browsers and posting photos: differences

[Marquinius]

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This is perhaps on the edge of DPP, but I wouldn't know where to post it otherwise.

 

Reading other posts and seeing photos, it seems that posting a photo from Firefox gives a slightly different outcome than when you post the same photo from Safari. Firefox makes photos a little darker, Safari makes them a little lighter.

 

Questions:

1) is this really the case?

2) if so, how come?

3) if so, how to handle this

 

I realise that posting for web is always tricky, as everybody has a different screen and even calibrating will not always help.

[sandymc]

No, not the case - on my Mac, and using the DigitalColor meter to measure accurately, they are the same for an sRGB tagged image. The only way Firefox and Safari would be different would be if color management wasn't enabled in Firefox, or the image wasn't tagged.

 

Sandy

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[jaapv]

Well, I did notice that images in this forum when viewed in Safari looked sharper and more sparkling than the same images viewed in Firefox of IE. Whether posting those images would have browser-specific differences seems a bit doubtful to me, as it is supposed to be a simple transfer of unaltered data.

[SJP]

Maybe the displayed size of the image is browser dependent, that would influence how the image is rendered. With IE on PC you can scroll the size via cntrl-scroll. That can have a marked effect on appearance.

[plasticman]

Firefox and Safari are built on different rendering engines(Gecko/Webkit), and they do indeed differ in the way they translate image data to screen - even images with ICC profiles.

 

Firefox specifically has had problems with different versions of the consortium's guidelines - I'm not sure if they've all been sorted in the latest update, as I always use Safari and only have Firefox on my system for work-testing - but at least until recently FF supported only v2 and not v4 (which Safari does) embedded profiles.

 

This page will help you test and possibly fix your Firefox set-up, and also has some interesting general information about the problem.

 

As others have discussed elsewhere, the significant problem is that the image is not displayed simply 'darker' - but instead that hue, saturation and brightness are all shifted in ways that are based on image-specific data. Practically impossible to fix, in other words, if a person is using an earlier iteration of a Gecko browser. It may help if you detect different browsers when a visitor enters your site, and attempt to adjust accordingly.

[Jamie Roberts]

No, not the case - on my Mac, and using the DigitalColor meter to measure accurately, they are the same for an sRGB tagged image. The only way Firefox and Safari would be different would be if color management wasn't enabled in Firefox, or the image wasn't tagged.

 

Sandy

 

Or you have an EIZO on Vista, where the calibration is loaded into hardware. Firefox doesn't, apparently, understand that very well.

 

Photoshop, Breezebrowser, Safari for Windows and C1 all do, however.

[sandymc]

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Firefox specifically has had problems with different versions of the consortium's guidelines - I'm not sure if they've all been sorted in the latest update, as I always use Safari and only have Firefox on my system for work-testing - but at least until recently FF supported only v2 and not v4 (which Safari does) embedded profiles.

 

Firefox 3.5 (the current version) is broken for V4 profiles. Should be fine for normal sRGB profiles however, which I assume is what the original OP is talking about, as they are for web.

 

Sandy

[sandymc]

Or you have an EIZO on Vista, where the calibration is loaded into hardware.

 

Vista isn't known as "the broken OS" for nothing.....

 

Sandy

[Marquinius]

First of all: thanks for all the thoughts and remarks. I find it truly worthful and it expands my knowledge around this issue. But ... I may be mistaken, but I think we are now answering the question "do browser show differently". That's fine in itself (good link by plasticman !), but my original question was "does POSTING with different browsers lead to different outcome".

 

I think Sandy's remarks are on the right track, although it doesn't go into contrast, which adds to the punch or flatness of a picture.

 

Any more thoughts?

[plasticman]

Ah! Sorry - seems like we've all answered a different question to the one you asked.

 

Anyway, regardless of browser the script invoked by the upload function will always be the same (a 'standard' php upload file), and the server location where your image is stored will be the same. So uploading shouldn't be affected by using different browsers as system-level functions are invoked to browse to your hard-disk location and choose your image.

 

The only factor I can imagine is that the browser could conceivably strip meta-data from an upload (which might affect ICC profiles), but I doubt this is the case.

[Marquinius]

Ah! Sorry - seems like we've all answered a different question to the one you asked.

 

That would make us all politicians?

 

Anyway, regardless of browser the script invoked by the upload function will always be the same (a 'standard' php upload file), and the server location where your image is stored will be the same. So uploading shouldn't be affected by using different browsers as system-level functions are invoked to browse to your hard-disk location and choose your image.

 

The only factor I can imagine is that the browser could conceivably strip meta-data from an upload (which might affect ICC profiles), but I doubt this is the case.

 

Clear thinking! And I agree that stripped meta data is a bit much to believe in.

[epand56]

It used to be like that in older versions. Firefox was very different from Safary because the application didn't charge the RGB profile of the image.

With the last versions of both application this should happen no more.

On my screen when put the same image opened in Safari and Firefox one above the other, they are exactly the same.

Of course I use sRGB profile.

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Edited July 29, 2009 by epand56

[Marquinius]

Enrico,

 

With a big grin on my face : I think you are relating at what Safari and Firefox show after having posted a photo on the forum with your regular browser ... or did you actually open Firefox, post half a photo, close, open Safari and post the other half in the same message? (Edit a thread in another browser after posting, can that be done at all? Hmmm ... )

 

After the fact, I should have stated my question along the lines of: "does a browser change any information within a sRGB file when posting?" perhaps with a secondary question: "And if so, will you see differences between posts by different browsers?"

 

Oh well, I'm learning. At least I now know that whatever we try, what you (generic) see, is not always what I posted. Hmmm, I think I can even see differences between the sRGB on screen (directly from LR or somesuch) and after I've posted it.

[epand56]

After the fact, I should have stated my question along the lines of: "does a browser change any information within a sRGB file when posting?" perhaps with a secondary question: "And if so, will you see differences between posts by different browsers?"

 

Ops... :D:D

 

Marco, I have now got the focal point of the issue. I will try to post the same image on bot the applications and will se the results. It is possible actually, that Safari and Firefox upload the same picture with different colours.

[epand56]

Marco, the original picture has a sRGB profile. One is uploaded to Flickr in Safari the other one is uploaded to Flickr in Firefox. They still seems identical to me.

Hope you like the pic, it is a Fox full of Fire

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[ammitsboel]

Am I really the only one that thinks the images looks like shit in browsers when you attach the SRGB profile??

[andybarton]

Most browsers, including the big one, only understand jpgs in sRGB format.

[Shootist]

Marco, the original picture has a sRGB profile. One is uploaded to Flickr in Safari the other one is uploaded to Flickr in Firefox. They still seems identical to me.

Hope you like the pic, it is a Fox full of Fire

 

How about uploading that to my home, just until I die.

[Marquinius]

Enrico,

 

Thank you for this (to me) amazing feat of a) posting from two browsers and finding such a nice subject to do so

 

I think it shows that there is no difference, or if at all, not so it is evidently so.

 

@Henrik: sRGB is however what most browsers understand. I'm sure to use another colour space when I'm printing.

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[ammitsboel]

@Henrik: sRGB is however what most browsers understand. I'm sure to use another colour space when I'm printing.

 

No no, what I mean is that it ruins the picture when you attach the profile.

The same image in sRGB looks different in the browser with or without the profile attached.