I'm not the brightest cookie in the tin with technical things.. but was wondering why the brightness and colour of exactly the same picture will be so different on various web sites? I uploaded a portrait pic, same one, same size etc onto 365 and onto facebook and they are different - the one on facebook is brighter, closer to the colours as my original, and the one on 365 looks more green as well as more dull. I cant think of a reason for this.. anyone any idea's? I've noticed before that my 365 pic changes a lot and I thought it was just down to my callibration or editing. Its not important, just wondering if anyone knows why!
I think I'm the only person who doesn't notice any difference :/ a lot of people have mentioned that the colors are more drab on here than the originals ones they had on their computers, but idk what else to tell you.
Some sites or uploaders will strip the colour profile from the photos, and so you end up with a "default" which is generally desaturated and less contrasty (I'm sure that's a word). Also, if you do not embed a colour profile or if you embed the wrong colour profile (anyone work in Adobe RGB?) it will convert when uploading (to sRGB) but won't do it very well, or it will simply strip the colour profile because it isn't a match for what the site uses.
Unfortunately, it often seems a bit random. For example, I was getting different colours and saturation when uploading to Facebook, depending on whether I was uploaidng to my personal profile or to my business profile. After about a month, it fixed itself, but a workaround I found was to convert my already sRGB image to sRGB in PS. I have no idea why it worked, but it did.
On a side note, my images here appear to look the same as they do in PS, most of the time. I have a calibrated monitor, so this is fairly easy for me to determine. A couple of times they haven't looked quite right, but they've been close enough that I know it wouldn't matter to anyone looking via a non-calibrated display.
So, ensure your images have the sRGB colour space embedded, and you might have better results. You will also get better results if you resize your images to exactly the size they will be displayed at here. The exception is if you keep higher resolution images here as a backup (Ace Members). The algorithms used by websites to resize images cause loss of sharpness and detail, and can affect the overall punchiness of an image - if your image is already sized exactly as per how it will be displayed, those algorithms don't do anything.
Just on @jinximages 's last point, resizing images down to 550px on the long edge doesn't make a difference here - they still get resampled down and you'll lose a lot of detail (depending on the type/colour of the detail present in your image, note).
@eyebrows Strike a light - that's a huge difference! I wonder why they're resampling? Bandwidth issues for the server? That's knocking at least 20% off the quality.
@jinximages Yea either bandwidth or storage concerns. I've had more harsh examples of file size shrinkage than that 1/3 too, I think I've had ones go down to 1/5 their original exported size, so when you look at it that way, that even in the best case of an image already being the right size Ross can save over 2/3 on storage costs, it just makes sense for a free enterprise like this to resample and save what can be saved. Which is a shame, but there you go.
LEFT: Before uploading, I resized the image to 550px on the long side, and converted the colour profile to sRGB. I then uploaded it to Project 365.
MIDDLE: I left the image at it's original size and left the original colour profile (Adobe RGB). I saved it to as higher quality JPG as I could whilst keeping it under 5MB. I then uploaded it to Project 365.
RIGHT: Same as the left image, but hasn't been uploaded to Project 365. This is how the image SHOULD look.
What I learnt from that little experiment, was the best thing to do is NOT resize your images to 550px. Just leave them as they are. The end result is still not ideal, but it's an improvement.
I see the differences clearly in David's project of comparison - I haven't noticed it personally on my computer but if at someone else's house I can see a huge difference at times which scares me as I wonder what others are seeing...plus at the moment working on a laptop from hospital I'm finding editing difficult as different screen angles, etc vary the pic greatly, I don't know what you guys are seeing compared to me...or what to do with laptop screen when editing...can anyone help with this???
@bink Problem with your method - you changed two things between the L and M photos, not one. So you can't say whether the difference between L and M was because you resized to 550px before uploading, or because you pre-converted to sRGB before uploading. Could've been either which caused the differences seen. I'd say it was much more likely to be the colour profile that did it, not the re-sizing/sampling, what with the chief differences between L and M being in colour terms rather than detail.
@sj The fact is everyone's monitor is going to display things slightly differently, so you *can't* know how an image is going to look on somebody else's. The best thing you can do is calibrate your own, so you at least have a good idea of a reasonable middle ground of image suitability. Whether this is even worth doing on a laptop screen, with their inherently poor viewing angle-related issues, I don't know, but I did my desktop PC recently by following this guide.
It's quite possible that @jinximages will know of a better calibration guide though, and I'd kowtow to his knowledge on this one I reckon.
The images I put in the comparison were just the ones I'd originally produced when attempting to get a decent looking result.
In the interest of thoroughness though, I've done as you suggested and included in the comparison, a version which has only had it's colour space converted to sRGB (no resizing done). http://s4.postimage.org/53o7o0fyk/comparison2.png
As you thought, it would appear to be the colour profile which is causing the crazy distortion. There is virtually no difference between the resized and non-resized versions of the images that have been converted to sRGB.
You basically stick it on your screen and it's software will run a series of tests automatically. It'll create and apply a profile for your monitor. You need to re-run it every few months because monitors are constantly changing as they age.
Working on a laptop is always going to be tricky. If you have the option to, just check your images on a decent desktop monitor (that's been calibrated) before uploading them or sending them to a printer (although accurately matching print output is another level of complication again).
Sarah, I agree with what Steve and David said. I don't have a better way of correcting your display. I also use the Spyder3 on my own computers - it is fast and accurate, and a lot easier than trying to do it manually. But it costs more, of course. ;)
I have also used EyeOne Display Calibrators and they work really well also. I also hear great things about ColorMunki.
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Unfortunately, it often seems a bit random. For example, I was getting different colours and saturation when uploading to Facebook, depending on whether I was uploaidng to my personal profile or to my business profile. After about a month, it fixed itself, but a workaround I found was to convert my already sRGB image to sRGB in PS. I have no idea why it worked, but it did.
On a side note, my images here appear to look the same as they do in PS, most of the time. I have a calibrated monitor, so this is fairly easy for me to determine. A couple of times they haven't looked quite right, but they've been close enough that I know it wouldn't matter to anyone looking via a non-calibrated display.
So, ensure your images have the sRGB colour space embedded, and you might have better results. You will also get better results if you resize your images to exactly the size they will be displayed at here. The exception is if you keep higher resolution images here as a backup (Ace Members). The algorithms used by websites to resize images cause loss of sharpness and detail, and can affect the overall punchiness of an image - if your image is already sized exactly as per how it will be displayed, those algorithms don't do anything.
Case in point.
I had a lot of issues with it tonight. I've put together a comparison of 3 images.
Comparison
In order from left to right:
LEFT: Before uploading, I resized the image to 550px on the long side, and converted the colour profile to sRGB. I then uploaded it to Project 365.
MIDDLE: I left the image at it's original size and left the original colour profile (Adobe RGB). I saved it to as higher quality JPG as I could whilst keeping it under 5MB. I then uploaded it to Project 365.
RIGHT: Same as the left image, but hasn't been uploaded to Project 365. This is how the image SHOULD look.
Something needs to be done to fix this.
It's quite possible that @jinximages will know of a better calibration guide though, and I'd kowtow to his knowledge on this one I reckon.
The images I put in the comparison were just the ones I'd originally produced when attempting to get a decent looking result.
In the interest of thoroughness though, I've done as you suggested and included in the comparison, a version which has only had it's colour space converted to sRGB (no resizing done).
http://s4.postimage.org/53o7o0fyk/comparison2.png
As you thought, it would appear to be the colour profile which is causing the crazy distortion. There is virtually no difference between the resized and non-resized versions of the images that have been converted to sRGB.
I use what's called a Spyder to calibrate all of my displays.
Datacolor - Spyder
You basically stick it on your screen and it's software will run a series of tests automatically. It'll create and apply a profile for your monitor. You need to re-run it every few months because monitors are constantly changing as they age.
Working on a laptop is always going to be tricky. If you have the option to, just check your images on a decent desktop monitor (that's been calibrated) before uploading them or sending them to a printer (although accurately matching print output is another level of complication again).
Sarah, I agree with what Steve and David said. I don't have a better way of correcting your display. I also use the Spyder3 on my own computers - it is fast and accurate, and a lot easier than trying to do it manually. But it costs more, of course. ;)
I have also used EyeOne Display Calibrators and they work really well also. I also hear great things about ColorMunki.