Sundaram Venkatachalam , Feb 01, 2004; 11:57 a.m.
I have a very basic setup for my digital darkroom:
(1) Windows XP PC, (2) Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 (3) Monitor
calibrated by Adobe Gamma (4) Nikon Coolscan IV with Nikon Scan
Yesterday, I scanned a few of my slides as TIFF (Adobe Elements does
not support NEF). I opened them up in Adobe Elements, resized them
to smaller size TIFFs and saved them as JPGs for display on the web.
The colors rendered in Elements seem "correct" - warm and saturated
as I intended it to be. However, when I open the same JPG file in IE
browser, they seem very dull. The reds have turned into browns.
Is there anything wrong with my basic setup?
Chris Ladoulis , Feb 01, 2004; 12:01 p.m.
No, probably not. PS is color profile aware, so your images will usually look better and more accurate in PS only. For a closer match, I often convert my images to sRGB when viewing on a browser (is there a File / Save for Web command in Elements?).
Ellis Vener 
, Feb 01, 2004; 12:14 p.m.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is not ICC profile aware and slams everything into what
seems to be a narrow interpretation of sRGB.
Sundaram Venkatachalam , Feb 01, 2004; 12:18 p.m.
>> is there a File / Save for Web command in Elements?).
Yes. I used that option too with no improvement.
Settings:Custom
JPEG-Maximum, Optimized, Quality -100 (this was the maximum), ICC Profile was checked. Image size was original.
In the Color Picker, these were the values:
H - 0
S - 0%
B - 100%
R - 255
G - 255
B - 255
#FFFFFF
There are no other settings that I can think of tweaking. The colors rendered in the preview seem dull.
>> often convert my images to sRGB when viewing on a browser
How does one convert to sRGB.
B G , Feb 01, 2004; 12:53 p.m.
convert your image to your monitor profile (the one you made using adbobe gamma)
before saving for the web. Then they will look identical when viewed through explorer
or photoshop elements.
Do not use "assign profle" by mistake. Use convert to profile "sundaram monitor
profle" or whatever you've called it.
Jesper de Jong , Feb 01, 2004; 01:02 p.m.
b g , feb 01, 2004; 12:53 p.m. wrote:
"convert your image to your monitor profile (the one you made using adbobe gamma) before saving for the web. Then they will look identical when viewed through explorer or photoshop elements."
No, do NOT convert the image to your monitor profile! Maybe that helps to get them to look the same in PS Elements and IE on *your* monitor, but it will make the photos certainy look wrong on anybody else's monitor. The monitor profile is specific to *your* monitor. It will not work correctly with anybody else's monitor. You must convert your image to the sRGB colour space for the web. Windows assumes sRGB as the default colour space for applications that do not support colour management, such as IE.
B G , Feb 01, 2004; 01:16 p.m.
"No, do NOT convert the image to your monitor profile! Maybe that helps to get them
to look the same in PS Elements and IE on *your* monitor, but it will make the photos
certainy look wrong on anybody else's monitor. The monitor profile is specific to
*your* monitor. It will not work correctly with anybody else's monitor. You must
convert your image to the sRGB colour space for the web."
Even if you convert to sRGB (which is what I do) every monitor will still look different
as most are not calibrated/profiled and Explorer is not profile aware like photoshop.
I suggested converting to your monitor profile (which should be darn close to sRGB)
so that on YOUR computer, your image will look exactly the same on the web and
photoshop.
John Houghton , Feb 01, 2004; 01:18 p.m.
Quite correct - you must convert the image to sRGB before using Save for Web. Do NOT check the ICC profile box. It is not used by the browser and just increases the file size (and therefore download time) to no purpose. However, the fly in the ointment is that my PS Elements V1.0 does not appear to have a colour mode convert option like the full Photoshop. Maybe it's there in disguise. I don't know about V2. The colour management implementation is half baked.
John
Sundaram Venkatachalam , Feb 01, 2004; 02:58 p.m.
From the usenet groups, I discovered that the way to convert to sRGB in PS Elements 2 is to use "limited color management - optimized for web graphics". I did that but my JPGs are still dull in IE browser.
Saving with the ICC profile - JPG looks fine in PS Elements 2 but dull in IE.
Saving without ICC profile - JPG looks dull in both IE and PS Elements 2.
Looks like the Mac users have an option of turning on the color profile in IE for Mac.
Lesson learnt : (1) read up more on color management and Photshop Elements. (2) Integration headaches aren't limited to enterprise software;-)
Michael Houghton , Feb 01, 2004; 06:17 p.m.
I second the suggestion to use 'Limited Colour Management' in this situation.
In fact what I do is:
* set my scanner software (VueScan mostly) to produce an ICC profiled image using
the sRGB colour space
* use Photoshop Elements 2 in 'Limited Colour Management Mode'
* use Save For Web _and_ embed the ICC profile (sRGB)
The reason I do this is to maximise the consistency of colour across as many
platforms as possible - embedding the sRGB profile in Save For Web assures some
colour consistency between recent macs (OS 9 with IE, OS X with IE/Safari) and
Windows.
I don't fully understand ICC but I plan not to take it all on at once - when it comes to
print I'm sure I'll have more to learn!
