I post large 2048-pixel jpg images to my website, Facebook professional page, and Tumblr, as well as occasionally uploading to Flickr or oddball sites like this one. I also email my images around. Most of my viewers are using decent displays and modern browsers,although the majority probably aren't calibrated. Obviously I want my images to look good compared to everything else online. I figure that since everyone will move to Retina-style higher resolution displays over the next few years that I might as well make 2048-pixel maximum-per-side images my new standard. While I won't watermark, I do add my copyright and contact info into my metadata, although I know that several sites strip or partially strip this. I figure it is a trade off in exchange for marketing benefit, but it sucks.
I also "Save For Web" from Photoshop, converting my Adobe RGB images to sRGB for the web jpgs.
And lately, it just seemed to sneak up on me because I never noticed or worried about this until this past year... I look at the (color) stuff I post and it looks really garish and too magenta. So I lower the saturation about 20 points and move the green-magenta slider 3 to 6 points towards green in Photoshop's Hue/Saturation control. That usually makes the image I'm saving look crappy but then when I upload it, it looks pretty neutral and normal looking, pleasing. Flesh tones are tricking in the green/magenta area though... it seems as though the jpgs can't really do it subtly and it's either green or magenta, one point of difference throws it a big swing either way.
Now I know people are looking at stuff online with all kinds of wacky monitors and settings. I've seen people think setting their monitor's color temp to 9300K is OK, I mean some people are nuts. But compared to the majority of professional quality color jpgs being shown online, I'm feeling like I'm holding my own.
But is this amount of fretting and worry justified? It seems practically impossible to keep up with. And it's maddening, I see a huge difference between the same image posted here, on Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, and my supposedly unprocessed and filtered website. Or between Chrome and Safari and Firefox. I know they all mess with images somewhat, in the hopes of "improving" them. But it's such bullshit!
What strategies are you using for optimal web display?
Other than doing all B&W? ;-p
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