Prints on Web look like C&@%!

[Croasdail]

Okay - I will admit it... I am an old film guy. I moved to digital work 6 months ago, and so far I have learned how to take images and keep noise and colour under control, I have learned how to make them look really pretty on screen, how to get the Canon 9900 print them real pretty - but for the life of me, somewhere in that jump from PS to the web posting, I can't make them look good for web posting. They go from having deep rich color to ho-hum dull on screen. What is the magic button you have to push... I am tierd of playing with "save for web", or trying to resize and "save as". Someone throw me a bone and at least get me headed in the right direction. One thing I am doing is shooting adobeRGB and moving them to sRGB. Thanks!

[bachscuttler]

One thing I am doing is shooting adobeRGB and moving them to sRGB. Thanks!

This immediately jumps out at me.
There's people much more qualified to comment than me and most of my stuff is web based, but this rings an alarm bell straight away.

You need to keep the profiles the same or you will see a big difference.

[UncleDoug]

One thing I am doing is shooting adobeRGB and moving them to sRGB. Thanks!


When you say "moving" what do you mean.
CONVERTING from AdobeRGB to sRGB?

Also, I see you are using PS, which version?
And what OS, Mac or Windows?

[UncleDoug]

Got a little test you may want to perform to track down what is happening and give you an insight into some of color management do's & dont's.

Open an image in PS.
Go to
Edit>Convert to profile...
You are displayed your SOURCE space/profile and various options for your DESTINATION space/profile.
Try changing around the DESTINATION space and checking and unchecking the Preview box so you can see the effect you are having.
For the most part if your SOURCE space is RGB and you CONVERT to a CMYK space or a bizzare RGB space, this is when you will see noticeable change. Otherwise your image should not change that drastically.

Now go to
Edit>Assign profile...
Once again, try changing the profile and checking & unchecking the Preview box.
You will see drastic changes.

CONVERTING to another color space is not so bad(there are issues to consider though). It is when you ASSIGN a profile to an image that already has a profile associated with it that all hell breaks loose.

Make sense?

[Croasdail]

hey - just refound this thread.... sorry! I will try test this weekend and see if things work better. What I don't understand is images posted on pbase don't suffer as bad those posted here - though they are still not optimal. I know that doesn't make any sense other then I am not having to reduce them as much and that would account for some of it. Thanks for the response.. I just had lost the thread. Cheers!