Desaturated colours in web

[simons67438321]

Good day, and yes I know this question has been asked (and answered) a billion times already - unfortunately I haven't been able to solve it.

My issue is that paintings I made in Photoshop CC look very desaturated on websites. I tried Twitter, Deviantart and Artstation so far on Chrome, Chrome Canary, Firefox and Safari.

At this point, everything in PS is properly set to sRGB, I don't even open a new file without making sure it's in sRGB to begin with, I've tried convert to sRGB, save for web and export as PNG/JPEG with embedded color profile, my proof setup is in sRGB and yet I can't get it to look properly on any website.

I'm just trying to figure out where the problem is, since as far as I can tell it's neither my monitors (imac 5k 27" late 2015 and some old Fujitsu one), nor PS nor the browser.

As for the websites then, how do other pictures look completely fine? I tried all manner of exporting and saving as well as taking screenshots...

I screenshot the desaturated upload and the perfectly fine screenshot side by side and reuploaded them, and they were both even more desaturated.

While writing this I tried screenshotting random stuff and it comes out desaturated on the sites as well, which is weird too since the screenshot is saved as RBG as well and looks like it's supposed to until I upload it.

I was thinking maybe my monitor is just that saturated for some reason, but then why do I see desaturated images to begin with?

I googled and found an article saying that some websites clash with color management so in Edit>Assign Profile, checking "don't color manage this" should help, which it seemed to do for regular screenshots but not PS saves/exports.

I can't even replicate the same desaturated look with any of the color settings in PS..

I'm seriously out of ideas. So I have no idea where the problem is and I apologise for the rambling tone I've been trying to fix this since forever.

Hopefully this is just me overlooking some obvious stuff but still.

Thanks in advance to anyone reading this,

Simon

[floramc]

Have you checked the edit> color settings> advanced controls that desaturate monitor colors by "xx%" is not marked?

[simons67438321]

This box is unchecked

[Terri_Stevens]

could you post one of your desaturated images here? So we can take a look at it?

[harry5EE1]

Hello,

Can you help.

I have an image of graph with 3 lines red, blue green.

At the moment it is just one object.

How can I move each of the colour lines to a different layer ??

Thanks.

Harry 

[josephr19774008]

Could you please share one of the images you're having issues with. I'm curious why that would happen. Thanks!

[D Fosse]

AFAIK 2015 was when Apple introduced wide gamut displays (DCI-P3).

This means you must have full color management at all times, no exceptions. sRGB will not display correctly without color management.

So - aside from making sure the profile is embedded in the file:

• are you using a fully color managed web browser?
• have you changed anything in Photoshop's color settings? If so, what?
• do you have a monitor profile that describes the display's actual, current behavior? This normally means one made by a calibrator.

[simons67438321]

Thank you for answering!

As described in my answer post, It was actually a problem with the browser. I probably messed up while testing this and had some option marked when I tested it on other browsers (unless they have similar issues to Chrome).

I changed/experimented with basically all the color profile/management settings in PS, but reset them all to default once I was done.

I did calibrate my monitor with the expert calibration option, but tested it with factory settings and other presets as well.

[D Fosse]

OK, good - just a general remark:

Don't change Photoshop's color settings to "fix problems". That's not where those problems are. The default settings are idiot-proof, and if you have problems that's not it.

Above all, always keep color management policies at "preserve embedded profiles". Don't ever change that unless you have very good reasons, and those reasons better be convincing indeed.

If you have color problems anywhere, it's because color management stops, broken by other applications outside Photoshop's control. It could be a web browser where color management is disabled or non-existent. It could also be broken because of a corrupt monitor profile. Photoshop can't control that.

As long as the file has an embedded color profile, and it's correct and valid, Photoshop has delivered on its end.

[simons67438321]

Thank you, that is definitely a good thing to go by.

I only started messing with Photoshop's settings because the first thing I found was that the "embed color profile" option in the export window was unchecked, and from there the only fixes I ever found in articles or forums was stuff about Photoshop's settings.

[D Fosse]

Ah, well, yes, that's the one exception...there's always one, isn't there...

Save For Web and Export do not embed the profile by default. Obviously, they should, so check this box.

Why this default has survived is a mystery, there's no reasonable justification for it. Back in the stone age, a 3kB addition to the file size may have been significant, but that is certainly no longer the case. And anyway it's becoming mandatory now that Apple changed to wide gamut displays as standard. Previously, owners of wide gamut displays could be relied upon to know the implications.

[simons67438321 · Accepted solution]

After further digging, I found the issue!

Apparently, the problem was indeed in Chrome's color management being broken/nonexistent.

This seems to be a persisting issue, with only workarounds working so far in the Chrome Beta.

The most recent post on this topic I found is https://diglloyd.com/blog/2017/20170618_2110-GoogleChrome-broken-color-managment-fix-coming.html. There is a fix described.

Thank You to everyone who answered!