Web Browsers and Color Management

[ken45]

I've been getting really frustrated lately when posting some of my photos online, because that they look drastically different than when I edit them. Some research on the matter has shown that it is due to color management in the browsers. With sunny day shots, it's not too big of a deal, but with low light and night shots, an image that looks great in PS Elements, looks absolutely awful when viewed online in Chrome or Firefox. It also looks awful in the photo viewing app on my home PC. However, it looks fine in IE.

I do my editing in Photoshop Elements 11, and was wondering if anyone had a workaround for me to get it so my low light photos would look decent on the browsers most people use? I don't even bother submitting these shots since I figure that they would look terrible on other people's screens. I just got back from a trip where I took a couple low light and night shots I'd like to share, so I'm hoping someone will help me out here so that I can without them looking completely crummy.

[bigbassloyd]

Verify you're editing and saving using the sRGB color space in elements, and there shouldn't be any difference between what you see in elements, and what you'd see in any browser.

The majority of my work is captured at night, and I've never noticed a difference in one browser over the other.

Loyd L.

[JRMDC]

What Loyd said. As a further check, you can can see for yourself what your shot looks like in a browser, as browsers open files as well as URLs, just type the path as so (using FF):

file:///c:/Users/jrm/Pictures/2013_07_22/

[ken45]

OK, after doing a little research, it seems I may be wrong in my initial assumption a little bit. I was editing the photos on my PC, then viewing them in Chrome on my PC. I was also viewing them at work, but in IE.

At home today, I processed the same night shot twice, once with sRGB color profile, one with No Color Profile. I loaded them onto my website. Once again, on my PC, using Chrome, both looked terrible color wise. But checking on IE on the same computer, again, both looked terrible. I jumped on my laptop, and using Chrome, Firefox, and IE, they looked fine on my website! So I think it's a computer issue. The photos look fine in Elements on my pC, but terrible on any website or photo viewing app. Just to be sure, I ran through some of Lloyd's night shots on my PC, and the ones that were similar to what I was doing have the exact same issues as my shots: blotchy color, and really noisy skies.

So this is some kind of monitor issue. Perhaps a monitor calibration would solve the issue?

On the bright side, I can now submit my shots without worrying that they'll look ridiculously awful to the screener.

[bigbassloyd]

Sounds more like a monitor calibration issue to me based on the information you provided. Spyder products do a good job from personal experience.

Loyd L.