Profile issue? Color Calibration?

[TomHildreth]

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<p >I have a large tower PC that I use for photo editing. To my eyes, it works well, and my digital captures are vibrant. On the other hand, when viewed on the laptop I use to connect to the internet, the same images are very lifeless. Suspecting a color profile incompatibility, I’ve tried some alternate profiles but nothing I’ve attempted has made a change.</p>

<p >The color calibration and gamma settings don't come into range when I try them, so that's a strong indication the laptop monitor is off the mark. (I have no calibration device, just what's available through control panel display adjustments. In particular, reds are lacking. However, it appears as so my photos are more lifeless than those of other photographers when viewing them on the internet, and this has me very concerned. <br /></p>

<p >Suggestions?</p>

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[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Make sure the images you post on the internet are saved with an sRGB profile. That will give more contrast and color to images at the expense of a smaller gamut than best used for printing and editing, like Adobe RGB.</p>

<p>Screen adjustments are not the same as profiles. You need a calibration device to adjust your monitor to recognized standards and establish a profile. A monitor profile translates how the numbers in an image file will be displayed on the monitor. </p>

<p>An image profile, like sRGB or Adobe RGB, defines which color each number in the image file represents. Only color managed programs will recognize and implement an image profile when viewing images. A non-managed program, like Internet Explorer, will work best if images are saved with an sRGB profile. Adobe RGB images will look flat and lifeless in a non-managed viewer. In fact, the broader the gamut of the profile used to create the image, the worse they will look on the internet.</p>

[digitaldog]

<p><strong>IF</strong> the two displays show differences in the same image, with the same embedded ICC profile, the issue is your display calibration. Getting two displays to match isn't much different in theory than getting a print and display to match, it's all about the calibration target settings used. See:<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/why_are_my_prints_too_dark.shtml</p>

[TomHildreth]

<p>Thank you both. On the laptop, I have done more tweaking (including installing an SRGB profile) and I am much happier with the on screen results. Edward: I seem to have no profiles installed in the larger system where I do my editing. My original graphics card died a few weeks ago and was replaced, which may be the reason for this. In that I occasionally send my files out for printing, is there any harm in installing an sRGB profile in that machine, or should I leave the profile space vacant, or is there a color profile that print houses would prefer to see coming from customers?</p>

[dag_fosse]

<p>There is usually no need to install icc profiles. Some are installed with the operating system, and some more are installed with your image editing software. This has nothing to do with your graphics card.</p>

<p>In fact, sRGB is hard-wired into Windows. If you delete it, it will bounce right back on next restart. All these profiles are held in an operating system directory, available for any application that can make use of them (not all can).</p>

<p>An image file can have one of these profiles embedded, and that defines the colors in the file. If there is no profile embedded, on can be assigned in, say, Photoshop. This would most often be sRGB, because sRGB was made specifically to describe the behavior of a non-color managed system (technically, the native response of a "standard" or "average" monitor).</p>

<p>In short - if you want the file to display (roughly) correctly in <em><strong>any</strong></em> scenario, always use sRGB. If the file has any other profile embedded than sRGB, <strong>convert</strong> to sRGB. The software should have an option for this (don't know what you're using).</p>

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