Comments on: Mac browsers: can you believe your eyes?

By: James Washington

James Washington — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:09:21 +0000

I am using Firefox Version 3.5.2. My iMAC monitor has been calibrated using eye-one display2. The calibrated setting has a darker and better appearing picture than the sRGB profile or sRGB IEC61966-2.1 settings available. Why is this the exact opposite of your scenario as described above.

By: golemB

golemB — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:54:48 +0000

Yeah, please also update this to consider that Firefox 3.5 now defaults to enabling ICC profiles on web images, rather than ignoring them. I believe this is now the default on Windows as well as Mac!

By: Scamp

Scamp — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:10:13 +0000

Would love to see this either updated or removed–as a new user, both to Mac and SmugMug, I was alarmed until I realized how out of date it is.

By: XODiUggg

XODiUggg — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:18:05 +0000

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By: Nelson Chen

Nelson Chen — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:14:22 +0000

Now that the wide gamut LCD monitors become more common, the world is no longer sRGB, be it Windows, Mac or HDTV. The problem is reddish skin tones and unrealistically over-saturated colors when the online galleries are viewed with one of those new wide gamut monitors.

Firefox 3 is released to face this challenge. The wide gamut monitor owners can once again see the web galleries the same way as the folks with sRGB limited monitors or TV do.

By: Bilgehan

Bilgehan — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:53:55 +0000

I still don’t understand why an image that is converted to sRGB color space looks different if it doesn’t have a color profile. I am testing with two images both have sRGB color space but one has color profile attached, one not.

By: manu chao

manu chao — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:01:24 +0000

“On the Mac, when no ICC profile is embedded in the photo, it uses the crayons of your monitor profile.”

Which is exactly the same as what happens under Windows. It is just that the default monitor profile on Windows (almost) always has a gamma of 2.2 (which happens to be the same gamma as the sRGB color space) and on a Mac the default gamma is 1.8. If you change the gamma on the Mac to 2.2, which you can do with built-in tools, there is no fundamental difference anymore between the two systems. Except that on the Mac much more programs do respect embedded profiles in images than on Windows (eg, iWork vs. Office).

By: meish dot org » Colour-shift conundrum

meish dot org » Colour-shift conundrum — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 23:10:19 +0000

[...] This is a useful article on what’s going on beneath the bonnet: Mac Browsers: can you believe your eyes?. Answer: no, basically. Anyone else have this experience? And anyone know what to do about it? Suggestions welcome! [...]

By: apt

apt — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:01:07 +0000

Seriously – a blog entry on colour management and visibility in blogs and you use bright white text on a black background. Great readability right there…
You should definitely design a web browser!

By: 42

42 — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 15:21:44 +0000

All browsers, even Safari, assume an image is in sRGB if there is no embedded profile, or no tag with the name of the desired color space described in a profile.

If an image is tagged sRGB, it doesn’t matter. In assuming sRGB both ColorSync and Windows ICM convert from the source color space (assumed to be sRGB) to the hardware profile of the monitor, regardless of what it might be. At least, that is the way it is supposed to work. If a browser doesn’t do this and displays raw pixels, that’s not a knock against color management. While an sRGB tag would seem to be superfluous, it’s good to have if that image later needs to be converted to another color space.

Since most people don’t calibrate their monitors, and the default on a new OS is a monitor profile whether good or bad, this works out when all image data is not only IN sRGB but when it is assumed that all image data is thus. When content producers use best practices and embed or tag images and work in a color-managed process, this breaks on browsers that ignore profiles if content is not converted to sRGB.

Blaming Colorsync for lazy display management is not really a valid gripe. Depending on device-dependent profiles like those for monitors and cameras is a sure way to end up with crap.

The way around this is to always convert images intended for the web from the source color space regardless of what it is (could even be CMYK) to sRGB, either tagged or not (tagged is better), in Photoshop or another app that understands this stuff. I don’t know how consumer apps like iPhoto manage color, if at all.