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Participating Frequently
October 31, 2007
Question

Photoshop CS3 color management "Save for Web" problem

  • October 31, 2007
  • 680 replies
  • 62136 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

    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    You really need to stick to my specific question because I get confused easily.
    >> More saturation and brighter colors in "Monitor RGB"

    Is that the exact saturation problem you are posting about?
    How much change are you seeing?
    (I get a slight saturation boost here, a slight change is expexted.)

    sRGB should not be SoftProofing WindowsRGB darker (it should match or at least be very close to calibrated 2.2 gamma 6500 MonitorRGB).

    +++++++
    >> (With sRGB/MonitorRGB) "WindowsRGB" and "Monitor RGB" look exactly the same! No Color shift at all.

    That's expected since MonitorRGB=WIndowsRGB=sRGB.
    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    >After calibrating monitor to 2.2 gamma 6500, what happens when you Convert to sRGB in Photoshop and go to View> Proof SetUp: Monitor RGB?

    WHAT KIND OF SHIFT DO YOU SEE?

    I do get a color shift. More saturation and brighter colors in "Monitor RGB"
    Light and washed out in "Macintosh RGB"
    Darker in "Windows RGB"

    >go to System Preferences> Displays> Color and Set sRGB as your monitor profile

    Well, OK... this is interesting. After changing profile to sRGB 2.1, "Macintosh RGB" still goes lighter and washed out.
    "WindowsRGB" and "Monitor RGB" look exactly the same! No Color shift at all.

    Now what? Does this mean that even tho my profile looks great (looks much more accurate than the Apple Calibrator Profile) it's screwed up?
    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    STILL no direct answer to the question?
    I have to wonder why this post has dragged on 200+ posts and the question has not been answered.

    After calibrating monitor to 2.2 gamma 6500, what happens when you Convert to sRGB in Photoshop and go to View> Proof SetUp: Monitor RGB?

    WHAT KIND OF SHIFT DO YOU SEE?

    If you confirm the problem here, go to System Preferences> Displays> Color and Set sRGB as your monitor profile (temporarily for this test to rule out the calibrated monitor profile) then reboot and repeat the above test in Photoshop.

    IF THE PROBLEM IS FIXED, the calibrated monitor profile is bad (you probably have a defective puck/software profiling package).

    If it is not fixed using sRGB as the monitor profile, look for buggy 3rd party drivers you installed, bad hardware or bad system install.
    November 13, 2007
    No prob Nini.
    Nini Tjader
    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    Buko - I was wrong. It IS Safari 3.0.4 even on my machines. Just didn't see any difference to it...
    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    Just got the computer back from the Apple store (9:00 pm right now).... I ran it over this afternoon to have them check out the ECC errors I have been noticing. They replaced one of the DIMM risers, it was indeed bad. Now I have to decide if ECC errors have caused any file corruption.

    I had one System Profiler report of 252 errors the other day! So far no errors. I will investigate more in the morning.
    Participating Frequently
    November 13, 2007
    I think the Finder Preview cannot be trusted to display accurately.
    Besides the bug in Column View Preview (which uses the first Alpha Channel to mask the preview, see other posts), the issue is that the Finder uses a form of PDF to generate the preview on the fly.

    Craig
    November 12, 2007
    Nini My Laptop had Safari 2.0.4 on it. After installing Leopard,Safari is 3.0.4. My G5 has the most recent Beta 3.0.3.

    That's how I know. I kept the Laptop with 2.0.4 because of the Forum switch over and 3.0.3 on the G5 gave me a very weird small view of the posts with scroll bars which made it hard to read. So I never upgraded my Safari to 3 on the laptop.
    Participating Frequently
    November 12, 2007
    I win nothing...review this thread and your other thread for the answer...
    Nini Tjader
    Participating Frequently
    November 12, 2007
    Buko,
    no Safari 3.x does not install with Leopard if Safari 3.x is not already present on the machine. If you do a completely new installation on an empty machine with nothing on, you get Safari 2.0.4, nothing else. No 3. You also do not get it if you update an existing machine to Leopard from Tiger. No Safari 3. I've done a couple of both of those last week (for testing purposes) and I assure you that you get Safari 2.0.4.

    Addition: Odd. I doublechecked the Apple website just now about Leopard and it says it comes with Safari 3. Wonder why that does not get installed then... Have to doublecheck my machines at work tomorrow. When I checked them last week I am sure it was Safari 2.0.4. Now I wonder if I saw wrong. I was actually looking specifically on Safari to see if there was something new in it and couldn't find anything and then checked the version. Could the disks in Sweden be different for some reason?