Q: I recently scanned a few negatives and saved them as TIFFs. I processed one in CS6, flatted the image, converted to 8 bit and saved as a JPG. However the resulting JPG was much darker (at least, maybe other issues) than the TIFF. Anyone know what Im doing wrong? A: This happens to everybody when they go from a nice, color-profile aware application like Photoshop (PSD, TIF, or profile-attached jpg) to an web browser or application that doesnt recognize profiles. It akin to converting to CMYK for printing, the look of the image will change from the optimal display within Photoshop. What most people do is edit their photos in a wide gambit color space like ProPhotoRGB (or the old Adobe RGB, etc.) so they can see the most possible colors and tones in their images. Then for use online, they will resize and use Photoshops Save for Web command with convert to sRGB enabled and color profile embedded. These are check boxes on the upper left of the Save for Web window. You can also preview what images will look like in certain browsers (they are all a bit different). Think of it as printing, you will want to experiment and test, go back and redo. Also it is a moving target since 98% of the online audience has no idea what a color profile is and their monitors and viewing environments differ from each other. Imagine how hard this must be for an online business that sells color critical items (like clothing). Its really kind of nutty that it is this variable. What I usually end up doing is lowering saturation 20-25% and sometimes opening up the mid-tones (bump the middle of the curve up). I saved this as an action so I can batch - using the Photoshop Automate menu (under File). Then it is accessible from Bridge as well. Similar actions can be used in Lightroom (but I hate LR). The end result is a JPG with the sRGB profile embedded. In Photoshop this file will look more open and flat colored than normal but it will render on most unaware web browsers most like my intent. It will also render similarly on aware web browsers like Safari. So far this is the best compromise. Not only are monitors, lighting, peoples eyeballs, and browsers going to display your images slightly different but even websites like Flickr and Facebook going to crunch and try to enhance your images with canned improvements intended to boost contrast and sharpness for the mass majority of images. The whole idea here is to make our images look snappy, loud, overly sharp, and HDR-ish for a Microsoft PowerPoint world. In fact that is the basis for the sRGB profile (remove subtle colors and make things more candy-coated). Were stuck with this legacy from the early internet and HP/Microsofts clumsy attempt at making sRGB the universal compromise and standard. Its doubtful that it will change and most vendors and photographers have learned to live with it. Eventually, perhaps, all of our applications will be color profile aware and in theory we could save our jpgs using better, wider range color profiles... but for the next few years at least, it makes sense to save them in sRGB since that is the closest thing to what your image will look like in a color profile unaware application. In all cases you want to retain your master file as a 16-bit RGB (or grayscale) Photoshop TIF (or PSD) with a wide gambit profile (like ProPhotoRGB). This is what you back up and store forever, resizing and converting versions to save as when you need them for a specific use. Related to this is preparing your images for printing on a commercial litho press (not an inkjet) where you will Convert to Profile with a CMYK profile (that matches their litho method/paper stock). In many cases doing this conversion will compromise the overall quality of the image, which is why commercial printing is so challenging. Think of a monitor as a print and realize that you need to print and tweak your images for optimal display just as you would a print. Of course you can dash off automated quick and dirties, most people do, but for something like your website or a nicer venue then spend some time testing and optimizing, pretend to be your audience and check how things look on different devices and situations.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 13:21:06 +0000
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