Confused by sRBG And iPhone Export Quality

Handheld devices are becoming far more consistent one to the other - many are now using P3 colourspace [e.g. iPhone since 7].

All the, same if you make sRGB files [the web default] and embed the profile you are doing all you can. Maybe one day P3 will become the default for the web but that's not going to be for a while.

Heres a P3 image you can open on your iphone 

https://tinyurl.com/mobiletestimage-jpg

do the colours appear to be correct, skintone etc. 

Download the same image and open it in your Adobe application. 

Observe the difference. 

If you want it there's an Adobe RGB version here you can test on the computer.

If you have a PC you COULD have a defective monitor profile

Try this:

Display profile issues on Windows

At least once a week on this forum we read about this, or very similar issues of appearance differing between applications.

Unfortunately, with Microsoft hardware: Windows updates, Graphics Card updates and Display manufacturers have a frustratingly growing reputation for installing useless (corrupted) monitor display profiles.

I CAN happen with Macs but with far less likelyhood, it seems.

The issue can affect different applications in different ways, some not at all, some very badly.

The poor monitor display profile issue is hidden by some applications, specifically those that do not use colour management, such as Microsoft Windows "Photos".

To find out if the monitor display profile is the issue, I recommend you to try setting the monitor profile for your own monitor display under “Device” in your Windows ‘color management’ control panel to sRGB temporarily. You can ADD sRGB if its not already listed. 

And be sure to check “Use my settings for this device”.

(OR, if you have a wide gamut monitor display (check the spec online) it’s better to try Adobe RGB here instead).

Quit and relaunch Photoshop after the control panel change, to ensure the new settings are applied.

If this change fixes the issue, it is recommended that you should now calibrate and profile the monitor properly using a calibration sensor like i1display pro, which will create and install it's own custom monitor profile. The software should install it’s profile correctly so there should be no need to manual set the control panel once you are doing this right. 

Depending on the characteristics of your monitor display and your requirements, using sRGB or Adobe RGB here may be good enough - but custom calibration is a superior approach.

I hope this helps

neil barstow, colourmanagement.net :: adobe forum volunteer

[please do not use the reply button on a message in the thread, only use the one at the top of the page, to maintain chronological order]

Given that handhelds are pretty consistent the issue could be that your own monitor display screen is way off. Do you have a colour profile for it? Ideally you'll need a calibrator and software. Like X-Rite i1display pro.

Short version: Convert to sRGB. Embed the sRGB profile. Done. That's all you can do, the rest is out of your hands.

Long version:

Everything on the web is sRGB. That's the standard everyone adheres to.

That doesn't mean everything is strictly conforming to sRGB as defined in the sRGB icc profile, but it does mean it's created in an sRGB-like environment, and that's the environment it's intended to be seen in. Most traditional screens and monitors are fairly close to sRGB natively, which means you can feed them sRGB numbers and it will appear roughly right without any special considerations. In fact, that's how sRGB was born. That's what it was supposed to do from the outset.

Enter screens that can reproduce a wider range of colors, higher saturation. These are known as wide gamut. Eventually this technology worked its way to phones, and many phones today have it. On such a screen, sRGB displays oversaturated.

Icc-based color management is the standard tool for dealing with this. It remaps from the image color space into the screen color space, and everything displays correctly. This has been fully available on desktop computer platforms for a long time, and recently also on some phones, although the process is much more hidden and  much harder to control there.

All those oversaturated images you see on phones are the result of color management failing. They're not really supposed to look like that. But some people like the unintended effect. It may not be correct, but it pops.

So back to start: If you want it correct, convert to sRGB, embed the profile, done. Then you have delivered an image that is right. How other people see that is entirely out of your control. If they choose to see it correctly, they can. If they don't, they probably don't care all that much. Not your problem, their problem.

1. Is your display calibrated?

2. Please find some similar images on the web and compare them, too, in Photoshop and on your iPhone - see if this is a normal difference for you?