Why does the color change when uploading?!

[jplg842]

Hello yall
A newbie recently opened my Flickr account.

I noticed that the color of my pictures changes after i upload them!
I'm using Aperture. I export the photos and then upload them.
In this picture: The color changes a little in safari, but is a whole different thing on firefox..

This used to happen in iPhoto too when uploading my photos after exporting them to Facebook, however when i started using the Facebook uploader plugin.. things work great

One more thing when i use Photoshop and edit the colors and then export the photo.. it would be totally pale when i open it on preview for an example!!

Im totally lost.
Thanks

 

[thouts]

same thing happens to me...only i'm using lightroom. anyone shed some light on this?

 

[jampat]

Not normally my department, but I think it is something to do with the colour spaces used by the different browsers. If you are uploading in one space and the browser supports a different one, things aren't as you expect.

 

[thr33face]

basically the colour and it's associated information is the same in both browsers.
what changes is how the colour is displayed.

this happens because the image has a colour-profile embedded into it. this colour-profile defines how certain colours should appear on screen. but this can only be done if the application reading and displaying the image can also read the colour-profile and knows what to do with it.
if an image has no colour-profile embedded or the browser cannot use colour-profiles then it will display the image in standard sRGB colour-space.


i believe there is an option to use colour-profiles in the hidden settings of firefox.

 

[jplg842]

Its not about me.. its about what everyone on the net sees..

 

[r.j.s]

Its not about me.. its about what everyone on the net sees..

You have no control over what they see, unless their browser is set to use a certain profile, and they have calibrated their monitor, then they will see something different than you 95% of the time.

 

[Cliff3]

In Firefox, type about:config in the address bar and scroll down to gfx.color_management.enabled and make sure it's set to true. If you calibrate your monitor, you can specify a profile for Firefox to use in gfx.color_management.display_profile (/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/<profile file name>). Safari and Preview are color managed by default. Also make sure you're exporting as sRGB. I don't know what Aperture uses as the default color space for exports, but browsers expect sRGB.

 

[toxic]

Hello yall
A newbie recently opened my Flickr account.

I noticed that the color of my pictures changes after i upload them!
I'm using Aperture. I export the photos and then upload them.
In this picture: The color changes a little in safari, but is a whole different thing on firefox..

This used to happen in iPhoto too when uploading my photos after exporting them to Facebook, however when i started using the Facebook uploader plugin.. things work great

One more thing when i use Photoshop and edit the colors and then export the photo.. it would be totally pale when i open it on preview for an example!!

don't bother opening images in preview...they never seem to look right.

check color management on your browser:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=296149

Aperture defaults jpg exports to sRGB, btw.

 

[jplg842]

thanks guys for the reply.
But what about i losing some of its color (being pale) when uploaded (even on safari)

Aperture is exporting in: sRGB IEC61966-2.1

 

[Olivier L.]

Indeed, until a majority of browsers are "color profile aware", the way to go is make sure that you export picture for web with sRGB profile (it does not mean that the profile should be included, just that the color should be encoded in the reference).

 

[ChrisA]

In simple terms, your Mac is smart enough to look inside the image file and see what color space is being used. (Color space is the mapping of numbers in the file to color on the screen) the Aperture, Photoshop and the like all do this correctly but other software is not so well written and just blindly assums that the color space is "sRGB".

The best way to fix this is to convert the image to sRGB before you upload it. But be careful in "Adobe Speak" you want to "convert" not "assign" to the sRGB color space.

 

[jplg842]

Update:
I downloaded FFXporter to my iphoto. It worked perfectly with safari, the colors are perfect, but on firefox, and on a windows pc it was even worse than simple upload!

 

[cookie1105]

I remember this coming up for discussion a while ago. Here is a link that explains it quite well.

http://www.gballard.net/

 

[craigstoneUK]

same thing happens to me...only i'm using lightroom. anyone shed some light on this?

 

[craigstoneUK]

I had the same problem - turned out to be a setting in the export area of Lightroom... Ensure your settings are set to and go to: File Settings > Colour Space is set to sRGB. Previously mine was set to ProPhoto RGB. That is what stripped out the vibrance every time I uploaded to Wordpress or Twitter.

 

[MCAsan]

Capture in raw and in the widest color space your camera will support; usually AdobeRGB. Post processing in the widest color space your software (Aperture, Lightroom, Capture 1 Pro) will support;, usually ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB. Calibrate your monitor to sRGB or AdobeRGB if your monitor can do AdobeRGB gamut. This all helps to preserve all the data your camera captured. Then when it is time to output a jpg for the web or email, know that the exported file will be a jpg format file in the sRGB color space. The sRGB color space is the lowest common denominator supported by all modern computer systems.

 

[orph]

http://www.grygarness.com/ has a relay good pdf you can buy on color workflow. (i prefer the books to videos)

kind of scares me that your changing color settings, default tends to be the correct ones for most users)

MCAsan is 100% correct

all images for web need to be srgb
if you care about color calibrate your screen (not by eye use something like this http://www.xrite.com/colormunki-display), get a good display if you can.

dont mess with settings you dont understand.

understand that you may have a good setup but once there online you cant control the viewers color setup they may a bad display with the settings messed with.
if you get a lot of mobile phone hits check it on your iphone or ipad (if you have one)

if you change the apps color space it wont mean the files are saved in that color space, the color space the files are saved in is chosen at export.

 

[cooloregon]

Hello yall
A newbie recently opened my Flickr account.

I noticed that the color of my pictures changes after i upload them!
I'm using Aperture. I export the photos and then upload them.
In this picture: The color changes a little in safari, but is a whole different thing on firefox..

This used to happen in iPhoto too when uploading my photos after exporting them to Facebook, however when i started using the Facebook uploader plugin.. things work great

One more thing when i use Photoshop and edit the colors and then export the photo.. it would be totally pale when i open it on preview for an example!!

Im totally lost.
Thanks

Your monitor or screen is not calibrated. Also don't go by most camera display sreens as they aren't either. Most Mac's are set for sRGB color space. Check to make sure your camera is shooting this too. If not then the colors will look off. Your camera and display should both be set for the same color space. Also, if your editing them try and shoot in RAW or RAW+jpeg and not just jpeg. Edit all you want with the Raw file and after, save it as a jpeg.

 

[orph]

calibration dose not put your display in to aRGB or sRGB it just try's to ensure your display displays the colors that your computer sends to it.

macs are not set for sRGB but most the new imac displays do have high sRGB coverage
(quick google found this http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/mac-desktops/apple-imac-215-inch-27-inch-late-2013-reviews-3470461/ imac 27" 2013 has 100% sRGB 81% aRGB)
your display just displays the range of colors it can.

best not to change any settings in photo apps to do with color spaces unless you know what your doing, they are set correct for 99% of users.

 

[Apple fanboy]

calibration dose not put your display in to aRGB or sRGB it just try's to ensure your display displays the colors that your computer sends to it.

macs are not set for sRGB but most the new imac displays do have high sRGB coverage
(quick google found this http://www.macworld.co.uk/review/mac-desktops/apple-imac-215-inch-27-inch-late-2013-reviews-3470461/ imac 27" 2013 has 100% sRGB 81% aRGB)
your display just displays the range of colors it can.

best not to change any settings in photo apps to do with color spaces unless you know what your doing, they are set correct for 99% of users.

sRGB is around 75% of Adobe RGB. So showing 100% of sRGB is a bit misleading IMO.
Adobe software by default is set to prophoto colour space. To my knowledge nobody's camera or screen are capable of capturing and showing this (maybe high end phase one or red might). So I would recommend changing this to the widest colour gamut your monitor can display. For me that's 99% of the Adobe RGB colour space (I use a NEC Spectraview 241, hardware calibrated). Set your camera to the same.

 

[MCAsan]

Agreed that is why I replaced my Apple Thunderbolt Display for a Dell UP-2414Q that is 99% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB.

 

[beavo451]

sRGB is around 75% of Adobe RGB. So showing 100% of sRGB is a bit misleading IMO.

What is misleading?

 

[Apple fanboy]

What is misleading?

Quoting 100% of a number that's 75%.
In other words to the untrained ear, it may sound like they are saying 100% of the Adobe colour space.
Apple don't generally advertise their colour gamut in the way other manufacturers do. Smoke and mirrors and all that.

 

[orph]

according to the review it displays 100% of sRGB and 81% of aRGB.
I assume it displays more than sRGB up to 81% aRGB but i dont know how well it was tested.

I think it's best for the average user not to mess with settings without knowing what there doing and have a hardware calibrator, there best to stick to sRGB.
the default settings are best for 90% of users.

the color space in the camera only maters if your not shooting raw ie jpegs.

Photoshop will compensate for your display using display profile when you work, mostly displays at best display sRGB so best to stick to sRGB & if your just exporting for web sRGB is what you want.

ps nice display

 

[Apple fanboy]

I think it's best for the average user not to mess with settings without knowing what there doing and have a hardware calibrator,

By hardware calibrator I assume your talking about an i1 Display, Colormunki or Spyder colorimeter?
Unless your monitor has a LUT like a high end Eizo or NEC (and the new Benq's), these devices only preform a software calibration. Still good enough, but not as good as a hardware calibration like with my Spectraview.