Photoshop CS3 color management "Save for Web" problem

You trust your eyes?

Which "you" are you asking John? My point is that the eyes CAN'T be trusted. And more to the point, different SETS of eyes are not likely to see the same color subtleties, ... the kinds of subtleties that we all work so hard to achieve when we fondle our colors and color-generating wares.

Certainly brain-prejudiced eyes will not see the same subtleties on a highly variable computer monitor with a browser that isn't "managing" color. I'm suggesting nor will they see the same delicacies when looking at a print... not because the print itself is different from one copy to another (that, thankfully, is a constant for all practical purposes) but because lighting, viewing angle, viewing distance, concentration, momentary insulin levels, brain chemistry, anxiety all affect what we see.

OK so backlit images have YET ANOTHER variable. But only YET ANOTHER one.

(C'mon Rich, talk to me.)

You trust your eyes?

Think again!

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Wait, Rich. I think I followed your reasoning (which is always lucid and easy to follow). But by time I got to your final paragraph this time, I concluded exactly the opposite!

Your explanation confirms the enormous "elasticity" of our eyes, especially when influenced by the preconceptions (and enormous agility) of our brains!

So I conclude that the ontological condition of images -- in print, on monitors, even in real life -- is regularly (and very differently) superceded by individual (idiosynchratic) vision, memory and the desperate need for visual rationality. Naturally there are limits here. Garish green probably will not look like mellow magenta to any but the most desperate (or color blind) eye. But this conversation isn't about the improbable extremes.

So I'm troubled. Because my conclusion based on your narrative is exactly the opposite of what you've concluded above!

Doug,

Our eyes aren't color managed?

Hmmm. What about all those studies by the CIE folks that show that under equivalent lighting conditions, people with normal color vision actually all "see" the same color?

Actually, our perception of color has an amazing amount of persistence of "correctness," even under extreme variations of lighting conditions, as long as our brain is given some minimal reference to use for orientation. And a printed image just happens to supply that reference, most of the time - the (usually) neutral-white paper background.

If we look at a (color correct) magazine image under a very wide variety of lighting conditions, "memory colors" maintain a remarkable consistency. Red apples look red under north sky light, incandescent light and fluorescent light. So do green apples, skin tones, yellow sunflowers, green leaves, brown earth, etc.

Even if we rapidly switch lighting, the printed image looks "OK," and our eye and brain maintain the necessary relationships between the color objects. We can even view the same image, lighted by two different light sources, side by side, and find each "correct" as we shift our focus back and forth between them, or even look at both simultaneously.

If the colors are wrong in the printed image, we will persist in seeing the wrong colors as wrong.

All this color consistency and self referencing is impossible when the color object is a light source itself, such as a computer monitor.

If we look at memory colors that are significantly "off-color" (on a poorly compensated monitor) for a few minutes, our eyes will gradually accept the "wrong" colors, adjust to them, and have no ability to "warn" us that something is wrong.

If we then look at the same image on a correctly adjusted (profiled) monitor, that image will look terribly wrong, no mater how well we know it is right. The whole image will have some very noticeable color cast opposite the direction in which the bad monitor is out of adjustment. We can't convince our brain otherwise, and looking back at the badly adjusted monitor will "confirm" that its wrong image is right.

Of course, if we look at the correct monitor for a while, our eyes will adjust to it and the bad monitor will again look bad.

Surprisingly, the illusion that the bad monitor is correct will persist (until our eyes have time to readjust), even if we have other visual cues to orient our eyes, such as briefly looking at a color correct printed version of the same image under the correct light source. That's how powerful the effect of the monitor as light source is.

So, badly profiled monitors or badly profiled monitor images are a much bigger problem than almost any other way we look at color images.

Rich

Sure Doug, but adjusting your color to a standard that only applies to your computer is pretty darn silly. Ge lets all just follow Tancredi's advice, it will look great on our computers.

Calibrate your monitor, convert your files to sRGB before SFW and view the image in a non colormanaged Browser or application. That will give you the most consistent results and let you see what is happening.

Excellent point Michele!

This tedious, endless thread keeps trying to make the point that computer screens are afflicted with too much variability to really control color. And to make matters worse, browsers are not color managed. So what's the point of taking great pains to make color-faithful images that are headed for a disrespectful web?

How soon we forget when we draw this chasm of a distinction between print and web that the conditions under which we look at printed images are as variable as computer screen quality. And to make matters worse, our eyes are not color managed. So why are we profiling and color correcting and color managing our prints?

Because we want them to be as good as we can make them... knowing full well the world will NOT see. Michele makes the same point about web-destined images.

> very few people will view your image correctly on the web. why does it even matter?

For the same reason you soft proof before printing: you know that very few people will look at your prints under optinal lightening conditions or under a lightbox and colors will differ acoordingly... in any case serious photographers still profile their paper/ink/print combo and soft proof before printing.

So for the same reason when you wanna show your work over the web just make sure your picture is fine under "ideal" viewving conditions. When you show your work over internet you only know that it is a non-color managed environment and that pictures will show as it shows with the "preserve rgb numbers" option activated under photoshop (like any browser "non icc friendly"). You could then use this option to fine-tune your pics unless you have lots of pictures to adjust. In this case I agree this workflow might looks quite annoying.

very few people will view your image correctly on the web. why does it even matter?

if you still have imageready (its not colormanaged) view your pics with that.

Like I said you are making this harder than it really is.

> If you have converted your file to sRGB its already sRGB and doesn't need to be soft proofed

I don't think so. You need to see it with "Preserve RGB Numbers" otherwise what you see on your screen it isn't what you'll see once in the web where it is not color managed

Not sure why you need 2 duplicates. you can toggle soft proofing on and off.

and forget soft proofing to your monitor profile only you will ever use it it is of no consequence to anyone else on this planet. All you are doing buy soft proofing to your monitor profile is seeing the difference between it and sRGB.

If you have converted your file to sRGB its already sRGB and doesn't need to be soft proofed.

you are making this harder than it really is.