Jean P, according to the info from g ballard this could be the case. But… when I work in Photoshop in sRGB, then I assume the colors in my document are those from the sRGB gamut. So when I Safe For Web in sRGB, why is Photoshop still changing the colors? I may be wrong here, but I believe this is the essence of my problem. Fw doesn’t do this.
I have put the example-files on <http://www.waalweb.nl/forum.zip> If I open both the jpg’s in Photoshop there is a big difference between the two: the jpg I made with Fw is very dull. But in Preview the Fw jpg is similar to the Photoshop original.
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Additional to my last post: the photoshop.jpg I saved without ICC profile included, which shouldn’t make a difference since the profile is sRGB. Safari confrims this: if saved with ICC profile there is no difference. Standard I have Safe For Web set on Convert to sRGB.
Ann, my monitor is callibrated and also according the same settings as indicated by g ballard. Point might be that I do this with the standard callibrate programm that comes with the mac. It says as a start I should set the contrast and the brightness on 100%. This is way too much on my monitor, so I put the contrast on 50%, any higher value has disastruous results. Maybe solving this otherwise might make the difference… but how?
First I THOUGHT that I had my monitor callibrated but since earlier I had to go back a few days with Time Machine it wasn’t. I never realised this meant a missing profile and after doublechecking my monitor I saw that the profile I once made was missing. So after correcting this the difference is still there but less.
Next my main color settings in Photoshop. Don’t ask me how it must have happened cause I really can’t think of the cause, since I have synchronised my settings with Bridge. But in the Color Settings at More Options > Addvanced Controls > Desaturate Monitor Colors was on at 16%… very strange, I’m sure I checked and doublechecked. It is off now.
Next important (but I had turned this on earlier already thanks to g ballard) is at Proof Setup, choose Monitor RGB.
And now… I have what I was looking for, the colors in my Photoshop working document are exactly the same as in the files I Save For Web!!!!! So I can work!
Leaves me with the question what Monitor RGB exactly is. I mean, I work on that monitor, callibrate it for no other reason but to get a truefull as possible view. For what reason should I want to see it with another profile then the monitor profile? Ok, checking it for the Windows platform when working on Mac. But why Mac RGB when working on Mac? So what’s the difference and is this important? There is a visible difference between the two, does this mean that my callibration is wrong?
You are saying when you have a tagged sRGB file open in Photoshop CS3, and you
View> Proof Setup: MonitorRGB
That you do not see a huge saturation shift, especially in the reds on that monitor?
Again, based on my experience with Mac OSX and your monitor model, I find that hard to believe….
+++++++
In any case, IMO, the "wide gamut" monitors are unfit for web surfing under the Mac OSX operating systems because their monitor profile is so far outside the sRGB color space.
This means, unless the color is tagged, the Mac displays it through its default monitor profile, and this super saturates sRGB.
I after talking to Dell, Eizo, X-Rite to investigate the issues — it is a hardware issue the Mac ColorSync cannot overcome — you won’t be able to calibrate/profile this monitor to display untagged sRGB on a Mac without the intense saturation boost (at least until Apple fixes their ColorSync system so we can set a Default RGB space).
I sent my Dell back and got a standard LCD gamut screen, NEC 2490WUXi to use as a second monitor.
+++++++
Lastly, CS3 Save For Web default automatically Converts to sRGB and untags the file, but it appears you have either changed the default settings to tag the file and/or not Convert it or I do not understand your issues.
As Buko said, FireWorks on Mac is not color managed so it always displays like a dumb Mac browser on a Mac (assuming-assigning-applying default Monitor RGB)…that means if you feed Fireworks sRGB (it super saturated in the reds) and if you feed Fireworks a high-gamut RGB (like AdobeRGB or Dell MonitorRGB) it will desaturate on normal-gamut monitors, but it will look great on the high-gamut monitors.
he’s making his profile through the Apple system Displays>Color>Calibrate routine, so his profile probably doesn’t have a lot to do with how the monitor is actually performing.
doesn’t matter how you calibrate and profile them —- high-gamut LCD panels will never display the internet (untagged sRGB) on a Mac without the cartoon saturation shift —- at least that’s was my conclusion after having one here
I have a new display with a significantly wider gamut than my last one (but probably not as wide as you are describing.) I see significant saturation increase with it on your test pages, but the behavior is significantly different when I make an instrument profile from when I use the stock one, or when I alter the stock one with the Apple software.
With this particular monitor, the stock profile is so bad that I see cartoonish color with it whether I am viewing an image with a profile or not. so I would have no idea what this monitor’s behavior was had I not done an instrument profile.
the ‘standard’ LCD displays, like the apple cinema displays, will cover about 70% AdobeRGB, the wide-gamut manufactures will state something like covers 96% of the AdobeRGB color space.
Samsung claims it has 97% the gamut of NTSC… but I don’t know the gamut of NTSC.
Comparing a custom profile to profiles I have done of recent Samsung predecessors, this one has a noticeably wider gamut. My earlier Samsung monitors are 244t and 214t, each newer one has a wider gamut.
I am using the standard Mac calibrate program. So if I have that calibrated profile active and I make my design in Photoshop (sRGB) with View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB on, it looks like the right way to work to me. No surprises when I save for web. Or am I fooling myself then since my monitor is a exeption?
g ballard, you wrote: You are saying when you have a tagged sRGB file open in Photoshop CS3, and View> Proof Setup: MonitorRGB That you do not see a huge saturation shift, especially in the reds on that monitor?
This was my problem. Only it was a file I made myself, in sRGB, so in the document window it was as I choose it to be. The huge saturationshift was after that, in the Safe For Web window. But as for now I assumed to have solved this.
What you are trying to make me understand is that my monitor space is way outside the sRGB space. I suppose also after making my own calibration?
So in Photoshop I think now that I’m working in sRGB, might be correct in a way since as a result of this I don’t have the biggest possible choise of colors. Then I work with all these nice bright warm colors, let’s say I pick #123456, but then on other monitors #123456 seems in reality a dull dead color. Better to work on a standard gamut monitor, this way I can choose bright colors (which would be over the edge on my Dell) and these will be more or less similar for the rest of the world. Is this correct?
g ballard, tagged or untagged sRGB, it is the smallest color profile, standard on most monitors. So what difference makes the tagging? Maybe I keep missing something here.
You say FireWorks on Mac is not color managed so it always displays like a dumb Mac browser on a Mac.. This is not true, Fw uses sRGb and it displays now (with my refound settings) my psd exactly as does in Photoshop.
But what you describe is what all the browsers exept Safari do to my images: desaturation. And yes, the reds are the worst. So this is the cause for what I have been wondering all the time. My monitor is beautifull for pictures but for web I can better use another one since it shows the colors too much saturated. This is what you call the cartoon saturation.
I believe I finally get it. And this is due to Mac and not to Dell? And there is no key to solve this by calibration? I start now with brightness 100% and contrast 50%. Any solution there?Maybe buy a hardware calibration set?
Ann, the directions from Apple are 100% contrast and brightness, but 100% contrast is too much, you can see it right at the start and this doesn’t approve during the calibration process.
The directions, as I recall, are for 100% Contrast: and to set the Brightness so that a dark gray square is barely differentiated from a surrounding patch.
A hardware puck would be more reliable unless you have unusually perfect color-perception abilities.
tagged or untagged sRGB, it is the smallest color profile
Simply: sRGB is the target color space on the internet.
I believe I finally get it…this is due to Mac and not to Dell…there
is no key to solve this by calibration?
Yes, that is the conclusion I came to.
So what difference makes the tagging?
Tagging means everything in color-managed applications BECAUSE the color management system reads the embedded profile AND converts it to the Target proofing profile: <http://www.gballard.net/psd/cmstheory.html>
Again, the problem is Windows Assigns sRGB to untagged color, and Mac Assigns Monitor RGB to untagged color (at least that’s how Safari was performing the last time I looked).
For unmanaged applications, we CONVERT to the target color space ICC profile and Save a copy — that is the best we can do.
Again, Windows Vista Business (Safari color-managed app) here sees ZERO change in the sRGB rollovers on BOTH standard- and wide-gamut LCD screens.
This tells us Windows browsers Assume-Apply-Assign sRGB to untagged color.
Further, I am pretty sure Safari Windows browser is mapping (converting) the sRGB to the monitor profile and displaying sRGB faithfully through Monitor RGB regardless if it is tagged or untagged.
These hi-gamut monitors seem to work fine with sRGB and the internet.
Not to burst your brain, but viewing your untagged hi-gamut Monitor RGB in Windows Safari will be off BECAUSE Windows is Assigning-Assuming-Applying sRGB to it (I think).
You could prove this easily by saving tagged and untagged JPEG versions of Monitor RGB and dragging them into an open Window Safari window and seeing for yourself.
This is not at all as complicated as it reads — once you understand how ICC profiles work and don’t work — — that is where I would send you back to review, not trying to figure it until you get the profile issues wired in because then it will only take a minute to identify the problem (and the rocket science is left to the experts).
Apple’s directions for Monitor calibration, as I recall, are for 100% Contrast: and to set the Brightness so that a dark gray square is barely differentiated from a surrounding patch.
A hardware puck would be more reliable unless you have unusually perfect color-perception abilities.
However, I suspect that your "Default Contrast" is probably 100%; and that you then turn down the brightness in a similar manner to that recommended in Apple’s calibrator?
Jean P. not that Fw is color managed like Photoshop, but it uses standard sRGB.
Belia, I believe you are misunderstanding this.
On my Mac system, which is properly color managed, Fireworks displays an sRGB image exactly as any other non-color-managed application does. FW is definitely NOT displaying the color with an assumed color space of sRGB. It is displaying the image directly in my monitor’s color space, which super-saturates reds, just as gballard has described.
Of course, I only have FW 8 installed, I have no other versions for comparison.
Jean P, this is the basis of my misunderstanding all the time I’ afraid… isn’t it so that sRGB is the colorspace that any non-color-managed application uses? As far as I know this is the smallest colorspace and the one the web uses, as well as Fireworks which I see confirmed by Adobe on their Fireworks forum.
Ramon, I know, that’s what I’m trying to do π but it is complicated… and hard to explain for the experts to someone who doesn’t know much about it is my experience… there is very much to know.
No no, I didn’t see it as criticism, thank you for helping me in this! It is just that as quick as I usually am with things, this color management thing is hard to get. Happily I’m not alone in this… also see that with colleagues of mine.
So.. if I tag a sRGB image than it will still just show as sRGB and never it will take over my Monitor RGB. Untagged it doesn’t show in the browsers as sRGB but as their monitor RGB which doesn’t need to be similar to sRGB. Besides of that, the browsers, it is only Safari that does colormanagment, that reads the tag.
If you are using an LCD you need to calibrate with a hardware calibrator.
Absolutely. Especially since you have a wide gamut monitor to begin with. the only way to know what windows viewers will see with your images is to work color-managed in Photoshop, in sRGB.
The only way to make Mac viewers with wide gamut monitors (including yourself) see your images correctly in Safari is to tag your images.
But the problem is that I already DO work for web in sRGB and that it shows dull and dead on Windows. The cause of it lays on my side, on my screen since it isn’t possible to cailbrate it to display untagged sRGB on a Macwithout intense saturation boost. So either I have to change screens or the solution I just thought of should work:
Why does in Photoshop the window Color Settings have (at Advanced Controls) the option Desturate Monitor Colors by ..%. Why would anyone want to do this? Suppose I find the right % more or less similar to how Windows shows the colors. Next when I do SFW there will be the saturation boost. But this will only be visible by visitors with screens like mine. This should also be the case if I change screens like g ballard advises (standard gamut).
I might even tag the sRGB so that Safari-users with screens like mine can avoid the saturation boost. Only, how will it then look for Safari-users with standard gamut screens… dead and dull I suppose. So I better don’t do that…
Before buying a new screen I’m going to check this out now.
But the problem is that I already DO work for web in sRGB and that it shows dull and dead on Windows. The cause of it lays on my side, on my screen since it isn’t possible to cailbrate it to display untagged sRGB on a Macwithout intense saturation boost. So either I have to change screens or the solution I just thought of should work:
Why does in Photoshop the window Color Settings have (at Advanced Controls) the option Desturate Monitor Colors by ..%. Why would anyone want to do this? Suppose I find the right % more or less similar to how Windows shows the colors. Next when I do SFW there will be the saturation boost. But this will only be visible by visitors with screens like mine. This should also be the case if I change screens like g ballard advises (standard gamut).
I might even tag the sRGB so that Safari-users with screens like mine can avoid the saturation boost. Only, how will it then look for Safari-users with standard gamut screens… dead and dull I suppose. So I better don’t do that…
Before running to the store and buy a new screen I’m going to check this out now.
also the short answer, for the Photoshop web workflow
Profile your monitor to 2.2 gamma, d65/6500 (Macs default to 1.8 gamma)
always Convert to sRGB before Save For Web (CS3 default SFW will do this automatically if you haven’t messed with it)
this is a very critical default setting – leave it alone
don’t embed ICC Profile (leave it unchecked) (default SFW will do this automatically if you haven’t messed with it)
You may choose to embed profiles, but I generally don’t because of the added file size – a lot of people have resorted to this without understanding why (like putting tagged AdobeRGB or tagged MonitorRGB on the web so it looks good only in Safari, the other 95% of web browsers still see it wrong)
+++++
over 90% of web viewers are at 2.2 gamma, and viewing on unmanaged browsers
while we have no control over all the messed up crappy monitors out there, the best we can do is publish correctly-targeted color
+++++
still
the core issue will remain Β if you ever get one of the high-gamut monitors on a Mac Β 90% of the internet will look cartoonish oversaturated color, especially reds
I already DO work for web in sRGB and that it shows dull and dead on
Windows.
wrong (or the Windows box is messed up), if you are putting sRGB on the web, tagged or untagged, it will display correctly on Windows browsers Β you are still missing something
Why does in Photoshop the window Color Settings have (at Advanced Controls)
the option Desturate Monitor Colors by ..%.
again, you are trying to out think the problem without understanding the core issue of what’s going on…this has nothing to do with the problem
these monitors drive inquisitive Mac users crazy…my advice, get a standard-gamut screen like the Apple Cinema Displays or NEC 2490WUXi
This 600+ thread is your exact issue (I didn’t realize the problem was a wide-gamut panel until later in the thread):
"Why does in Photoshop the window Color Settings have (at Advanced Controls) the option Desturate Monitor Colors by ..%. Why would anyone want to do this?"
The Desaturate feature was put in for people working in large gamut color spaces like ProPhoto, who had significant content outside the gamut of their monitors. By desaturating the monitor, you could then see subtle differences in color that would normally be lost on screen. The overall accuracy was shot but it would allow you to see what you otherwise could not. It more or less acts like a Perceptual rendering intent from the working space to the monitor – sort of…
Thats’ exactly what I was thinking of, Peter. This way I can work in Photoshop inspite of my overkill gamut in a color environment that looks like as most of the visitors are going to see it. I will ignore the saturation boost when I do SFW knowing it is caused by my extreme gamut screen.
But… what does it do to my images besides the saturation, is there any quality issue I need to know of, what do you mean by overall accuracy?
g ballard, I have read all your articles by now. It took me some time to get into it, but by now I think the issue is becoming more or less clear. Thank you for your information, it is very helpfull. The workaround I want to try, why is this so far away from understanding the core issue from what’s going on? It is the last try before getting rid of my beautifull monitor… Since my monitor is oversaturating the colors I will desaturate them too much when working on my images, result dull colors in standard monitors. So better let Photoshop make the view desaturated and work in this artificial environment.
When we correctly Honor an embedded profile — Photoshop is already displaying the colors faithfully — there is no reason to adjust saturation in Photoshop that way to try and second guess the target color space.
Remember:
Photoshop automatically CONVERTS the Source Profile to the Monitor Profile and displays the color faithfully. If you have a properly profiled monitor and Honor the image’s embedded Source Profile, Photoshop is displaying the true color in its true digital environment.
The wide-gamut saturation problem only happens on a Mac when you strip or ignore the Source Profile (color space) and the idiot ColorSync engine applies its unique monitor profile (instead of something that makes color-management sense, like a device-independent space like sRGB).
In other words:
Balance the color in Photoshop, Convert to sRGB, Save for Web — and live with cartoon colors when you surf the web on a Mac — this is the nature of these high-gamut monitors.
But the Source Profile = Monitor Profile = cartoon colors Embedded Profile = sRGB = on my screen cartoon colors
Maybe the misunderstanding lays in it that I don’t talk here about photo’s but I’m talking about images that are made from scratch in Ps with colors that I choose in the Color Picker. Cause of the cartooncolor-effect on my screen I choose less saturated colors then I should. Cause of that the standard monitors have much duller colors then I intend. I thought this was a windows problem and could leave it to that, but by now I am so far that I know it is my own monitor that is the problem.
So it is not just live with cartoon colors when surfing the web, it is also the other side of it: the visitors of my sites have to live with dull colors, anyway duller then I have meant them.
And about what I see myself on the web… that isn’t the problem… nice to finally know though… but I can live with that.
Belia, you should see correct color in Photoshop when you work in the sRGB color space with color management enabled. You should not see excessive saturation in Photoshop when working in sRGB with color management enabled.
But turning off Color Management in Photoshop is not possible, it is always on… Correct color, what’s that? I suppose my monitor profile since that is the view Photoshop displays. And that’s the one with the over the edge saturation since I work on a high gamut monitor on Mac. So now I am aware of this I finally understand why my work is having dull colors on Windows, my starting point is oversaturated, I choose less saturated colors, very dull on standard monitors. Sorry if I keep repeating myself. It took me a while to understand, but reading over and over all your information I believe this is what’s happening. But maybe I am still misunderstanding.
You seem to still not understand that if you enable color management, choose sRGB for your RGB working space, and work in Photoshop, you will be seeing about the same colors Windows users see on the Web.
Ok, if the other half is knowing how to turn off color management in Photoshop then I see hope in the horizon:) Seems weird though… turning off color management…
I did NOT say to turn color management off in Photoshop.
absolutely DO NOT attempt to turn color management off in photoshop.
Set your photoshop color settings to Europe General Purpose 2 to get correct RGB color management for the Web.
If you do not see approximately the same color in photoshop working with sRGB files as Windows users see on the Web, you have something set incorrectly.
It already didn’t seem right… I see now… enable you said not disable. Sorry.
My settings are exact the same as yours.
Due to my high gamut monitor (that must be it) the colors in Photoshop are as g ballard calls it cartoonesk. Of course I don’t choose cartoonesk colors, so i pick the ones that seem right. And Windows shows them very much duller then what I choose. I blaimed Windows for it. But it might be my own oversaturated monitor.
If I choose colors that are according to what I want on Windows, they are overstaurated on my Photoshop…
if that is the case, you still have something set up very, very incorrectly. Sorry we seem to be unable to bridge the divide.
As I have said already, I have a wide-gamut monitor, too. My colors on images without profiles are over-saturated in safari, and all images are always over-saturated in FIreworks. These same images display with the correct level of saturation in Photoshop, because color-management corrects for the monitor’s wide gamut.
If you had your system set up correctly, you would see the same thing.
I will get myself a good hardware callibrator, I don’t have one yet. But if I do the tests at the site from g ballard, my monitor is behaving exactly as it should, so the difference can never that disastruous, don’t you agree?
I have found another setting that makes quite a difference in saturation, it probably also has to do with the difference between the 1.8 and 2.2 gamma. In the menu of the Dell 2407WFP you can choose between PC Color and Mac Color mode, I changed it into PC Color. Next I changed the Color Settings > Color Adjustment to PC Normal instead of PC Custom. Why doesn’t Dell provide a good instruction with the monitor…
If I compare my image now with the one on a PC laptop, the difference is conform the difference in monitor. I see the same image, and the same color, the one on the PC laptop is a little darker, but then the whole screen is darker. You could call mine more saturated, but then my whole screen is more saturated. So the proportions are back!!!!
Besides of that, sorry if I am still a bit stubborn here, if I want to see how my image looks in Windows, I go to Color Settings and I turn on Advanced Colors > Desaturate Monitor Colors By 20%. This way I see the same as on the PC laptop.
Mind me, I am not talking about true and realistic photograhps here, I am making a design with maybe a part of a picture as a start, but mainly I am working with colorplanes, a drawing, filters etc etc. And there the problem comes up: ideal for cartoonesk view!
Besides of that, sorry if I am still a bit stubborn here, if I want to see how my image looks in Windows, I go to Color Settings and I turn on Advanced Colors > Desaturate Monitor Colors By 20%. This way I see the same as on the PC laptop.
You are NOT seeing how your image "looks on Windows" on anyone’s machine but your OWN when you do that.
Basically, the two monitors on which you are comparing images have NOT been calibrated in the same way Β and, most likely, neither has any other monitor on the planet!
sRGB isn’t the smallest. It’s small, yes. It’s different from other small gamuts like many printer gamuts. It was created by Microsoft like 15 years ago as an average of every crappy misadjusted TV on the planet because Megahard wanted everyone to have their computer hooked up to a TV, sort of an Everyman concept. Well, tvs are better, monitors are better, gamuts are wider, LCDs will be Adobe RGB 1998 soon at an affordable price, just use SFW according to the instructions and actually calibrate your monitor instead of driving your self nuts.
Ann, thanx, yes, I know this is the case, it is just helping me out since I have this wide gamut monitor myself.
I have by now my settings right in Photoshop, I understand why what and where and I will buy myself a hardware callibration set. I knew colormanagement was complicated… it is much easier to pretend it doesn’t exist… untill you can’t run away from it any longer! Thank you all for your support and patience. Pffffffff……..
