Save For web Legacy Issue

[Mitchell84]

Hi,  I hope someone can help me with this as it has been bugging me for a while. Brief background.  I have a View Sonic 4K monitor that can do Adobe RGB and SRGB at 100%. I have calibrated it with a Spyder Pro in the hope to get accurate colors.  I've also calibrated my 16 inch macbook to try get a close match between the two screens. So far so good it would seem.

Now when I finish with my edit in Photoshop I go to Save For Web and tick the convert to sRGB tab and for preview I select Monitor Color. Now here is my issue. When I select the view mode as 2-up I get to see the orginial file and the Jpeg preview side by side.  The Jpeg Image on screen previews as super saturated compared to the original image.  I've attached a screen grab to show this. But when I save and export the file the Jpeg looks correct just like the original image in photoshop. So no harm done.

So my question is what is the Preview Monitor Color showing me? I've never understood this. As you can see the difference between the two images looks absurd. Is this a cause for concern? What is Photoshop telling me?

[Jeff Arola · Accepted solution]

Instead of Monitor Color you should select Use Document Profile.

You have Embed Color Profile checked so you want to preview how the image looks using the embedded document profile (sRGB).

[Mitchell84]

Cool. I'll do that instead. 

[davescm]

Jeff is spot on - using Monitor color makes the source and destination profiles the same, effectively switching off color management, so you are seeing the document as if it was not being colour managed.

Dave

[Mitchell84]

So if someone was to view the image in an uncalibrated application that's how it would appear.? That thought alone is quite worrying but I guess there isn't anything I can do about it.

[davescm]

If someone is viewing using an uncalibrated & unprofiled screen or on a non colour managed system all bets are off. Walk into a TV shop and see the result of that - same show, lots of different colours !

All you can do is adjust on a calibrated and profiled system and send your document out into the big wide internet world using sRGB and with the profile embedded. Those who care enough to use color management, will see it correctly.

Dave