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Help - New to mac and terrible photoshop brightness issue.

B

baj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 29, 2009
3
0
Hi,
Finally made the plunge from a windows to mac, anyway, ill get to the point.

Im a web developer so frequently have to cut up designs in photoshop to apply them to my websites, however Im having an issue that has now cost me a days production and im hoping someone can help, sorry, i said i would get straight to the point...

Any image created in Photoshop cs3 or cs4 and then saved appears to be brighter than its origin in PS. It started with a PSD i was provided, and I noticed that the gradients etc I were cutting up were completely wrong when viewed in the web browser, the issue is always the same one, they are too bright, a lightish blue will appear bright cyan, and further investigation showed they were bugger in iphoto, preview, everything. So i created a couple of new gradient images from scratch, thinking it was something with the psd, however these same completely new images suffered from the same problem.

So i then went over to my windows based photoshop (different machine) opened the same psd from the client, saved off some gradients from the design and viewed them in preview / firefox on the windows machine and its fine, no issue, i then copy those same images over to the macbook to view and lo and behold they are too bright. If i open up that image in photoshop on the macbook its fine.

Gah. So i saved a web image from a completely random site, opened it in photoshop, saved it for web, and it was fine. So its not doing it for ALL images. If I save the image with just "save as" and not for web and choose to keep the profile image information, its fine, if i choose not to keep the profile image information, its buggered. However, no matter what options i choose when save for web, its always screwed.

Oh, and ive made sure its not a compression issue (ie too few colours)


Really dont know where to start, and hoping someone very clever here knows what the hell im talking about and can help, thanks in advance,

a very frustrated, baj
 
jerryrock said:
Change the gamma of your Mac from 1.8 to 2.2 (which is now the accepted standard) and calibrate your display.
Click to expand...

Perfect! Thank you, Jerryrock!

Edit: *ggaaahhh*
No that hasnt fixed the issue. If I save the file still and view it, it's too bright. Now, I wasnt that bothered since i thought "well, itll look ok on everyone elses", but if i view the image on my PC, its took bright on that as well. Im wondering if there's something ive ticked etc that I shouldnt have when saving files in photoshop yesterday when i was trying to fix this...
 
Too bright is relative. I've been in this biz for 5 years and I've never had any issues with others passing me PSD's on my mac. Preview and iPhoto do not use true colors so you can't compare your PSD using that.
 
You didn't mention what colorspace you are working in. Images saved in Adobe RGB will often looked washed out when viewed in non-color managed web browsers. Converting to sRGB for the web will often fix the problem.
 
Because I work with print, my default color profile is generally Adobe RGB (1998). When the target is the Web, sRGB is preferred. If an image has the wrong profile, you may need to convert it (Edit menu) before using "Save for Web & Devices." Make certain your default color profile is correctly set across the entire Creative Suite.
 
ChicoWeb said:
Too bright is relative. I've been in this biz for 5 years and I've never had any issues with others passing me PSD's on my mac. Preview and iPhoto do not use true colors so you can't compare your PSD using that.
Click to expand...
Hi, and thanks.
Likewise, I've been in the industry for 10 years this year, and have never seen this issue before. It's not relative, since if I save the image off and view it on my PC, it's too washed out/bright, I think the other posters are right refering to color settings, thanks.

jerryrock said:
You didn't mention what colorspace you are working in. Images saved in Adobe RGB will often looked washed out when viewed in non-color managed web browsers. Converting to sRGB for the web will often fix the problem.
Click to expand...

Am now working in Adobe 1998 after a recomendation from someone else, but it hasnt solved the problem

Kwill said:
Because I work with print, my default color profile is generally Adobe RGB (1998). When the target is the Web, sRGB is preferred. If an image has the wrong profile, you may need to convert it (Edit menu) before using "Save for Web & Devices." Make certain your default color profile is correctly set across the entire Creative Suite.
Click to expand...

Have tried all possible options in "Save for web", nothing works (yes, exhaustively over an hour literally trying all combinations.
 
baj said:
Am now working in Adobe 1998 after a recomendation from someone else, but it hasnt solved the problem
Click to expand...

The problem is that Adobe PS and the Mac will "look in side" the image and see that it is "Adobe 1998" and display it correctly. But most of the world is not so smart and does not bother to look inside the file and just assumes that everything is sRGB.

The only way to deal with this is to rig it so the non-color managed outside world's assuption turns out to be true -- convert you images to sRGB. But be carful, Adobe has two two concepts "asign" and "convert" the first one simple tags the file the second one tags the files and changes the pixel values. You want the second one.

Some people will "assign" sRGB and then complain that it still looks the same. Don't do that..
 
have the same issue, but found a temp solution..

Hey baj,
I'm a webdesigner from Egypt & i just migrated to mac few months ago as well, and have experienced first hand this silly wired problem..

But as this issue was "time crucial" for me, i found a temporary solution that gave me a good results while it wasn't so "web efficient", files are relatively lighter in "save for web" but my temp solution depends on the "save as" JPG while (Embed Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1) is checked.

I came up with this solution couple of days ago in a deadline stress, but now i have some time to experiment solutions or search forums (like i'm doing now), so if i reached a satisfactory results i'll let you know..

cheers
Shicco
 
shicco said:
check this out:
http://www.viget.com/inspire/the-mysterious-save-for-web-color-shift/

i moved with his steps & tested the calibration with his testing tool, it seems good in theory although it just get rid of all of the vibrant srgb colors, but this is life ;)

anyway if i stumble upon something else i'll let you know..

cheers
Click to expand...

I ran into this as well, and agree that "Convert to sRGB" is an evil setting in Save for Web. Turn it off...

"Open up any image on your machine and File / Save For Web. Next to the Preset option, there's a sneaky little arrow...click it and uncheck "Convert to sRGB."
 
shicco said:
Hey baj,
i found a temporary solution that gave me a good results while it wasn't so "web efficient", files are relatively lighter in "save for web" but my temp solution depends on the "save as" JPG while (Embed Color Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1) is checked
Click to expand...

Embedded profiles increase file size and many web browsers do not read embedded. However, embedded profiles are good for print or for softproofing.
 
Try This,

In your PS "Save For Web" window, locate the small triangle menu button on the top right, just to the left of the Save button. Click on the button and select "Standard Windows Color", works for me.
 

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If you uncheck "ICC Profile" when you are saving for web, the colors will match your CSS colors. That's the trick I've been using.
 
Small detail: if you are using PNG graphics, you need to delete the gamma correction chunk from the files. I use ImageOptim for that.

If you don't remove the gamma chunk from the PNG files, the colors from the PNG won't match those from the (X)HTML, CSS, GIFs and JPEGs.
 
This has always been an issue with CS on a Mac...

But there are fixes for it, the issue is cause from CS* incorrectly interpreting the gamma hence the image appears to be brighter or less vibrant colour wise.


1) Make sure you are working with Proof Colours selected. View > Proof Colours

2) Make sure when you do "Save for Web..." the ICC profile is deselected

3) Check that you are working in Monitor RGB. View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB

4) Check in Colour Settings that you are working in sRGB IEC61966-2.1 Working Spaces for RGB.

5) Also check that the Colour Conversion is ACE in the Colour Setting, you can change to the Apple one but IMO I've had less issues with ACE.


This generally should fix the issue but I do understand this is a completely frustrating issue...

I have plenty of links about this on my home computer, PM if you would like me to send them to you (and that goes for anyone else interested).
 
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