m8 raws with Mac C1 Pro. Safari vs. others

[timothy]

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NMN,

 

Thanks! I was thinking that a browser check might be possible. I will give serious consideration to this idea for my future website.

 

Timothy

[timothy]

Carsten,

 

The don't-use-a-profile-since-they-don't-get-read-anyway-but-nevertheless-try-to-make-the-images-look-good workflow is not weird and contorted, or, if it is, at least it is not unusual as this is precisely what most web designers do, including, as I have demonstrated, Adobe's and Apple's web designers. But you are right about it not being the best practice. NMN really makes it clear that every option involves compromise. I really like his option 4 though.

 

Timothy

[timothy]

Andreas,

 

Degrading the image to such an extent that it is unusable—that is interesting logic, but counterintuitive to what I want to accomplish. However, as you suggested, I will consider using watermarks, but, since I find them distracting as a viewer, I'm not sure that I want to force that annoyance on others. I think the most common sense approach is to make the images just big enough to be enjoyable but not to big to be usable as prints. Ah, I see what your saying now. Even though the images would be unuseable as prints, they would be usable anywhere on the web. So, someone else could use them on their own website or something like that. Hmm, well, if I were a writer, there is always the threat of people plagiarizing my work. I guess there are precautions we can take, copyrighting being first and foremost, but there is no way to prevent people from abusing our work. Unless we degrade the images to such an extent. . . .

 

Timothy

[timothy]

The problem with making images look good in Safari but poor in every other browser is that 90% of the people who look at them will think they're poor ;-)

 

Well stated! That is exactly my point!

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Just to add i convert my images to srgb in PS before i post them. Now if someone uses save for web does that not strip out the profiles and Exif data as well?

[timothy]

Striping out the ICC profile is optional with "Save For Web . . ."

[Guest guy_mancuso]

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Tim looking at it looks like i have that checked. So your saying from the interesting read here to keep that unchecked and let the broweser make a decision. But than it sounds like Russian roulette

[misha]

hey guys,

thanks for all the input.

for me, i think its back to high jpegs (at least until i have PS CS3 and Aperture installed).

 

cheers

misha

[timothy]

Guy,

 

So far I have said that it is common practice on the web to not embed profiles. The logic is that most browsers do not support color management and thus cannot read profiles, so one should not assume that profiles will be read to display colors correctly. Instead, one should preview images without profiles to get an idea of what the average Jane/Joe will see. Of course, the idiosyncrasies of each viewer's screen cannot be accounted for. However, if Jane/Joe is viewing with a seriously whacked screen, all the images they view will look seriously bad. That's not your problem. As I was saying, the idea is that one should preview images without profiles and optimize images to look relatively good without profiles. This is in fact what Photoshop's "Save for Web . . ." preview forces. Although "Save for Web . . ." allows one to save the images with embedded profiles if one so chooses, the preview itself ignores the profiles. This is not a bug. This is a feature.

 

You can call it Russian roulette if you like but that's the game that almost everyone plays on the web (except, it seems, members of the Leica User Forum). At the moment, I'm browsing nytimes.com with Safari and can verify with the help of Photoshop that the image of Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching the ball does not have any profile. The New York Times has chosen to optimize their images to look relatively good without profiles. This particular image looks fine to me as do most all of their images. None of them have profiles. In addition to Safari, I have opened the Matsuzaka image in Firefox, Opera, Omniweb, Mail, and Preview. The Matsuzaka image looks exactly the same to me in all of these applications. I have to go to another screen to see any variance. So, the browsers are displaying this image, which, again, has no profile, in the same way, at least to my eyes, and, although I'm no tetrachromat, my eyes are apparently overly picky.

 

NMN has, I think, validated what I have said so far, though with the qualification that this approach is a compromise, usually considered a necessary compromise if the audience is anyone on the web using any browser. Interestingly, NMN has suggested that two versions of any given image could be used if a browser check were run to supply the right version for the right browser. Note that it is not just a version with a profile and the exact same version but without a profile as that would result in . . . well, that result would be accomplished by using a single version with a profile because a color-managed browser (like Safari) would read the profile and a non-color-managed browser (like Firefox) would ignore the profile. What I have described in the last sentence is exactly what happened when viewing your image of the two soldiers sitting at the computer. The point of using two versions of any given image would be to (1) show the colors correctly in a color-managed browser (so that the color look exactly as they do in C1, Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.) by using a profiled version, but then (2) change the numerical color values in the non-profiled version so that they look relatively good in a non-color-managed browser. You, Carsten and others on the forum have achieved (1) whereas the New York Times has achieved (2). Using two versions in combination with coding a browser check as NMN has described would allow one to achieve both (1) and (2). That's what I'm thinking of doing for my future website.

 

Carsten has remained adamant that one should embed profiles. I now agree that this is reasonable for this forum because we are wanting to see absolutely correct colors, not just relatively pleasing colors, and it is not unreasonable to tell fellow forum members to use a color-managed browser like Safari if they want the best viewing experience.

 

Best,

 

Timothy

[timothy]

Michael,

 

Don't do anything rash. Why don't you step away from the ledge, sit down, and have a talk with me. . . .

 

I just want to remind you that there is the option to shoot both RAW and JPEG (as you have been doing, eh?) and that you have to deal with to be or not to be, er, I mean to profile or not to profile with JPEGs too.

 

Now, just to make sure you haven't misunderstood anything I've said about giving up on life, er, I mean not profiling, it was said only in the context of displaying images on the web (but you already knew that, eh?) so the idea is to always use profiles except, possibly, when displaying images on the web.

 

Timothy

 

P.S. I'm just having fun with you (and everyone reading this comment). I hope I didn't take the dark humor too far.

 

P.P.S. Have you seen The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) by the way?

[carstenw]

Hmm, let me first say that I do see both sides of the argument. However, I think we are operating on too little information.

 

First of all, I need to verify that my claim of seeing no difference between sRGB images in Safari and Firefox is actually correct. I will take a more careful look at Guy's images for the differences mentioned.

 

Secondly, there is the assumption that every non-colour-managed system sees images the same as Timothy. This is also not known. We don't know where the differences come from. Note that modern monitors, even some CRTs, often use sRGB in hardware to display their content. My old monitor at work was such a system. On such monitors, and there should be many out there, sRGB should theoretically look better.

 

Michael, I didn't get why you want to use JPGs? That doesn't solve anything.

[carstenw]

Okay, I have carefully examined Guy's original army image, as well as Timothy's version with no colour profile, and I was wrong: I do see a difference. However, on my system (Mac OS X 10.4.9 with a carefully tuned ColorSync, but no hardware profiling, Cinema display), the differences are more subtle than Timothy's list of differences. I do not see posterisation, and I do not see more shadow detail in the Safari managed image. It is simply a tiny bit darker, on the order of a few percent perhaps. The difference is barely visible, but it is there. On my computer the non-managed image looks the same in both browsers, and like the Firefox version of the managed image. In other words, simply stripping the profile doesn't help.

 

While Guy's reference to "Russian Roulette" runs in the direction of hyperbole, I do agree with his sentiment. Essentially, a colour-managed image will look correct on a colour-managed system, and will look progressively worse on systems which are set up progressively bad. Then again, if one processes the image to make it look as good as possible without colour management, what does one use as a reference for this "good"-ness? One's own system, which is likely to be set up well, as a photographer? Given the differences between the way the images look on different systems, this makes little sense.

 

My opinion remains that an image with an embedded sRGB profile is most likely to look good on as many systems as possible, and it looks best on those systems whose owner's care enough about viewing to set it up carefully, exactly the same kinds of people you want to do work for. People who are willing to set up their systems, but have not yet, and who visit our sites may send an email saying "your image looks bad on my monitor". To such people we can reply "colour management is the answer". If we strip the profile and process the image to an arbitrary standard, then we have no answer for them.

 

Michael, try shooting DNG and export to sRGB, with either C1 or Lightroom (there is a test version if you don't have it), and see how that looks.

[Guest stnami]

sounds like a bit of a wank............lets be real about it all...........the masses run the show

[Guest stnami]

a wank!!!!!!!!! I an sure Mick will have somethin to saii about thet

 

........... an exert from http://www.mickspigshoot.com.au/ .........nothin but hoofers

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Tim thanks for the detailed explanation there very good thoughts as well as Carsten's . Carsten your correct that image lookes normal to me on my color managed system with a 30 inch on Safari than on Firefox it lihgtens up and the is a difference even though it is very little with this image , it could be a lot worse than others. Tim I completely understand what you are saying very much and to be broard in viewing maybe best to cut the profile out and that does make good sense.

 

Okay here's the curve ball, we are all photographers from the beginner to the pro here on the forum . Now my feeling is we most likely will optimize a image to look good on the browser we chose to use., Which makes perfect sense i did this when I used Firefox for a short time was made my images look good, well someone said on the board one day that does not look right than i compared it back in Safari and noticed he was correct. So Tim's statements hold up very well here but's let remember we are photographers too and for me about the only people I care about seeing my work is other shooters and potential clients. Now if we think about this for a second, most of them have color managed systems and probably are seeing your images correctly but some may not and are on a Windows box looking at it in Netscape or Explorer and maybe some are using Firefox. Guess this is why I said sounds like Russian roulette on what direction you should take because you don't want a potential client looking at a image in Netscape going this guys work is off. Anyway i find this thread very interesting and also very powerful on how you want your images to be seen. Great stuff folks , really this is.

 

Michael there is no saving the bacon shooting with jpeg. It's like shooting a transparency and what you get you can't control after the fact, Raw is a digital negative that gives many recovery, color, WB, profiles and the list goes on control that you find in shooting negatives. Honestly i can count on one hand how many times I shot jpeg in the last 15 years shooting digital only. Even under pressure cooker i have to have it today on disk, just come up with a good workflow and it takes no time at all to get corrected results.

[misha]

give up on life with m8? not a chance

 

what i simply meant was until this issue is sorted out (i dont even have photoshop at this point - recent convert to mac) - my current images look very very different in safari and firefox (see link above in this thread). once i get photoshop and bridge cs3 i will, of course, go back to dng. in the mean time, this could be a couple of days, may be a week, will simply play around with jpeg.

dng+jpg is not a very good option as i only have one 2gb card at this point and it fills up pretty quickly.

m

[timothy]

Michael,

 

The difference between Safari reading your "Leica M8 generic" profiles and Firefox ignoring them is, well, extreme. Yes, all the yellow in Safari looks like warm grey in Firefox. My banshee wails were over less extreme but still evident differences between Safari reading my "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" profiles and Firefox ignoring them.

 

After posting your examples for us, you figured out how to embed some sort of sRGB profiles using Capture One, right? And you said that the results were still under saturated if better (I hope) when viewing in Firefox, correct?

 

With C1, can you choose from various sRGB profiles or is there just one? If there is more than one, I'm recommending that you try each and every one of them to see if any of them better results. In this case, better results means more consistency between color-managed Safari and non-color-managed Firefox.

 

If there is not more than one, can you choose to export from C1 without embedding a profile?

 

Also, do the JPEGs straight from the M8 have embedded profiles? If the JPEGs do, then don't you experience the same sort of inconsistency as when you export to JPEG from C1?

 

If the problem is that there is too much of a difference between the profiled images viewed in Safari and the same images viewed without their profiles being read in Firefox, what advantage is there to shooting JPEG over DNG?

 

One more thing, is getting the color correct for web viewing more important right now than creating the equivalent of digital negatives that you can come back to later and get results from in the future?

 

Timothy

[timothy]

For any C1 Pro users who need a refresher on outputting with different output settings like format (TIFF, JPEG, etc.) and profiles (Adobe RGB, sRGB, etc.) or, more likely, for any C1 LE users who want to see this feature of C1 Pro, here is an article from the C1 knowledge base.

 

Timothy

[timothy]

So Tim's statements hold up very well here but's let remember we are photographers too and for me about the only people I care about seeing my work is other shooters and potential clients. Now if we think about this for a second, most of them have color managed systems and probably are seeing your images correctly

 

Guy,

 

Thanks for throwing that curve ball!

 

Everyone,

 

I'm wondering if any of you have experience with different sRGB profiles so that you can comment on whether there is noticeable if subtle variation from sRGB profile to sRGB profile and whether it could be useful for me to use an sRGB profile other than the Photoshop CS default "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" for outputting web-ready images.

 

Thank you in advance for your replies,

 

Timothy

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I don't have a slider so the curve was the best choice. LOL

 

The really big question is and i know this one is all over the charts if any of these potential clients even know what a managed system is to start with. I've seen some ugly stuff out there