Fixing Color Mismatch when saving images for the web

Hello everyone, I want to first welcome you to my blog and thank you for taking time to visit.  Today I cover a topic that I have received a lot of emails about.  The problem is, when some of you are uploading images to the web, the color looks much different than it did on your monitor.  Some of it has to do with what web browser you are using, but most of the time it’s not the browser.  Some browsers are color managed some are not.  For example Firefox and Safari are both managed, looking at the color information in the file and displaying the proper color space for that specific image.  Browsers like Google Chrome and Internet Explorer do not manage color, so what ever the color space a file has, it matter’s not, it be displayed as sRGB.  The actual problem isn’t the browser most of the time;  it’s how you render the files for the web.  The browser can cause the images to look a little off, but nothing drastic.

Many of you might work in Lightroom where ProPhotoRBG is the default color space, and some of you might have AdobeRGB set in your camera as the default color space.  Both of those color spaces are considered to be “wide gamut”. If you do not have a special monitor, you cannot see the color information from AdobeRGB as it is too wide for a standard monitor. Also, if dealing with ProPhotoRGB, it is too wide to be viewed and this color space is for inkjet printing, because special papers can print a wide color gamut, and can use that color space to produce very colorful prints.  With that said there is not a monitor built today that can display the ProPhotoRGB color space.

So what happens when you SAVE AS, a .jpeg image that is in the ProPhotoRGB color space?  The images color will stink when you upload and view it on the web, leaving you scratching your head, wondering what to do.  You see, all of the color space info is not out in the open, you have to dig to find it.

Today, I take the mystery out of converting color spaces, and teach you how to always get the best color for the web, regardless the color space you choose to work in.  Below are two images; the top one is how the images was intended to be viewed, and how it looked on my monitor.  The bottom was an image saved as a .jpeg but not converted from the ProPhotoRGB color space.  Look familiar?  I bet it does.

Intended Output

Actual Output

In the video below, I will show you how to make sure you never have a problem with color on the internet again. Thanks for taking time to visit, I will see you tomorrow – Tom