Out Colors in Thumbs

jeffmeyers

I've noticed a change lately in the way Smugmug processes color images. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

Uploaded images that have very good color balance are displayed in "Smugmug" style as washed out and somewhat desaturated. This is true for most of the sizes except for "original."

So, for example, look at this image:

http://jeffmeyers.smugmug.com/gallery/3961839#236136481

Then compare it to the original size to see the difference:

http://jeffmeyers.smugmug.com/gallery/3961839#236136481-O-LB

It's not too difficult to discern the difference.

This is really annoying. I've never noticed this before. What's the problem? Has there been any discussion about this?

Thank you.

Jeff Meyers
http://jeffmeyers.smugmug.com

Andy

Hi Jeff,

I already answered your help desk email - just fyi, doing it in both places means double work for us, so let's carry on just here now, please, okay?

Here's what I sent you by email:

Hi Jeff, this article should shed some light:
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2007/02/14/this-is-your-mac-on-drugs/

And, I see that at least once in the past, you've uploaded AdobeRGB files, not sRGB... that can also affect things greatly - since we convert that aRGB to sRGB so it can display on the web.

More on that, here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/srgb-versus-adobe-rgb-1998

Holler back with questions after you read those two pieces, okay?

jeffmeyers

Andy,

Wow. That was quick. Sorry to bug you in two places. I didn't know which would be best.

Okay. I wondered about the Adobe color space, that's why I switched.

Let me look at the links you've sent and get back with you.

Thank you for the quick reply!

Jeff

Andy

jeffmeyers wrote:

Andy,

Wow. That was quick. Sorry to bug you in two places. I didn't know which would be best.

Okay. I wondered about the Adobe color space, that's why I switched.

Let me look at the links you've sent and get back with you.

Thank you for the quick reply!

Jeff

YW Jeff, I'll be here

No worries at all

jeffmeyers

Safari!!
Dangnabit. It's Safari. I always use a calibrated monitor so that can't be the problem (gama 2.2 for years), but now that I view my galleries with Firefox and Safari, I can see the difference. Safari renders the colors differently when you choose different sizes. Crud. I like Safari, but I wonder what it's doing to other photo sites that I frequent.

Thanks for your help, Andy. That solves it. No more Safari for me.

Jeff

jfriend

jeffmeyers wrote:

Dangnabit. It's Safari. I always use a calibrated monitor so that can't be the problem (gama 2.2 for years), but now that I view my galleries with Firefox and Safari, I can see the difference. Safari renders the colors differently when you choose different sizes. Crud. I like Safari, but I wonder what it's doing to other photo sites that I frequent.

Thanks for your help, Andy. That solves it. No more Safari for me.

Jeff

Actually, Safari is rendering your photos using the full calibration and profile of your monitor. Firefox is not. The Safari color should be a lot more like what your images would print as and it should look very much like they would look in Photoshop. It's Firefox that is behind the times.

jeffmeyers

jfriend wrote:

Actually, Safari is rendering your photos using the full calibration and profile of your monitor. Firefox is not. The Safari color should be a lot more like what your images would print as and it should look very much like they would look in Photoshop. It's Firefox that is behind the times.

But here's the rub. Firefox images displayed on Smugmug (in all sizes) look exactly like they do in PS CS3. Depending on what size the photo is, Safari alters the colors.

Jeff

jfriend

jeffmeyers wrote:

But here's the rub. Firefox images displayed on Smugmug (in all sizes) look exactly like they do in PS CS3. Depending on what size the photo is, Safari alters the colors.

Jeff

Firefox is NOT color managed. If it looks better to you than Safari, then you either have two wrongs cancelling each other out to get lucky with Firefox or your images are actually wrong when color-managed, but you've tuned them to look good when non color-managed on your system. Remember, how something looks when you are not color-managed is different on everyone's systems. If the original profile of the image was sRGB and your monitor matches sRGB very closely, then a non-color-managed app can show pretty accurate colors. But, if your monitor is real close to sRGB, then you need a color-managed app that can read the calibration profile of your monitor and adjust colors for accurate color display.

I can't explain what's going on on your system - probably without seeing it in person. When I look at this image that you referred to earlier in this thread, Firefox does not look like CS3 on my system. It looks a lot redder in Firefox.

For some reason, you seem to have originals in some of your galleries that have no color profile. That means Safari can't use it's color management smarts to help you. For example, http://jeffmeyers.smugmug.com/gallery/3961839#236136481-O-LB has no color profile at all, not sRGB, not adobeRGB. You should leave the color profile information on your images when you upload to Smugmug.

jeffmeyers

jfriend wrote:

Firefox is NOT color managed. If it looks better to you than Safari, then you either have two wrongs cancelling each other out to get lucky with Firefox or your images are actually wrong when color-managed, but you've tuned them to look good when non color-managed on your system. Remember, how something looks when you are not color-managed is different on everyone's systems. If the original profile of the image was sRGB and your monitor matches sRGB very closely, then a non-color-managed app can show pretty accurate colors. But, if your monitor is real close to sRGB, then you need a color-managed app that can read the calibration profile of your monitor and adjust colors for accurate color display.

I can't explain what's going on on your system - probably without seeing it in person. When I look at this image that you referred to earlier in this thread, Firefox does not look like CS3 on my system. It looks a lot redder in Firefox.

For some reason, you seem to have originals in some of your galleries that have no color profile. That means Safari can't use it's color management smarts to help you. For example, http://jeffmeyers.smugmug.com/gallery/3961839#236136481-O-LB has no color profile at all, not sRGB, not adobeRGB. You should leave the color profile information on your images when you upload to Smugmug.

John. That's helpful. I typically save my images for the web using the PS CS3 "Save for Web" feature. I was under the impression that it saved with an sRGB color space. But maybe I'm wrong.

Second, this recent batch of images, like the one you refer to, I saved to jpeg from Nikon's Capture NX after working on the images in Raw. I'll have to check my settings. Looks like the color space was stripped from the image.

But I have a feeling that much of this has been caused by my inadvertent choice of Adobe RGB in my in-camera settings on my new D300. Bummer.

I'll shoot some tomorrow and test that theory.

Thanks!

devbobo

Jeff,

I doubled checked the original image and it does appear to have the Adobe RGB profile attached, which is strange as SmugMug should convert that to sRGB on upload. What uploader did you use for this file ?

Cheers,

David

jeffmeyers

devbobo wrote:

Jeff,

I doubled checked the original image and it does appear to have the Adobe RGB profile attached, which is strange as SmugMug should convert that to sRGB on upload. What uploader did you use for this file ?

I use the "drag and drop" uploader.

JJM