Different levels from Local to Net

[dave.englund]

I recalibrated my home monitor tonight with Huey, and selected the profile for

Graphic Design & Video Editing. The images on my monitor lightened considerably,

and I think that's more correct, as I've noticed my images on photo.net when

viewed on our monitors at work are significantly lighter than on my monitor at

home. Okay, closer match, that's good.

 

Well...tonight I re-worked one of my images in Photoshop Elements (to darken it

up a bit and get it closer to what I *thought* I was originally accomplishing).

I re-uploaded the image to photo.net to replace the too-light one currently

there. Reloaded the page (F5 to refresh) and noted the new look. "Hey! That's

too dark! What gives?" I rechecked my new image in Elements - it was what I

wanted, but the image I just uploaded to photo.net was noticeably darker.

Somewhere between Elements and uploading, that thing changed. So, I gotta ask,

is there some image tweaking that photo.net does during the upload process? My

guess is no. Anyone have an idea on what else might explain the curious change?

Thanks.

[ronald_moravec1]

I am guessing there is a color space difference. Edit in Elements using RGB or sRGB. Uploads need to be sRGB. Or use save for web under file.

 

I edit in sRGB and never change. Most like the larger gamut of RGB and work there.

[joshroot]

I am starting to think that a tutorial on how to calibrate your workflow to photo.net's output would be a good idea. Anyone who wants to help out with that, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. contact@photo.net

[dave.englund]

Sounds like a good idea, Josh. Here's what I currently do, and feel free to correct me where you see a flaw (just in regards to photography please;-)

 

I usually start with a Canon RAW CR2 file, tweak it a bit in Adobe Camera RAW, bring it into Elements, crop as desired, and then save as a PSD. I then work the PSD image using layers to adjust levels, shadows/highlights, color balance and saturation, and apply any other filters and/or tweaks. I then resave the PSD image. Up to now it's still at the full CR2 3504x2336 resolution. I then downsize the image to 1024 (for the "Larger" size on photo.net), and apply some frugal sharpening using Unsharp Mask. Finally, I do a SaveAs to a jpg file at a #10 quality. I then undo the sharpening and the resize of the PSD, and close the file.

 

During the Save As to a jpg, in the Save As dialog I have a check box selected for "ICC Profile: sRGBIEC61966-2.1." Following that up, the JPG Options dialog is set to 10 - Maximum, Format Options: Baseline ("Standard"), and Size: 56.6Kbps. I just tried saving to another jpg from the PSD, this time deselecting the ICC profile option, and I uploaded it to a working folder I have at photo.net. I got the same result - it is noticeably darker online than when I view it on my local machine. So, I'm mystified!

 

If you have comments that will help me improve my process I'd love to hear them. Thanks!