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Color lost in translation
I used to edit photos on a pc with CS2 and I recently switched over to a mac with CS3 and I am having trouble with the colors and contrast getting lost from photoshop to posting on the internet. When I open my photo in CS3 I get it just the way I want it with beautiful bright colors and high contrast but then when I upload it to my pbase or myspace account the photo looks completely washed out with no contrast. It looks just muted and monotone. I know it is not pbase or myspace because when I use my pc with CS2 the photo looks exactly the same from saving it in photoshop to uploading it on my site. Also, I have already calibrated my monitor so I know that it cannot be the mac’s monitor. It cannot be the screen because when I am sitting on my mac I can see the pictures that I edited on my pc on the site and they look just how I wanted them to. It is only the pictures I edit on my mac that I am having trouble with and I refuse to believe that the mac is less capable of editing photos than a pc. It has to be something I am doing! Help, my editing has ceased!
Thank you.
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3 Replies
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When do you notice the color shift?
When you open the image in PS, after you save it and open it in a browser or preview, only after upload?Please explain the process you are using to prepare these images for the internet.
I don’t have enough information right now to figure out where you may be making an error. -
You are most likely experiencing a gamma shift somewhere. My guess is that you’re not using color management at some step in the process where you should be. Are your PSDs color managed? Have they all been converted to sRGB and the profile been embedded?
In the days of yore the Mac to PC gamma shift was even more of a headache. Now the headache is slightly smaller and displaced into more of a general uneasiness about color management =)
Mac classically assumes a gamma of 1.8 where as PC generally uses 2.2, resulting in files created on a Mac that don’t use color management to look much darker on a PC and files created on a PC that don’t use color management to look much lighter on a Mac.
To add to the confusion most web browsers don’t currently read color profiles in images, but rather assume an sRGB (gamma = 2.2) image so the problem could in fact be the browser you are viewing the files with… Here’s more info on that:
https://ejohn.org/blog/color-profiles/
And a link to a page to test whether the browser you’re currently using supports ICC profiles:
https://www.color.org/version4html.xalter
Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Hi,
I’m wondering if the OP ever resolve this issue? I’m having the exact same problem. It must have something to do with my PS or my Mac. All I do is take an image, resize it, and save. Then I upload onto a webpage, the colors are totally washed out. If I do the same thing on my Winddows desktop, everything is fine.
The resized image looks fine on my Mac, and looks fine if I simply drag it into a browser. It is only when uploaded to webpage that it changes.
If I simply upload existing images that I did NOT process using PS on my mac, colors stay true after uploading to the same webpage.
So, it must be something to do with my PS on Mac. By the way, I also tried different versions of PS on the same mac. Same problem always occurs.
Can someone help?
Thanks!
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