i am trying to prepare some images for a local camera club competition but when i convert to jpeg (the required format) the colors all wash out. first i use lightroom to adjust the raw file. then i convert to tiff so i can open the file in photoshop. then i convert to jpeg. i have tried this with elements 5 and cs3 without sucess. when i try to "save for web" and the new window pops up, the image is flat and desaturated. i have also tried exporting from lightroom as a jpeg with the same results. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Convert the color space to sRGB prior to saving for web display.

Most probably your tiff is in some "big" colorspace (like Adobe RGB). Try converting to sRGB before saving as jpg.

Alex

ohenry & alex-
i've tried that and it doesn't seem to help. i'm sure there is something that i'm not doing right but i just can't figure out what it is. thanks for the suggestions.

What color space are you originally in, and how are you converting it to sRGB? I agree with ohenry & alex that it's almost certainly a color space issue. Your image (that looks good) is probably in a wide gamut color space, and when you save it as a jpeg, you're not converting the color space to sRGB.

With the (good looking) image open in Photoshop, select Edit/Convert to Profile. Photoshop will tell you what your current color space is (Source Space Profile. Select sRGB for the Destination Space Profile. Your image shouldn't appreciably change appearance. Save as jpeg, and I think you'll find your problem solved.

Over and above what Bob summarised, if you are using the Save to Web feature in Photoshop there could be a setting there which is causing a problem. To eliminate this open Bridge, find your Tiff and use Image Processor to do a convert to JPEG with sRGB conversion set to on. That should narrow it down. This is the way I do it, and use the Actions to further process my images during the conversion.

bob & alistair-
thank you for responding with your suggestions. i will test them out tonight. the deadline is looming so i hope i can get this figured out!
-seann

If you use Save for Web, try this:

in Save for Web, top right corner of the image window, click the flyout menu (triangle button). Select Use Document Color Profile.


Max Simbron
PShizzy: The Blog, is Alive! at www.PShizzy.com

bob-
it turns out that lightroom was exporting images in the "Pro Photo RGB" color space. i changed that to "Adobe 1998" as per the advice of one of the gents at the club. "sRGB" was the only other option. i tried converting the color space (once the image is open in CS3) prior to saving without success. i tried using "sRGB" as well but it didn't seem to help.
-seann

alistair-
i tried using your method, which was new to me. i met with the same results as converting via CS3 in the "save for web & devices" window.
so here's the thing i don't understand that may not have been clear in my original post:

i open the tiff in CS3 and it looks they way i expect it to. then, when i go to convert to jpeg via the "save for web" command and the new window opens, the image looks flat and colorless. i haven't done ANYTHING to change it. when i view it in 2-up mode, the original looks awful and all i've done is selected the "save for web" option. i just can't make sense of it.
-seann

max-
i didn't even know about that extra menu but it did, indeed help the situation.
but it still doesn't explain why the images are all washed out when i open the "save for web" window
-seann

thank you everyone who responded in my time of need. i really appreciate your efforts! i got the files submitted....just hope they look good on the other end.

Seann,

Glad to hear that you finally got a good result. There are two things that could be causing your problem (TIFF looks good, JPEG does not). In the File/Save dialog, make sure that the checkbox next to ICC Profile is checked. When checked, PS tags the image file with the color space profile.

Secondly, go to Edit/Color Settings. In the Color Management Policies section, select Preserve Embedded Profiles for all of the color modes (RGB, CMYK, Gray). Also, make sure that the three checkboxes (Profile Mismatches & Missing Profiles) are checked. This will warn you if the image you're opening either doesn't contain a profile, or is different from your default color space.

I'm guessing that perhaps these checboxes weren't checked, and neither was the one in the File/Save dialog. If this was the case, you were saving your image without a profile, and PS wasn't warning you that there was no profile when opening the JPEG.

Bob

I got the exact same problem. (On a MacBook Pro). Doesn't matter if I edit in windows or mac.

The only way I can get around this is proof color once I got the shot open as a JPEG with the monitor, which will make it looke washed out and then adjust to make it look correct, but I can't use this as a long term solution because I cant proof in Lightroom nor Raw Converter because I dont know how the shot will look once "proofed".

I've tried everything and am getting real frustrated. I shoot in sRGB, Open in sRGB, and save with the sRGB applied and... nada.

Whats interesting though is when I open th eshot in "preview" tool in mac the colors look fine. Its once I have them uploaded on the net that they look washed out. On windows they look washed out immediatly when I check the shots in Irfanview. I went into the colors preferences and its written sRGB...

PS. I get the same results with both Save for Web and Save As.

Sam

Sam,

Most software on Windows (Photoshop is one of the few exceptions) assumes that the image color space is sRGB. It isn't clear if you have Photoshop or not. If you do, try this experiment. Open the image in Photoshop and see how it looks. If it looks washed out, select Edit/Assign Profile. Make sure that Preview is checked in the Assign Profile dialog. Try different color spaces such as Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB. As you select each new color space (in the drop down dialog), you should see the image change to reflect what it would look like if you assigned that color space. If you find one that looks correct, assign it to the image. I'm suspicious that the color space is really something different than sRGB, even though you are selecting sRGB.

Bob,

Thanks for the tipps. I converted it into sRGB just to make sure and It sadly still looks washed out.

bob-
1)the ICC profile box was checked.
2)you were correct about the boxes not being checked in Color Management Policies . they are now, though.

but here is the REALLY strange thing that i just don't understand:
i open a tiff file in CS3 and it looks fine. don't do anything to it, just hit "file/save for web" and when the new window opens that tiff file looks all washed out. i didn't change ANYTHING and yet, just by initiating the save for web process all the color drains out.

the good news is that when i view in 2-up mode, the jpeg version looks the way it should.
-seann

Seann,

Take a look at what Max wrote earlier:

"If you use Save for Web, try this:

in Save for Web, top right corner of the image window, click the flyout menu (triangle button). Select Use Document Color Profile."

You may be stripping off your image profile. Also, don't forget to check the ICC Profile checkbox, which embeds the profile in the file you save.

bob-
i should have stated in my earlier post that i did select the Use Document Color Profile option.
i also discovered another twist. as i said earlier, when viewed in the 2-up mode, the original looks colorless and the jpeg looks as it should (actually, it's a little oversaturated). just out of curiosity i tried the 4-up mode and, of the three jpeg renderings, only the highest quality one looks good. the other two look washed out like the original.

also, there is a dialog box on the right with two tabs: color table and image size. i have always used the image size tab when saving but never the color table. i just noticed that the color table is blank. is it supposed to be that way?

Seann,

The Color Table is only used for 8-bit images such as GIF. The Color Table is the color palette that is used in the image.

Bob

bob-
thanks for that.

for anyone else having problems, check out this thread for some useful info. on the subject.
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/648019/0#lastmessage
-seann