I finally purchased a Spyder 4 Pro calibrator for my new monitor after two months of having it. It is nice to be able to catch up on editing the photos I've taken in that time period, now knowing that the colors on my monitor are accurate. After installing the software and completing the calibration process, I can see an obvious difference in the colors. I started to edit my photos from several months ago, and noticed something that is confusing me.

When I save a photo for web viewing purposes, I always save the image to sRGB after editing them in Adobe 1998. When I did this and saved the image on my old laptop, the colors looked exactly like they did while I was processing it. Now when I convert to sRGB, I notice an increase in the saturation which is very intense. I am not sure why this is happening and have never experienced it before. To keep the colors the same from what I edited them to be to the final product, I need to leave the photo in 1998 which I know is not correct. I hope this is something simple that I cannot figure out, and that someone can help me with.

I greatly appreciate any help! Thank you...

When you say "convert to sRGB", what precisely do you mean by that? See this current thread where somebody's workflow was incorrectly using "assign" instead of "convert" in Photoshop:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=228622

It's possible that small changes will be visible in an image before vs. after converting it between profiles. That's because profiles are not identical and they can't represent the exact same range of colors -- kind of a "duh" thing. But the point of color space conversion is that color and tone is preserved as much as possible across the conversion. If you're seeing wild differences in color and/or tone, then almost by definition the conversion isn't happening properly.

By the way, you may be using exactly the same workflow now that you used to on your old system. That doesn't mean your workflow before was right. It just means that your old monitor was unable to visualize to you the problems that may have existed in what was happening. Now the new monitor (presumably a wide gamut display) is making issues visible.

When I am ready to save the image, I go image>mode>convert to profile and switch it to sRBG which is what I would always do for web viewing. The changes do not happen immediately, and it's not until I go to save for web when I can see the dramatic difference.

And you are right, I am using a wide gamut monitor which has 100% sRBG and a 98% adobe 1998 yield. Not sure what I should do. I know that I shouldn't leave it in 1998 because if someone views it, it will look rather unsaturated. But at sRBG, it is way to saturated......

Sounds like the save for web preview possibly isn't colour managed, this rings a bell as a topic that came up once before.

If you open up the files after save for web in a colour managed program do they look as they should ?

When you use Save For Web, the default behavior of it is to strip the color profile tag out of the JPEG image that's created. There is a small checkbox called Embed Color Profile that you need to make sure is checked, then the function will preserve the color space, which in this case would be sRGB.

An image without a color space tag is by definition in an unknown color space. Regardless of what the color data within the image file is, most applications won't know what to do with it and so they just dump the image data straight the video system with no color conversion. When you dump an untagged sRGB image straight to a wide gamut display, it comes out looking garishly over-saturated.

Of all the color managed or quasi-color managed browsers, only Firefox has a special mode in its color management settings that will cause it to treat untagged image files as if they were sRGB, and convert them before sending them to the display. I have that setting enabled myself which makes viewing web-posted images a bit better of an experience. But for images that we create and post, it's always best to tag the color space on them since then there's no guesswork involved in correctly displaying the content. This includes on other browsers that support some level of color management, like Chrome or Safari, that don't do anything special for untagged images, and just dump them straight to the display...

Colin,

The images do not look as they should, they look just like they did when I previewed them in SFW.

Royce,

I am using photoshop CS, and there is no option on save for web that allows me to embed the color profile. Unless you mean at a different part of the process......?

To give an example, I will post the same photo twice; one saved at adobe 1998 which represents what I want it to look like, and the second at srgb which shows how oversaturated the final product is.

1998:


sRBG:


I am converting to sRGB after editing in 1998, and the difference is clearly obvious. Please help since I have no idea what may be going wrong.

Josh, I believe the explanation I gave is exactly what's going on. Your images are being stripped of their profile tag when you use the Save For Web function. In fact both of the example images of the Crossbill you posted have been stripped of their tags.

When you say "Photoshop CS" do you mean the version from 2003? If so, that 10-year old software has a bunch of issues with it, one of which if I recall correctly is that the Save For Web function has no setting to stop its behavior of stripping the profile tag. You could just not use Save For Web (use File > Save As instead and select the JPEG file type as output).

Or else you need to do something a bit more complicated if you want to stick with using Save For Web. After saving an image via SFW, open it back in Photoshop again and use the Edit > Assign Profile menu item to assign the sRGB profile to the image. Then save it. Now the profile tag will have been restored and the image should render correctly in any color managed app, including Firefox.

Or you could use Lightroom if you have it. Or upgrade your version of Photoshop since this issue was fixed many years ago.

Thank you for pinpointing the issue. Yes, unfortunately I still am using PSCS from a decade ago. I really cannot seem to spend the extra money on a newer version even though I have been meaning to recently.

What exactly is the difference between save as and save for web? Would there be a noticeable difference in the quality?

Looks like I will have to look into a new PS version.......Thanks again for your help Royce.

Royce, instead of saving to sRGB, I read from a google search that I should try to save the color space as my calibrated monitor profile. Would this be okay for web viewing? Cause it seems to yield accurate results, as in not saturating the colors like before.

Using Save As doesn't give you many options, it just lets you save the file in various formats. Depending on the format you pick, you may be prompted for limited options. E.g. if you pick JPEG as the type to save, you'll be prompted for a JPEG compression quality from 1 to 12. This doesn't let you control the final file size as finely-grained as you can do with Save For Web. You also have to have converted your image file into the desired profile first before you use Save As; you can't convert during the save process the way you can with Save For Web. So if you want to save as sRGB you have to convert the image to sRGB first, then Save As JPEG. Aside from that the JPEG quality is essentially the same. Of course, Save As doesn't strip out the profile tag which is why I'd say use it instead of Save For Web.

Absolutely do NOT use your monitor profile for any of this. Your monitor profile has exactly one purpose -- to properly display images on your own monitor. Photoshop does that automatically. You should never assign or convert an image to your monitor profile, that will screw it up for everyone else since nobody but you has your monitor.

The only reason I asked if I could use my monitor profile was because for some reason I do not have an option to save as a jpeg. Who knew this simple problem could be so frustrating?

Everything Royce said.

If you don't already have Lightroom it would be a good idea in general as you are on the original CS. You will find your workflow more streamlined, you'll get the latest version of ACR and the export function is simpler

If jpeg isn't an option in the save as box check if you are working in 16 bit ?

Good call, Colin. Thanks for pointing that out, as I am pretty sure I was in 16 bit. I wasn't aware that was the reason I was unable to save in jpeg.

Yes, that's another thing streamlined in newer Photoshop versions. In old versions, you first have to drop an image from 16-bit mode down to 8-bit before certain file types like JPEG will appear as options in the Save As box. As I noted above, the Save As option is very literal and does nothing automatically; you have to pre-set the image into the state you want it to be before saving. Since there's no such thing as a 16-bit JPEG, the old Save As function wouldn't give you that choice. Current Photoshop at least gets what you intend and drops the image down to 8-bit if you pick JPEG output for a 16-bit file.

Forgot to say earlier, but before dropping to 8 bit you want to flatten layers first. Otherwise the effect of the layer would be applied in 8 bit, negating the whole point of working in 16 bit in the first place.

So, I finally was able to get on the computer and try another go at editing some photos using save as instead of save for web. Changed the image to 8 bit, then converting to sRGB, "saved as" a jpeg and the image STILL comes out oversaturated...............................

I'm starting to think that there's something more going on here relating to the calibration. Leaving the spyder plugged in at all times would not cause this to happen, correct? If save as does not work when it should, are there any other options besides upgrading to CS6???

Figured it out!! Apparently I needed to set my monitor profile into my Breezebrowser color settings. As soon as I did that and hit refresh, the change was a big relief. Big thanks to Colin and Royce for helping me through this frustrating time.