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Participating Frequently
October 31, 2007
Question

Photoshop CS3 color management "Save for Web" problem

  • October 31, 2007
  • 680 replies
  • 62138 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 4, 2007
    The only way I would believe there's a problem with CS3 default Save For Web Settings hosing normal-gamut color with "high" quality jpeg compression is to post the tagged and untagged sRGB files in a rollover on a black page so they can be viewed in Safari through a monitor profile I trust -- seeing is believing...
    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    November 4, 2007
    Lundberg02,

    Either your copy of Safari or your naked eye is off. :)

    Using Safari 2.0.4 (current non-beta version) I can definitely see the subtle differences the posters are complaining about. The differences range from barely perceptible to in-your-face different, depending on the compression used by the posters. If I were working on the web (which I'm not) I might be puzzled too.

    But Buko is right, none of those differences amount to a hill of beans in the light of the 95% or more of the web viewers using non-calibrated, non-profiled monitors anyway.
    Participating Frequently
    November 4, 2007
    welcome.
    Inspiring
    November 3, 2007
    Safari is colormanaged. All the pictures that have been posted look exactly the same to the Mac/Safari calibrated LCD naked eye.
    Ramón G Castañeda
    Inspiring
    November 3, 2007
    MO,
    > The small color difference you are seeing is in the preview because of the rounding of numbers due to the fact that its going through two color space conversions "visually."
    >
    > Same thing happens for Proof set-up.


    Thanks for that insight, Mike.
    Participating Frequently
    November 3, 2007
    "Do all the pictures you post in the PS forum look exactly the same in Safari?"

    Yep... and the really amazing thing is that Safari is able to show the difference between the 2 images in that single screen grab, and doesn't somehow make them appear identical by figuring out how to use 2 separate profiles at the same time!

    Is there a setting for that? ;-)
    Participating Frequently
    November 3, 2007
    The small color difference you are seeing is in the preview because of the rounding of numbers due to the fact that its going through two color space conversions "visually."

    Same thing happens for Proof set-up.
    November 3, 2007
    Also the level of compression will change how the image looks so if you are making small files for a fast load they will never look identical to the original.
    Participating Frequently
    November 3, 2007
    In fact if you take Ryan's image in #74 and lay one over the other and do a difference the difference is quite small. The SFW has better blacks and the rest of the 'difference' looks basically like JPG noise. While I have seen problems with CS3 SFW this doesn't seem to be an example.
    November 2, 2007
    The whole point of Save For Web is to make the smallest file possible to upload to your website so that the person visiting your website doesn't get bored waiting for your page to load and click off to another faster loading site.

    So to get this smaller file SFW strips off all the unnecessary data like profiles, comments, metadata, thumnails and whatever else that will bulk up a file.

    That and the fact that very few browsers are colormanaged (using your monitor profile to display the image). So what might be blue on your monitor will look purple on the next !0,000 monitors because not only are they viewing through non-colormanaged browsers they don't even have calibrated monitors.

    The differences are so small that you guys are making mountains out of molehills.