Saving images for the Web

I'm trying to save images for the web from Photoshop CS3. The color settings in photoshop are as follows...

Working Space: Adobe RGB 1998

Color Management Policies

RGB: Preserve embeded profiles.

So I have an image that I darkened in photoshop, converted to sRGB and saved using Save for Web and Devices.

Darkening the image made it appear correct when I opened it in Firefox or Safari.

The part that I'm confused about is that when I view the sRGB image in Photoshop, with the working space set to

Adobe RGB1998, the image looks very red. If I switch the Photoshop working space to Adobe sRGB, the image looks

fine. Why is that? Shouldn't photoshop be recognizing that I'm working with an sRGB image, and display it

correctly. It seems like it's reading my sRGB image as an RGB 1998 image, and thus displaying it incorrectly.

When I first open the image, and photoshop asks me what to do with the color management, I select "Leave as is

(don't color manage)."

I don't recall ever having his issue, but I've never tried to save for web on this computer before.

My computer is the new Macbook Pro, 2.4 GHz, running Leopard. Photoshop CS3.

Thank you for any help.

IIRC, Save For Web strips out the color profile by default. If you have it set to Preserve Embedded Profile, and none

exists, and on opening the file there is no profile it will try to interpret the pixel values in the working colorspace.

In the color settings, check the option to "Ask When Opening" if it detects a profile mis-match or a missing profile ... You

then have the option of using the embedded profile (if one exists), converting to the working profile, or assigning the

working profile if none exists. It also will indirectly tell you whether the profile was stripped out.

Godfrey

Okay that solved my problem. Thank you very much.

When I open the new image in Firefox after applying a small darkening curve and saving for web, it looks great. Open the same image in Safari again and it looks really red, just like it did in photoshop. Don't web browser's all display using sRGB? Is Safari not recognizing the sRGB profile and applying a different one? For which browser should a photographer optimize there images?

Thank you.

Josh, most web browsers don't do anything - they're simply not color managed. sRGB works, since it approximates

(albeit very roughly) what the average display does, so sRGB is absolutely what you should use.

Current versions of both Firefox and Safari have color management, however. I'm not a Safari guy, so I can't

tell you how to enable it, or if it's on by default, but in FF 3, you do have to turn it on. Now that I'm

running a wide-gamut monitor, a fully color managed browser is a must, and FF 3 is filling the bill nicely. I

had some early issues with it on one of my XP machines, but that turned out to be a bad profile.

Unfortunately, you have to get used to the fact that most of the rest of the world will be viewing your images on

badly adjusted monitors with non color managed apps. I'm often appalled at how some of my images look on the

"average" monitor, but again... all you can do is convert to sRGB and hope for the best.

Scott

Scott,

Thanks for your post. I finally get it. I was not aware that FF3 was capable of color management and I've been experiencing all sorts of confusion with sRGB images. Fixed. Thanks again.

Scott,

Safari's color management is always on. If there's a profile tagged to a file, it uses it. If there isn't, it renders it based on the

operating system's settings for color management, which default to sRGB.

Godfrey