Participant

Question

Photos exported through photoshop look darker on phone

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
July 26, 2021
2 replies
1661 views

Hi, I'm having a lot of issues with my exports on photoshop. The picture looks exactly the way I want it to look on my computer, but always looks way to dark on my phone.
I'm using a Mac with a DELL U2720Q display and my pictures look alright on my Macbook screen as well as the Dell.
This problem is only happening with the pictures I export. If I'm browsing the web or instagram and I see barely any difference between my displays and my phone, which leads me to believe this isnt a calibration problem, but an export problem.

I tried rgb, srgb. jpeg, png. Same problem with all possible combinations.

The only way I've found to correct this is by adjusting the gamma value of the picture to 1.5, which corrects it on my phone, but makes it way too bright on my computer. I have no idea why this is happening or how to fix it..

macOS

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

@sebastien5E12 definitely something amiss there, maybe try "save as" rather than export for a start - make sure you check to embed the ICC profile.

The general advice is to save for web or mobile viewing and it usually works quite well. Handheld devices have some hidden colourmanagement

Recent models of iPad, Android (such as Samsung) and iPhone have factory calibration which is pretty reliable, so they are quite consistent - of course brightness is user adjustable.

@conradc mentioned:

Be aware though that according to the DisplayMate web site that publishes screen quality tests, a Samsung S10 OLED, for example has multiple screen modes in two categories (Natural and Vivid), including:

DCI-P3 Natural

sRGB Natural

Vivid (maximum gamut achievable by the OLED panel, which is not the same 3D volume as standard color gamuts)

Vivid with adjustable white point.

Your photoshop 'save as' ICC profile should match the one used in Samsung's settings.

@Per Berntsen found this Samsung page - https://www.samsung.com/africa_en/support/mobile-devices/how-to-change-the-screen-mode-or-adjust-the... - that describes how to change the screen mode from Vivid to Natural.

IF your main computer screen is correctly calibrated and profiled and if you save images with the sRGB ICC profile embedded they should reproduce well on an iOS or Android device. My iPhone X matches my calibrated Eizo Coloredge screen very well.

Here's an Adobe RGB image to try on the computer - and a P3 version for the 1Pad / Android / iPhone (view in a browser on the device)

With all set up correctly on your computer, these should match well

Here's some more info:

https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/visual-design/color/

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
Help others by clicking "Correct Answer" if the question is answered.
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itsyspider

Participant

Been having the same issue.

davescm

Community Expert

Issues of mismatches between screens are caused by mis-set colour management on one or other devices. It should never be 'fixed' by misadjusting the document as described in the first post. Always start by ensuring that the monitor calibration and profile are correct (using a hardware calibration device). That way any image adjustments are based on a correctly set monitor and not on compensating for incorrect monitor settings.

A brief explanation:

Digital images are made up of numbers. In RGB mode, each pixel has a number representing Red, a number representing Green and a Number representing Blue. The problem comes in that different devices can be sent those same numbers but will show different colours. To see a demonstration of this, walk into your local T.V. shop and look at the different coloured pictures – all from the same material.

To ensure the output device is showing the correct colours then a colour management system needs to know two things.

1. What colours do the numbers in the document represent?
This is the job of the document profile which describes the exact colour to be shown when Red=255 and what colour of white is meant when Red=255, Green = 255 and Blue =255. It also describes how the intermediate values move from 0 through to 255 – known as the tone response curve (or sometimes “gamma”).
Examples of colour spaces are (Adobe RGB1998, sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
With the information from the document profile, the colour management system knows what colour is actually represented by the pixel values in the document.

What colour will be displayed on the printer/monitor if it is sent certain pixel values?
This is the job of the monitor/printer & paper profile. It should describe exactly what colours the device is capable of showing and, how the device will respond when sent certain values.
So with a monitor profile that is built to represent the specific monitor (or a printer profile built to represent the specific printer, ink and paper combination) then the colour management system can predict exactly what colours will be shown if it sends specific pixel values to that device.

So armed with those two profiles, the colour management system will convert the numbers in the document to the numbers that must be sent to the device in order that the correct colours are displayed.

So what can go wrong :

The colours look different in Photoshop, which is colour managed, to the colours in a different application which is not colour managed.
This is not actually fault, but it is a commonly raised issue. It is the colour managed version which is correct – the none colour managed application is just sending the document RGB numbers to the output device regardless without any conversion regardless of what they represent in the document and the way they will be displayed on the output device.
The colour settings are changed in Photoshop without understanding what they are for.
This results in the wrong profiles being used and therefore the wrong conversions and the wrong colours.
If Photoshop is set to Preserve embedded profiles – it will use the colour profile within the document.
The profile for the output device is incorrect.
The profile should represent the behaviour of the device exactly. If the wrong profile is used it will not. Equally if the settings on the device are changed in comparison to those settings when the profile was made, then the profile can no longer describe the behaviour of the device. Two examples would be using a printer profile designed for one paper, with a different paper. A second example would be using a monitor profile but changing the colour/contrast etc settings on the monitor.
The monitor profile is set in the operating system (in Windows 10 that is under Settings>System>Display >Advanced) which leads to a potential further issue. Operating system updates can sometimes load a different monitor profile, or a broken profile, which no longer represents the actual monitor.

Colour management is simple to use provided the document profile is correct, always save or export with an embedded profile, and the monitor/printer profile is correct. All the math is done in the background.

I hope that helps

Dave

H

huichuc64394650

Participant

Why can’t Adobe & Apple and others sit down and create a standard of some kind that would alleviate this problem. I take a great, perfectly lit picture on my iPhone, then when importing it to Photoshop on my device of on my desktop to add my corporate logo, then the image gets a 10% darker look, too large to ignore (It’s an annoying spoiler)

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