Photobucket messing with my color??

[bazooka]

I was going to post a before pp and after pp shot for some C&C tonight but after uploading the 'after' shot to photobucket and looking at it side-by-side with the 'after' shot locally, I was blown away by how different (not in a good way) the colors looked on what should be two identical images. Any idea if this is something I'm doing wrong in how I save the jpg before uploading, or is this something that photobucket does, and if I sign up for flikr, will they do it too? I may just start using my home server to host.... this is really disappointing.

 

[Goontz]

I've heard many times that photobucket has a tendency to do that and also that Flickr is much more accurate.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Make sure it's not a color space issue.

 

[JasonLambert]

Or just get a little web space. I pay 3 or 4 dollars / month with godaddy.com.

 

[myfotoguy]

I am thinking along the lines of Bitter, it might be a color space issue. A few questions:
Do you have a wide gamut monitor?
Calibrated monitor?
On your local machine is it Mac or PC?
What program were you viewing the image in locally?
If it's windows, how does it look in the file explorer?

It could be photobucket is off, but it sounds WAY off from what you are describing. Flikr is free, you could try it and see if it's any different.

 

[Overread]

Generally speaking when this happens its not photobucket doing anything to your image, but that you have saved the image in a colourspace that some/most webbrowsers don't read. Thus your colours look odd on the internet.

Make sure when you upload to the net that you upload your shots as sRGB not as RGB or any other colour spaces. Even if you do end up using a colourmanged internet browser others won't be so its always best to save in the format that (for the net) everyone should be able to see at least within the same colourspace.

 

[bazooka]

Thanks guys, that could be it. Following Deke Mclelland's instructions, I changed my CS3 colorspace to Adobe RGB 1998. I'm just confused because I'm not looking at the file in CS3, but just the microsoft picture & fax viewer on vista64 after I save it as a jpg. Does colorspace matter when viewing a jpg outside of an editor?

It's not like the picture is completely screwed up either.... just looking at the picture in photobucket by itself, it looks normal, but if I compare it to the local jpg, it looks like the red channel has been reduced. I'll try to put the original on my webhost so you can see what I'm talking about.

EDIT: Just realized that I didn't transfer the jpg to my home server so I can't access it from work. Here is the one on photobucket though... this is the one that looks 'bad' as it is hosted. I'm also posting the pre-PP shot if anyone is interested.

Before PP:

 

[Overread]

Yes colour spaces do matter since different programs have different levels of ability to read them. Some programs will read almost any whilst others far fewer. sRGB is about the standard that almost everything will read and even many pro printing labs have it as the default that you are to submit images to them with. Other colourspaces can give advantages in editing, often when you are pushing the limits (for general use many people can never see a working difference). My advice is to do the processing as best you can then just save two versions - a good quality Tiff with the colourspace of your choice and then a smaller JPEG version in sRGB for internet and other such uses

 

[bazooka]

Ok, so I wonder if photobucket is just ignoring the Adobe colorspace? You may also see that the forehead area is blown out on both shots... it's not like that in either of the versions on my local machine.

 

[Overread]

Either photobucket is or your web browser is - as I said not all browsers can manage all colour spaces (Opera for example has no colourspace managment at all - if its not in sRGB it will look different to me than someone with a colourspace managed browser).

ITs mostly not a problem as most people work in sRGB for the net

 

[bazooka]

Ok, I think for my purpose, I'd be better off just switching to sRGB to avoid this hassle. I'm not printing for a magazine or anything and most of my pics will be viewed online or on a monitor of some sort. Thanks for your help.

 

[bazooka]

I opened the local jpg at home on Opera and it looked the same, so it does indeed appear to be as you suspected.... the browser is ignoring the color space.

Moreover, I asked a few of the art guys at the station today about what color space they work in and they didn't even know. Turns out they use the default sRGB. Now I'm really wondering why Deke, who as far as I can tell is a photoshop master, recommended using Adobe.

 

[Overread]

Simple - the other colour spaces have advantages when you work in them - though often to see the difference you have to both be pushing the limits and also know what you are doing.

However whilst you can work in another colour space (some people even work in the lab colourspace for some things) during the editing process the output colourspace has to be the correct one for your intended destination. If its a printing lab you have to get their requirements and output in the colourspace they set - if its your own printer you have to make sure its colourspace is set to what you want - if its for the net you have to output in sRGB to ensure all your potential viewers are seeing the same thing.

 

[bazooka]

Ok, I finally got it squared away and it's finally 'clicked' for me. For anyone else that comes along and finds this, here is exactly what is happening. (Basically the exact same thing Overread just said, but for some reason I didn't understand it until I read another article about Adobe vs sRGB.)

I set my camera to shoot in Adobe RGB. I will set this back to sRGB now that I know the problems it's causing me. I also had photoshop set to the Adobe RGB colorspace by default, however, just switching to sRGB doesn't change a photo that has Adobe RGB embedded. You must specify in the color settings if you want to convert a different color space or use it as it is opened, upon opening the image. (Edit > Color Settings). You can set it to prompt you upon color conversion, or just do it automatically. If you shoot in sRGB, no worries.

The problem with Adobe RGB is that few things can understand it... most browsers, printers, etc... If they don't, they look at it assuming sRGB which washes out the colors. From what I've read, there is no reason to use Adobe RGB, unless you're doing your own printing on an Adobe RGB capable printer. But if you do so, you have to remember to convert to sRGB before using the image for anything else. Case closed!