Photoshop vs Image Ready Question

[ricwis]

I've got a question about Photoshop and Image Ready that has me stumped. On my Mac, when I choose "Save for Web" from Photoshop, this process uses Image Ready to optimize the image for web display. The colors remain very close to the colors in Photoshop and do not lose their intensity. On my brother's Mac, using the same version of Photoshop (CS2), when he chooses Save for Web from Photoshop, the image is then in Image Ready as I would expect but the colors all go flat, lose their intensity and just look sick. I can process his image on my machine and it processes fine and looks good.

I've compared the preferences on both machines and we are set up the same. Would anyone have any ideas why this happens on his machine and what setting might be causing this.

Our monitors are profiled.
Thanks for any help.

[chezem]

I had a similar problem with Photoshop changing the colours on me but I was not on a Mac. It's a Photoshop issue. Something that was bright pink turned to pale sick apricot when I went to 'Save for Web'. It's a colour 'working space' issue. When you load the photo convert it to the 'current working space' (in my case it's a profile created by my monitor calibration software) and then go to 'Save for the Web' after you have done whatever else you want to do. Then you should see the difference. The colour actually becomes a bit more intensified for the web. If I've kept the examples I'll post them in another post.:cheer:

[chezem]

Here is one where I didn't convert it to the 'working space'. It was colour profiled in ProPhotoRGB. Now it looked very bright pink on the monitor in Photoshop but when I took it over to 'Save for the Web' it changed to this:

http://www.pbase.com/image/76819874/original.jpg

IT's over on Dbase. If it doesn't load up here it is: http://www.pbase.com/image/76819874/original.jpg


Here's what it looked like when I took it to 'Save for the Web' after I converted it to the 'Current Working Space.

http://www.pbase.com/image/76819912/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/76819912/original.jpg

I think that there is a big difference. Hope this helps.:cheer:

[Harv]

I too have found that if I leave the colour space set to aRGB in CS2 and save for web, it goes flat when posted. If I am going to publish to the internet (as opposed to printing), I change the colour space to sRGB on CS2 prior to loading the file. When I make my adjustments to the pic, it ends up a lot closer to what I see in CS2.

[Rudi]

This is one of the reasons why I always choose "Save As" and include the sRGB colour tag and EXIF. My colour shifts are not as wild as what Cheryl posted above, but enough to want to include the colour space tag along with the JPEG. All browsers these days are smart enough to recognise the sRGB colour space, and display the image properly.

[chezem]

Rudi,

The reason my colour shift is so great is because I go into Photoshop by loading the RAW file which is in ProPhotoRGB so when I'm finished and click 'done' I go into the usual part of Photoshop without going thru that screen which gives three options to use the imbedded profile, use the current working space profile or not colour mange. If I choose convert to the current working space then I don't have the colour shift but because I come in the other way this screen is not an option. I would have to use the convert to a different profile which is in a pull down menu. All this time what you see on the screen is what you want and that doesn't change unless you go to 'Save for the Web'. Then the colour changes. The other option I have is to save the file in ProPhotoRGB (which I use for printing) and reload it in the main part of Photoshop where the three options are asked on entry. Then you can go to 'save for the web' without a colour change. It's like the 'Save for the Web' is not able to convert profiles from one colour space to another. Once you realise that you don't seem to have a problem.

[Rudi]

Cheryl,

The problem is, even if I convert to sRGB, I still occasionally get slight colour shifts when "Saving To Web". Not always (or they're not always noticeable), but it's just not worth he headache to me, plus I like to know what I am posting exactly what I am seeing. If you have no colour space tag attached, how do you know how that image will be displayed?

AFAIK, "Save For Web" should automatically convert to sRGB and save, but apparently it does not do that...

[chezem]

No. It does add the srgb tag and exif. Its just in that part of Photoshop it is not sofisticated enough to change anything that is not already close. In other words it can't accurately read old and assign new profiles. If your profile is in aRGB it does a better match than if it is in ProPhotoRGB which has a bigger gamut of colours. The converter that is being used in this part of the program is not accurate enough to stop colour changes. If you have already changed it srgb in the main part of the program or it is defaulting from the camera setting then it really won't change anything much. It can handle that level of change but you may not notice much. If I post to the web in ProPhotoRGB then each individual site will convert my file to srgb using whatever software they have onboard. Some will do it better than others. In some cases the colour change will be enormous.

[Rudi]

And that's the problem - I do notice a colour shift, even though "Save For Web" should be saving in sRGB (with no tag). I see this change even when I start with an sRGB file in the first place. Simply removing the sRGB tag should do no such colour shift, yet occasionally it is noticeable (more often than not). Maybe I'm just too fussy...:D

[chezem]

But Rudi. You are not seeing the colour shift on your monitor or are you? I suspect that you are seeing a slight colour change once they get to the web. Unless you can convince every website to use the same onboard sRGB converter then I don't know how you are going to fix that problem fussy or not. But the changes shouldn't be great if you did the conversion first in the main part of Photoshop. They only change colour dramatically if the Coulor space is different. Then they end up different colours, flat and noticeably off.

[Rudi]

It's not the website that displays your images, Cheryl - it's the browser that you have installed on your computer! And they are all smart enough to read the sRGB tag. And YES, I can occasionally see slight colour shifts if I "Save For Web"... usually the image will look washed out and less saturated - and my point is that it SHOULDN'T, since sRGB is the Web standard.

[chezem]

No. No. Rudi. I have the same photos on several websites and they are all slightly different yet I'm using the same browser. It's the same sort of difference that you notice if you save it in sRGB using another software package.

[Rudi]

They will only display it differently if they perform some sort of resize or other maintenance on your files (like SmugMug, ZenFolio or similar - they do on-the-fly resize and sharpen, stuff like that). If you request the original file that you supplied, then it will look exactly identical - it has to!

The website only offers the file to your browser - your browser displays it! So unless the site is doing something funky like Flash or Java to display your photos, they should not look any different. Web servers are just that - servers! They serve the file to you, they don't care what it is - it's up to your browser to make sense of it. :)

[chezem]

Here's an example. Same picture. Two different sites.


http://ic1.deviantart.com/fs11/i/2006/194/8/2/Rose___Paradise____by_chezem.jpg

This one's not letting me connect the URL but if you click on it the picture will come up. You will see that the colour of the pink is different.


http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pics.php?userId=R&qs=56446

[Rudi]

Yes, - but the image is smaller - the website has resized and resaved it, or is displaying it through another application - THAT is why they look different.

[chezem]

Exactly. Wasn't that what I was saying. It has gone thru their software. I can't recall precisely but I do believe that file went up to both sites as a ProPhotoRGB file and their software turned it into an sRGB file but in each case the result is different.

[ricwis]

Thanks everyone for pointing me to what seems to be the issue, that is color space. I'll work on that with my brother. Unfortunately, he is headed up to Alaska today on a little expedition to photograph the Dall sheep so instead of being able to dink around trying to fix this, he will be out taking pictures and we will have to wait until next Saturday.

[Rudi]

Exactly. Wasn't that what I was saying. It has gone thru their software. I can't recall precisely but I do believe that file went up to both sites as a ProPhotoRGB file and their software turned it into an sRGB file but in each case the result is different.

Yes, in that case, you might as well not do any colour space matching, because the final product quality is out of your control. I avoid that sort of stuff by linking to my original files when I upload to my web site, or any other gallery where I want the image to be displayed properly. What I am talking about is that "Save For Web" does not do exactly the same job as "Save As", then saving in sRGB colour space, and yet it should, AFAIK.

And... the question arises - if you saved the JPEGs with colour space tag attached, would the websites still mangle them or are they now smart enough to take colour space tags into account???

[ricwis]

Sometimes fixing another unrelated problem fixes another problem. On my MacBook, Save for Web was grayed out on the menu (I had posted this in another thread) so I ended up calling Adobe. Basically, the thought was the plugin for Save for Web was missing. I re-installed Photoshop on the MacBook and this solved the problem and recovered a whole bunch of missing plugins. The plugin is now there, available, and works fine.

Since these plugins are separate files I thought why not replace the plugin on my brothers computer with a copy of the one from my computer. Bingo! This fixed the problem and now the Save for Web on his computer works fine and does not ruin the color. Somehow and for some unknown reason, the plugin on his Mac was causing the problem and no amount of settings or changes would fix it. Replacing the plugin did.