Post JPGS with sRGB profile and saturation is all over the place for different sites

[Frank Petronio]

I think I know why I like B&W even better. If I post a color jpg "Saved For Web" from Photoshop with the recommend sRGB profile, on one site it will look right on and on another it will look like Velvia ca 1985.

What are you doing? Two sets of images, one desaturated for Flickr and Facebook and the destructive photo sites?

It's really harsh on flesh tones, looks like people got spray tans.

[swilf]

Are you using Safari? It seems so because you see difference after embedding profiles in your JPGs. Other browsers treat untagged JPGs as if they were in sRGB.

[Henry Ambrose]

I think some sites further process the file at upload.

[Frank Petronio]

But if other browsers treat images as sRGB and Safari sees an sRGB profile, shouldn't they look... like sRGB consistently?

[Preston]

But if other browsers treat images as sRGB and Safari sees an sRGB profile, shouldn't they look... like sRGB consistently?

Frank, one would think so, but unfortunately this not always the case. Much depends upon the color rendering engine in the browser and the color management, or lack of it, on the viewer's monitor.

I embed sRGB in my web images before I send them to Save for Web and devices. If I then view the image on IE9, Firefox and Opera, each rendering looks different from the others. Given the huge number of variables, I simply adjust my images for print and let the web images fall where they may. I am already a BDOF, and trying to optimize images for various sites whould only increase the level BDOF-ness. :-)

--P

[Ken Lee]

It' best to convert the images to sRGB and then adjust them. That way, they "are" sRGB to start out. Whether you attach a profile or not, matters less.

G. Ballard (http://www.gballard.net/psd/srgbforwww.html) has a nice tutorial on the subject, and his list of which browsers support what, tends to be fairly up-to-date.

[Eric Rose]

I have setup my Firefox to manage colors and it does a nice job. Chrome on the other hand sucks. Currently you can not setup color management in Chrome. You might find sites that claim you can and give you a little piece of code to put in the properties box, but this doesn't work. Seems they are working on it for a later release.

As you know Facebook, Flickr etc have their own nasty compression programs that do murderous things to your images. Best not to get all bent out of shape over it as the people who look at images on these services for the most part don't know the images have been trashed or don't care (ie. know the images have been munched so look beyond that).

[swilf]

But if other browsers treat images as sRGB and Safari sees an sRGB profile, shouldn't they look... like sRGB consistently?

An image with an embedded profile should look consistently in Safari and in other color-aware browsers (Firefox, latest versions of IE), and it should look consistent between different calibrated displays.
An image without a profile should look consistently in Safari and in color-blind browsers (Chrome, Opera), and it will not look consistent between different displays.
Flickr does nothing with image profiles, it's not their fault.