Image puzzlement

I know this has been done to death but I still don't get it.

In Photoshop, resize, unsharp mask make sure it's SRGB save as JPEG. Looks fine.

Upload to web and view in Chrome say it looks rather flatter.

Am I doing something wrong or am I being dim?

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Have you tried viewing in IE7 or Firefox to see what happens there? I'm suspecting a browser setting problem.

Don't forget not all browser's are colour profiled so they will look flat, try Firefox that is colour profiled.

Firefox doesn't look any better than Chrome - if anything a little flatter.

IE7 looks better than both Firefox and Chrome but not as goos PS.

I think I'm doing something wrong when I save as JPEG but I guess PS will make a better job of rendering the JPEG within PS?

Ignorance alert! If I use soft proof in PS it doesn't seem to make any difference but if I apply gamut warning then the bits that aren't quite right come up as problematic. I guess that's part of the issue?

Mike

I'm not sure what's going wrong here. It should be straightforward and the images should look the same in PS and on the web. They do on all the PCs that I use - seven of them.

Is PS set to work in sRGB? Maybe it's set in AdobeRGB and that's the problem?

Got it - thank you John I didn't understand the difference between the working profile in PS which looks flat and the selected profile. Now I know what I need to learn I can try again.

The profile PS was using display was ARGB while I was saving as SRGB and when I switch to working profile SRGB it looks flat in PS as well.

Now I have to try and understand where this gets me!

Mike

Well, I just compared side by side my fruit competition entry which is linked from my website and the version on my hard drive that I uploaded and the same one opened in PS

There is absolutely no difference, between the three of them.
I use FF by the way. And my monitor is calibrated with Spider 3.

I work in Pro Photo RGB during Raw conversion in LR or Bibble PRO.
Editing In PS Elements 6 is done in Pro Photo RGB also.
Only when saved for web use, the pictures get converted to sRGB.

I think it could be a problem you have with your hosting site.
But on the other hand, I never thought your pictures look flat, Mike.
At least....not on my monitor.

Maybe Mattmatic can shed his light on it ??

Martin.

Mike

Your running cat avitar and post both remind me of myself trying to understand the massive change when I moved to digital 3 years ago . I still reckon I have only just got out of the starting blocks.

Thank god for the web, we couldnt have made these leaps of understanding without it. I remember years ago watching science programmes like "Tomorrow's World" when they talked about the coming "information superhighway". I had absolutely no concept of what they meant by it. I certainly didn't envisage the internet age we have today.

Martin

I agree my images don't look all that flat but I worked on one that should have looked better than it did on the web and hence the question was raised.

I thought that the hosting might be an issue so I uploaded the JPEG to folder on my web site so that no-one else could do anything to it. I think it's my lack of understanding on how to compare the image in PS as to how it will appear as SRGB on a web page.

I'll get there!

And Peter yes it's a hell of a learning curve. Just as i think I get somewhere I realise that I haven't quite managed it!

Mike

You should use the Photoshop option "Save for Web". This displays the image without colour management. The resulting image should match what you see in IE.

If you haven't enabled Colour Management in Firefox then FF should be the same as IE. However, if you've enable CM with the about:config options then FF will be applying a matrix/shaper curve.

The reason that different colour managed apps will display differently is down to the fact there are two different methods of handling a calibration ICC/ICM file for the display. Some apps can only do matrix/shaper, others can handle cLUT (the second type), and Photoshop/Lightroom add a third option by employing black point compensation.

From what I can tell it's mainly down to the poor black point of LCDs.

I had exactly the same frustration on my Toshiba M200 Tablet display and didn't know where I was. In the end I used ArgyllCMS to produce a decent cLUT calibration file for the monitor (quite a lot more long winded). Now I have pretty much consistent results between colour managed apps

(It's taken me literally years to work that out!!! :shock

PS: Yes, colour management is a bottomless pit of information and problems!!

Hope that helps!
Matt

Thanks guys. I still think I'm doing this wrong but to get the web image to look the same as the PS image I;

Assign the profile in PS to be the working profile in PS which is set as SRGB and promptly looks flat
Fanny about until it looks like I want it to on the web and save as JPEG
Send that to web hosting
Compare the two
They're the same

This is a little embarrassing but the two images in question are:

http://www.mcwimaging.com/photos/OrangeInGate_IGP3836.jpg

and

http://www.mcwimaging.com/photos/OrangeInGatea_IGP3836.jpg

The second one is identical in PS.

I think I may have done what Matt said but by a different route. But who knows eh? I expect Matt does truth be told.

If I want to print this out then I think I'd switch back to the PSD file which would be ARGB then print from there.

Incidentally I don't like Firefox I'm afraid and I use Chrome which if you turn off the Phishing thing is pretty fast.

Mike

Mike,

Quick look - the first has no colour profile, the second is tagged as sRGB. On your monitor they'll probably look the same. However, on mine they don't

It'll be a good idea to check your Color Management preferences in CS3 - I'd suggest setting AdobeRGB as your preferred space and warning you if different (Then at least you can tell the difference between an untagged image and a tagged one!)

Matt

The 2nd image looks far better (more punch) on my monitor too using Firefox.

They look different on my monitor and I'll take your advice and check my PS settings.
For me as well which is what I was hoping for.

Mike

In Firefox on my monitor the first one has more punch (as in more saturation, or, checking the histogram in PS, the first one being a tad darker).

Here's what it looks like in PS (upper one OrangeInGate, lower one OrangeInGatea)
[IMG]http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/Prieni/tony_orange.jpg[/IMG]

Prieni