I am running a Dell 2408 monitor, calibrated with a Spyder 3 Pro under Vista x64. The photos in Lightroom look good and are very close matches to the prints. So far, so good.
My problem is that when I export a photo in sRGB for use on the web, the colors look vastly different. So while I can print nicely, I can't reasonably produce anything to show online. The online versions always look far more saturated when viewed in a non color-managed application such as Firefox or IE.
Can someone suggest a solution? I'm not quite sure how to approach this problem, especially since my color-managed screen and prints are so close.
I second what Steve said. The most likely cause is that your images are not actually in sRGB color space. To check what color space your images are in, open one of them in Photoshop (I'm assuming CS3), and select Edit/Convert to Profile. A "Convert to Profile" dialog window will appear. Near the top of the window is "Source Space Profile:" and it shows what color space the image is currently in. If it's anything other than sRGB, select sRGB in the "Destination Space Profile:" dropdown box, and click OK. This will convert the image to sRGB color space. Save the image and try viewing it with a browser, I think it will look correct.
The sRGB/AdobeRGB profile was not the issue. If you mix those up (usually posting an Adobe RGB file to the web) the image will look dull, not more saturated. After doing some additional research, I found that the actual problem is with the monitor.
My Dell 2408 is a wide-gamut monitor. As a result, it can show far more saturated greens and reds then most displays. This is one of the reasons I bought it. A side effect of this is that non color-managed images look over-saturated.
Enabling color management in Firefox 3 certainly helped out, so it's only IE 7 that looks a bit silly at this point.
I've noticed a similar occurance in windows picture and fax viewer, though it's quite minor, since I have my monitor calibrated. But I notice a definite color shift, especially in the blues, when using CS3's save for web feature. Though still in PS, in the save for web dialog window, the skies have noticeably shifted toward cyan.
Any clue about this
I stopped worrying about this a long time ago, as how many people viewing your website or images online will have a correctly calibrated 8bit panel or better?
Ariithka wrote:
I stopped worrying about this a long time ago, as how many people viewing your website or images online will have a correctly calibrated 8bit panel or better?
That's not really the point - with a wide gamut monitor (correctly calibrated) images on the web in sRGB or without an embedded profile look wrong to you - never mind other people.
So - when you view FM posts you cannot see the images the way they are supposed to look unless you use Firefox 3 - as I now do.
digging up an old post here, but I'm having the same issue.
I also have the Dell 2408 monitor. I calibrated it, edited a few images, then uploaded them to my site. Once they were on my website they looked a lot difference than they did in LR, PS, and Windows viewer. As mentioned the saturation seemed much higher, especially in the reds.
Here are my settings: The Windows color management profile is using the spyder calibrated profile. Firefox is using a sRGB profile (is that wrong?) Should I use the calibrated profile for Firefox? I loaded that and it seemed to fix the problem.
What should I change or add to get them all the same? Also, despite what I'm seeing, is everyone else going to see the more saturated version?
This confusion is killing me. Aside from this issue, this monitor is awesome!
1decmal8Tango wrote:
digging up an old post here, but I'm having the same issue.
I also have the Dell 2408 monitor. I calibrated it, edited a few images, then uploaded them to my site. Once they were on my website they looked a lot difference than they did in LR, PS, and Windows viewer. As mentioned the saturation seemed much higher, especially in the reds.
Here are my settings: The Windows color management profile is using the spyder calibrated profile. Firefox is using a sRGB profile (is that wrong?) Should I use the calibrated profile for Firefox? I loaded that and it seemed to fix the problem.
What should I change or add to get them all the same? Also, despite what I'm seeing, is everyone else going to see the more saturated version?
This confusion is killing me. Aside from this issue, this monitor is awesome!...Show more →
Most people will see your images close to what you intended them to be. Your colour managed apps are translating these images to display correctly on your wide gamut monitor. Your non colour managed apps assume your mnitor is only sRGB and so the colours look wrong.
The issue is matching the image colour space to the output (in this case a monitor) colour space. A colour managed app looks for a profile imbedded in the image and then translates that colour space to the nearest match for you output device colour space(monitor). If the image has no tag sRGB is assumed. So an sRGB image will be translated to the best match in aRGB in a colour managed app being viewed on an aRGB capable monitor that has the correct profile loaded. This is what you are getting when you tell firefox to use your monitor profile. Safari automatically finds the current monitor profile. It is well colour managed. OSX is colour managed. Vista is partly colour managed and XP is all over the place.
If you view an image in a NON colour managed application (or a managed app with the wrong profile loaded - but that's another thing altogether), the application assumes that the image has the same colour space as the output device you are viewing it on (your monitor). So if you view an sRGB image in a NON colour managed application on a monitor that covers the aRGB colourspace then the app will assume its an aRGB file being viewed on an sRGB monitor and the colours will be affected (more saturated). If you view a aRGB file in a small gamut monitor (sRGB or smaller) in a NON colour managed app the colours will be LESS saturated.
Most chaep LCD's and most laptops are "small gamut", closer to sRGB than anything else. They do vary from panel to panel. As a result of this sRGB has become the "default" viewing colour space and images without an imbedded profile are assumed to be sRGB.
