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KRISTIAN24454203r0hf
Known Participant
October 9, 2024
Question

Saving to PNG in Photoshop seems to not include the ICC profile

  • October 9, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 627 views

Hello,

 

I am working on my Adobe portfolio and noticed that one of the photos I uploaded to it is with more saturated colors and darker shadows than looked in PS. It was saved using Photoshop "Save for Web (Legacy)" option on Windows 10 . The symptom resembles missing color profile in the photo, but I checked and "Include ICC profile" was selected in "Save for Web (Legacy)". Tried also with the regular "Save as" and "Export as". The same photo exported with "Export as" still looks with odd colors, even though the option to include ICC profile is also selected, while only when saved using "Save as", the photo looks as it should, when uploaded to my portfolio. What seems also strange is that the colors look OK while I am editting my portfolio, but only on the live site they look different. The versions of the photo, which look bad on my portfolio, look OK uploaded to Facebook and watched on the same Firefox browser, with enabled color management. Further it is strannge that all three versions, exported with the different methods of saving, seem to not have color profile attached, when inspected with ACDSee viewer. Now this might also be an issue with ACDSee and PNGs, but for sure there is also an issue in both how Photoshop exports PNGs, and how Adobe portfolio manages colors on the live sites. Although I have found what seems to be a working solution - to use "Save as", I would still like to know why that happens with the other two methods of saving - is it a bug in Photoshop, a more general issue with PNGs or something else? Also I am curious to know why the portfolio behaves differently while edited, and on the live site, both viewed in a same color management-enabled browser? I would also like to get a confirmation that "Save as" is really the way to go, and I will not hit another issue, which I am missing currently.

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2 replies

K
KRISTIAN24454203r0hfAuthor
Known Participant
October 10, 2024

OK, so as I wrote initially, I was not sure whether the profile was embedded to the exported images, and ACDSee mislead me by showing no profile attached to all three exports. Now checking from Photoshop, all three exports have a profile attached, but the one generated from "Save as" is different than the other two:
"Save as" - sRGB IEC61966-2-1 black scaled (16bpc) and the exported PNG image is in 16-bit mode

"Save for Web (Legacy)" - sRGB IEC61966.2-1 (8bpc) and the exported PNG image is in 8-bit mode

"Export as" - sRGB IEC61966.2-1 (8bpc) and the exported PNG image is in 8-bit mode

So "Save for Web (Legacy) " and "Export as" generate one and the same profile. Note there is a dot in the name of their profile before the last 2, where there is a dash in the profile name generated by "Save as" - not sure whether that makes a difference, or "black compensated" and 16 bit are more important. Also, when using "Export as", I didn't select the "Smaller file (8-bit)" option, but still it converted it from 16 to 8 bit, and with "Save for Web (Legacy)" there isn't even an option to select conversion to 8 bit. Tried also to convert the image to 8 bit before using "Save as" and the saved file had sRGB IEC61966-2-1 black scaled (8bpc) profile and also looked as it should be when uploaded to my site. The size of the exported 8 bit and 16 bit files when using "Save as" is substantially different - 1 MB vs 8 MB so indeed they seem to be exported correctly. Now I am wondering whether it makes sense to upload the files to my site as 16 bit, or better stick to 8 bit for both performance and compatibility issues - there might be browsers which don't support 16 bit PNG? Would 16 bit give any other visual advantage?

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 10, 2024

Don't use the "black scaled" profile. Somewhere in your workflow this profile has been assigned or converted to. You should find out where, and set the standard sRGB IEC61966-2.1 instead.

 

There are different sRGB varieties floating around that do unpredictable things. They should generally be avoided.

 

16 bits per channel makes no sense on the web, so Export and Save For Web both convert to 8 bits per channel. The "smaller file" option means 8 bits total, not 8 bits per channel (24 bits total). It's indexed color with a color table, not RGB.

    K
    KRISTIAN24454203r0hfAuthor
    Known Participant
    October 10, 2024

    Thank you! These were insightful!

    L
    Lumigraphics
    Legend
    October 9, 2024

    Save for Web is old, legacy code and not getting updates. Export is a mess and nobody knows what is going on with it.

    If you use Save for Web, check the metadata settings. I always use "All Except Camera Info" so needed metadata isn't stripped out.

    You can also export from Bridge or using Image Processor Pro.

    There have been bugs in PNG export so yes this can be problematic.

      K
      KRISTIAN24454203r0hfAuthor
      Known Participant
      October 9, 2024

      Thank you! Additionally, I just learned that portfolio actually keeps several resized versions of the uploaded image, and not the original, so in the process of resizing it might mess additionally with the profiles, that's why while editing the portfolio, the colors are fine, and then on the live site go off. 

      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 9, 2024

      First of all check that there really is an embedded profile. Set the status bar in Photoshop like this, and reopen the exported files:

       

       

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