Why does it change?

[hybridkyle]

OK, I have been trying this all night long...for some reason just recently my images look different when I upload to Flickr, or PB...whatever

Once done in PS I go to "save for web" and it looks different in the preview there too, I would say looks to be over half an exposure darker. When I "save as" it looks fine in my browser but when uploaded it does the same thing. NOW, I got an image that I was going to use as a background, and when I set it as background it's darker...

WASSSUP? >:(

[hybridkyle]

REALLY? no-one knows why this is suddenly happening...?

[Scottes]

Sounds like it could be color profile issues, and I'm guessing that you're using CS3 or earlier.

Before you "Save For Web" go to (I think) Edit... Convert To Profile and choose sRGB as the destination.


If that's not it...
"When I "save as" it looks fine in my browser..." - What Browser and version?

"it looks fine in my browser but when uploaded it does the same thing." - What same thing? Looks fine? Or it looks darker?

Once you upload, how are you viewing it? Through the same browser?

But... I think I know what you're talking about, and it sounds like the same root problem - color space. I'm guessing that Flickr and PB are re-sizing your images and assigning them sRGB when they are not sRGB. This will screw up the colors - though people usually complain about muddy or washed-out colors, not darker ones.

[hybridkyle]

It somehow got put into ProPhoto Oppppps! LOL thanks for the help

[masse]

I've had something very similar happen, just last night in fact, and I was going to post until I realized it's more a display issue (still unknown) than a true, working color space issue....

...While I've had color space issues that incorrectly display colors, contrast, etc., this, as with yours, literally darkens the image and nothing more; what I realized is that opening a .jpg using windows picture viewer is the only time the image appears like this; I sent the jpg to a friend and it looked fine. He sent the same file back to me and I opened it at the office, and it looked fine...it's happened to me before, and each time, out of the blue, the jpg's begin appearing as they should..as they did in PS..

Please update us; I obviously don't know exactly what's going on, but in my experience it's more an issue of how my machine is displaying the .jpg, not an issue with the .jpg itself (even though I'm on a calibrated monitor)...

[Scottes]

It may be that the programs used to view the images support color profiles differently. Probably one does, and the other doesn't - but there *might* also be issues with supporting and displaying a particular profile.

I highly doubt that Windows Picture Viewer supports profiles. Photoshop does. Firefox can - depending on the version and configuration. Internet Explorer depends on the version, as does (I think) Safari. This list could go on and on and on.

A calibrated versus non-calibrated monitor is least likely to be the issue. The colors might not perfectly match, but they'll probably be fairly close. Removing any gross errors or negligence, you'd probably have to have the two monitors side-by-side to tell which one is wrong.

[masse]

What's odd to me is the inconsistency of this phenomenon ; of the several dozen images I've put serious PP time into recently, only last nights batch (every one of them) appeared incorrectly when proofing the jpg with windows picture viewer. I have no idea what may have changed; I rarely if ever adjust my color space, my proof setup is always the same in PS...it really is a bit strange.

[hybridkyle]

The only thing that was wrong with my situation was that somehow the image got put into ProPhotoRGB instead of being sRGB or AdobeRGB...

Once I changed it back into AdobeRGB it was fine, displayed fine in all browsers...everything is back to normal now!

[zagiace]

fyi, if you are going to upload images to the web you should convert them to sRGB. They will look fine in firefox 3.0 if you have it configured correctly but all of those using IE will see something funky.