Mac Tiger OSX 10.4.9 color management

[rwfreund]

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I am channeling for a friend who uses a mac. I use windows, and don't have this problem, so I am asking the mac users here if they have an idea what is going on.

The camera takes jpegs, which are imported to the Mac using iPhoto.

When the images are viewed in finder or by a web browser, they appear to lack in color saturation or vibrance when compared with how they appear when viewed in iPhoto or in Photoshop.

Any ideas?

thanks

-bob

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[stunsworth]

Convert to sRGB before posting to the internet? This is typical of images that are still in Adobe 98 colour profile and displayed in a non-colour profile aware browser.

[steve_l]

I believe (but am not sure) that the next version of Finder (in Leopard, eta October) is supposed to be color-aware - I think I read that somewhere...

 

The web thing is a separate issue - those need to be sRGB, pure and simple. Photoshop Web Gallery used to do that conversion automatically, I don't believe it does any more.

[andybarton]

Saving for web, via Photoshop will still convert to sRGB.

[ericperlberg]

Converting to sRGB in the Edit Menu of CS2/3 (not assign profile). In my experience Save For Web alone does not convert the file to sRGB.

 

This need to convert to sRGB isn't a Mac or PC thing. It's just a general problem. The web doesn't have colour management protocols. Most web browsers don't know how to read an attached profile.

 

Since most monitors work in roughly the sRGB space, forcing the file data into the sRGB space in Photoshop is the closest you can come to making the file look similar on various monitors.

[Overgaard]

Yes, use sRGB as colorspace in PhotoShop and make sure to save all pictures as that. Choosing "change profile" on each picture is a sure way to make sure. Also, if there is no information in the bottom left corner of the picture as to which profile is in the picture, change this (forgot how, but it is possible to do so all pictures per default shows color profile in the bottom left corner).

 

CALIBRATION TO PC COLORS

 

Also, it's a good idea for any Mac user to calibrate the screen in the control panel SCREEN and then choose COLORS in there. And then calibrate the screen as EXPERT user, making sure to choose PC Gamma in the end of the calibration.

 

That will make the colors on the Mac look darker and more staurated. Which is anyhow how the PC world sees the pictures on their computer.

[ericperlberg]

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In the early days of desktop publishing Macs used a gamma of 1.8 because it worked best with the laser printer. The Apple CMS is fully capable of working with a gamma of 2.2. These days the native gamma of most monitors is 2.2. Since OS X Apple has recommended using a gamma of 2.2 (its the native gamma even of Apple monitors) and a colour temp of 6500K or more precisely D65

 

A very poor way of calibrating the monitor is to use the colorsync utility. Much better is to use a hardware profiling/calibration device.

 

See this Apple support document for Aperture and this document from Xrite (the colour management company that bought Gretag Macbeth) the colour management beheamouth.