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Participating Frequently
October 31, 2007
Question

Photoshop CS3 color management "Save for Web" problem

  • October 31, 2007
  • 680 replies
  • 62091 views
This problem is getting the best of me.......

After spending 3 full days researching this problem, I am no closer to finding an answer than when I started. I still cannot produce a usable image through the "Save for Web" feature of Photoshop CS3. I have read web page after web page of "Tips, Tricks and Recommendations" from dozens of experts, some from this forum, and still I have no solution... I am exhausted and frustrated to say the least. Here's the simple facts that I know at this point.

I have a web design project that was started in PS CS1. All artwork was created in photoshop and exported to JPG format by using "Save for Web". Every image displays correctly in these browsers (Safari, Camino, FireFox and even Internet Explorer on a PC).

I have recently upgraded to PS CS3 and now cannot get any newly JPG'd image to display correctly. My original settings in CS1 were of no concern to me at the time, because it always just worked, and so I do not know what they were. I have opened a few of my previous images in CS3 and found that sRGB-2.1 displays them more or less accurately. I am using sRGB 2.1 working space. Upon openning these previous image files, I get the "Missing Profile" message and of course I select "Leave as is. Do Not color manage". CS3 assumes sRGB-2.1 working space, opens the file, and all is well.

The problem is when I go to "Save for Web", the saturation goes up, and the colors change. The opposite of what most people are reporting. Here's another important point... new artwork created in CS3 does exactly the same thing, so it's not because of the older CS1 files.

I have tried every combination of "uncompensated color", "Convert to sRGB", "ICC Profile", etc. while saving. I have Converted to sRGB before saving, and my monitor is calibrated correctly.
I have tried setting the "Save for Web" page on 2-up and the "original" on the left is already color shifted before I even hit the "Save" button. Of course, the "Optimized" image on the right looks perfect because I am cheating by selecting the "Use Document Color Profile" item. Why do they even have this feature if doesn't work, or misleads you?

Does anyone have any ideas what could be happening here? Why is this all so screwed up?
CS1 worked fine out of the box.

Final note: I do have an image file I could send along that demonstrates how it is possible to display an image exactly the same in all 4 of the browsers I mentioned with no color differences. It is untagged RGB and somehow it just works.

I am very frustrated with all of this and any suggestions will be appreciated

Thanks,
Pete
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    680 replies

    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    December 5, 2007
    No, I didn't miss it. It's irrelevant to what I've been saying, and it is irrelevant to your fallacy that the wide gamut of a monitor influences the conversion. It DOES NOT.

    As I wrote earlier:

    If your workflow is well managed, the final sRGB image will be the same from a wide-gamut monitor and from an sRGB monitor. The pixels will be the same.

    Of course an untagged image is crap. Of course a non-color-managed workflow is crap.

    With a wide gamut monitor you see crap more clearly than with a narrow one. Just like pointing the Hubble at manure. But the nature of the manure remains unchanged.
    December 5, 2007
    >That all goes out the door as soon as the SFW preview window or Firefox or ANY non-colour managed environment enters the picture.

    You must have missed this part.
    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    December 5, 2007
    Raven,
    >Ramon, you keep pointing me back to proper colour managed workflow.

    Duh!
    Participating Frequently
    December 4, 2007
    I want to be a pop tart for Christmas.
    Inspiring
    December 4, 2007
    Gee, looky here, now Raven's the expert!
    These forums are miraculous.
    December 4, 2007
    Raven,

    You are correct. All this technology isn't perfect. If you knew exactly what it takes to make this stuff work as good as it does under the hood you'ld think these programmers and computer hardware manufacturers were gods.

    They make magicians seem boring and contrived.
    December 4, 2007
    Sorry Tim, I don't think I can help you. My guess is that either the calibration isn't accurate enough on the monitors, or that differences between the two monitors are too great to overcome.
    December 4, 2007
    Raven,

    I'm having subtle color issues between my Samsung CRT and my 20" iMac both calibrated by i1 Display. The sRGB water/rock image I posted in this thread looks slightly different color managed or not where the rocks viewed on the CRT look slightly yellowish but look a bit brighter and bluer/pinkish on the iMac.

    Both displays show identical color temp and neutrality. I even visually adjusted the CRT's white point bluer to match the iMac which i1 Match software reads at 6300K and it didn't change the slightly bluer/pinkish appearance in the rocks. The iMac has a slightly wider gamut mainly in the blues than the CRT's with both being pretty close to sRGB.
    December 4, 2007
    I'm extremely grateful Peter that you get what I'm saying. Ramon, you keep pointing me back to proper colour managed workflow. That all goes out the door as soon as the SFW preview window or Firefox or ANY non-colour managed environment enters the picture. If I had a crappy monitor profile, I'd be seeing crappy colours within the colour managed environment of Photoshop. I'm talking specifically about the SFW window, that's it and that's all. That's what this thread is about. I never send untagged images anywhere, except for web-bound images, because at this point in time the number of people using colour managed browsers AND calibrated monitors is too small for me to justify the added file sizes. Actually, I'll probably start including tags from now on for larger photos (but not buttons and stuff) just for the benefit of those precious few people.

    Yes of course it doesn't make sense to assign Adobe RGB to an sRGB image, and I'm not recommending it. I use that merely as an example to illustrate my specific point.

    Maybe the analogy could be improved...yes I understand that a monitor doesn't have a native language...I could say instead that Adobe RGB includes the trilled R sound that is part of the Spanish language, and sRGB doesn't. So a monitor is like a stereo speaker...it doesn't know what a language is, but it can produce sounds. A wide gamut monitor might be able to produce that trilled R sound while a standard monitor can't. Doesn't mean the monitor is Spanish, just that it's capable of producing Spanish sounds.
    Participating Frequently
    December 4, 2007
    >I did not completely read your last two posts, Raven. You're still totally wrong.

    You're missing what Raven is getting at. The example Raven wrote is correct. If you take an untagged image that used to be sRGB, and view it on a wider-gamut monitor in a non-colour-managed app, that image's colours will take on the characteristic of the wide-gamut display, as if the monitor's profile was assigned to the image.