Pic looks great in Photoshop - not outside

I just saved an edited RAW file as JPEG, and outside of Photoshop it completely loses its vibrance, it just looks dull. Even the JPEG preview before I saved it looked good, but it just looks awful in comparison to the one I'm looking at in photoshop. What did I do wrong?

Is the image color space sRGB? Is your monitor calibrated?
Quick explanation: Only sRGB can be properly displayed by an application that is not color managed. PS is CM, Windows Viewer, IE, Firefox, etc. are not. Also, if your monitor is an inexpensive one and not calibrated, it may deviate from the sRGB standard.

Longer explanation: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=296149

I'm using sRGB and my monitor is calibrated (and kind of nice!)

I'll read through the link, but does it still apply of my monitor is calibrated? It seems like the white balance may be off after I save, or it has a more bluish cast instead of being a little more red.

Post the pic here with EXIF embedded in the pic.

I'm at work right now, but I'll try to remember to post it when I get back. It was taken at 50mm f/1.8 with my Canon XT. I took it in RAW, did a little RAW PP, then resized and saved as a JPEG at maximum quality... the JPEG preview still looked good (more realistic tones/white balance), but outside PS (windows explorer, AIM, etc) the picture has kind of bluish cast to it, and just overall looks less vibrant (probably the blue)

CaseLogic wrote in post #3342152
I'm at work right now, but I'll try to remember to post it when I get back. It was taken at 50mm f/1.8 with my Canon XT. I took it in RAW, did a little RAW PP, then resized and saved as a JPEG at maximum quality... the JPEG preview still looked good (more realistic tones/white balance), but outside PS (windows explorer, AIM, etc) the picture has kind of bluish cast to it, and just overall looks less vibrant (probably the blue)

Are you absolutely sure your color space is sRGB? When you shoot RAW you choose your space during conversion. If you have anything other than sRGB set in your convertor and don not convert it in PS then your colors will be off in non color managed apps as tzalman said above.

I won't say I'm *absolutely* sure so I don't look like an ass later, but I would say I'm 90% sure that I set it to sRGB because I thought I noticed it was the default, already set option. But if it wasn't, that would be a simple fix, so maybe I should hope I misread it

Also, this change b/w PS and non-PS isn't anything minute, it's a pretty significant difference. Not sure if that changes much.

CaseLogic wrote in post #3342186
I won't say I'm *absolutely* sure so I don't look like an ass later, but I would say I'm 90% sure that I set it to sRGB because I thought I noticed it was the default, already set option. But if it wasn't, that would be a simple fix, so maybe I should hope I misread it

Also, this change b/w PS and non-PS isn't anything minute, it's a pretty significant difference. Not sure if that changes much.

A significant change would occur if the non color managed app displayed a color space other than sRGB.

See this post for an example:

https://photography-on-the.net …php?p=2950597&p​ostcount=8

It also looks like if you use sRGB w/o the ICC profile included, it looks poor. Is that because the program doesn't know which color profile to use, and thus doesn't use the proper sRGB?

That does look kind of how my pictures look, so I'll be sure to check again when I get home. Thanks for your help, Mike.

Which version of Photoshop are you using. I recently upgraded to CS3 and then updated ACR to 4.1 and I'm not sure which one did it, but one of the two updates changed my default conversion to aRGB instead of sRGB. I processed quite a few pictures before I noticed the difference.

CaseLogic wrote in post #3342292
It also looks like if you use sRGB w/o the ICC profile included, it looks poor. Is that because the program doesn't know which color profile to use, and thus doesn't use the proper sRGB?

That does look kind of how my pictures look, so I'll be sure to check again when I get home. Thanks for your help, Mike.

Well, there was a debate after that post because of that last image. Jason (cosworth) says that it is an sRGB image with the profile missing, but others (myself included) believe that the shots should have the following tags:

1. ProPhotoRGB, profile embedded.
2. sRGB, Profile embedded
3. ProPhotoRGB, profile not embedded. (not sRGB, profile not embedded).

prime80 wrote in post #3342312
Which version of Photoshop are you using. I recently upgraded to CS3 and then updated ACR to 4.1 and I'm not sure which one did it, but one of the two updates changed my default conversion to aRGB instead of sRGB. I processed quite a few pictures before I noticed the difference.

Mine defaults to aRGB but that is my default setting in my camera (CS2). Did you change the setting n your camera perhaps?

I'm using CS3, but I haven't upgraded my ACR so whatever it came with is what I'm using. But my camera is defaulted to sRGB

CaseLogic wrote in post #3342435
I'm using CS3, but I haven't upgraded my ACR so whatever it came with is what I'm using. But my camera is defaulted to sRGB

Mine is as well. When you open a RAW file in ACR, look at the very bottom of the screen. The blue text there tells you what the default conversion settings are. Double check that to make sure it's not aRGB like mine was.

In2Photos wrote in post #3342365
Mine defaults to aRGB but that is my default setting in my camera (CS2). Did you change the setting n your camera perhaps?

No, my camera is set to sRGB. ACR has always defaulted to sRGB for me before, but I just noticed at home and at work it was set to aRGB for the default conversion. I don't know if that was the default with CS3, or just after I upgraded to ACR4.1