Firefox 3 Color Management

When I installed Firefox 3 I remembered a note about it being colorspace aware. But, as I discovered this evening, not by default. Here is an interesting blog on the subject for those who use Firefox.

It has always bugged me when an sRGB photo shifts color, so that it looks different in my web browser than it does in Photoshop. I expect it with another colorspace, such as AdobeRGB, but not with sRGB. The photo above (I posted as a reply in this thread this evening) was more blue/cyan and more saturated in my browser than in Photoshop. After testing my Firefox install at the link described in the blog, I realized it wasn't color aware at all. After installing the recommended plugin the photo now looks the same as in Photoshop.

By the way, this same color shift was also noticeable in Photoshop when I chose "Save for Web & Devices". If you want to see the effect yourself, right click this link and save the file, then open it in Photoshop and try "Save for Web & Devices," you should be able to see what I mean.

I may be the last one to the table on this, but if not and your browser is not colorspace aware you may find the info useful.

Thanks for the reminder about that, John. I just checked and discovered that one of my computers no longer had Color Management enabled after the upgrade to the latest version of Firefox.

Good to point out but I would be much more concerned with making sure the image as you are displaying it so OTHERS can see it will look like you want it to look, not as you want to see it. Making your browser ICC aware is obviously not a bad thing, but name me anyone who uses any other profile in their web-displayed images than sRGB, aRGB, or ProPhoto.

Bryan my point is that if another photographer is saving with an embedded sRGB profile and my browser is ICC unaware, some photos will look different to me than the photographer intended. I'm referring to what I can do as a viewer _after_ a photographer has taken the concern you mention. Obviously that photographer can tweak a photo so it looks a bit better when viewed with an ICC unaware browser, but then that tweaked photograph won't look as good in a browser that is ICC aware! As far as I can tell you have to tune your image one way or the other, either for a non-compliant or a compliant browser.

I'd rather have the photographer save the photo as he or she developed it in Photoshop, without tweaks, with an embedded profile, and have my browser ICC aware so that I can see what the photographer intended. Obviously others may have a different take.

You've lost me on your point about naming anyone who uses any other profile in their web-displayed images than sRGB, aRGB, or ProPhotoRGB. Can you expand on what you mean?

While posting an sRGB photo will occasionally look a little different in an ICC unaware browser, AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB will look really bad unless the browser is ICC aware. While I'm obviously advocating making your browser ICC aware, I wouldn't recommend posting with any profile other than sRGB embedded.

Alright, as I understand it, Internet Explorer 4 and newer defaults to sRGB as long as the OS is color aware (and all Windows OS should be from 98 on up). Firefox (all versions) defaults to sRGB, with version 3 allowing integrated color management. Safari, I believe, is color aware, I'm going to assume Mozilla is in the same boat as Firefox and most of the smaller browser are not ICC enabled and hence default to the system default RGB profile (which again is sRGB). Windows itself uses sRGB as a default backup for devices that can't have a different profile assigned as far as I understand it. So, if an image is displayed online with an embedded sRGB profile, it should display properly regardless of what browser you are using.

So I would assume that being the case, anyone with the technical know to embed a color profile in their images, they would be embedding sRGB or aRGB and not some crazy, never used profile like GBR. I guess I should have said I know of no one who knowingly uses ANY profile other than sRGB for web display, because while some might accidentally use aRGB (I know I ran into that problem before I learned about profiling), as long as your stuff is written correctly in the first place, every one else will see it correctly even if they don't know what they are doing.

Now if another photographer is indeed saving in another profile and your browser is color aware, then yes, you will not run into any problems. But again, I can't think of anybody who willingly uses anything but sRGB for web use.

Thanks for expounding. It sounds like we are on the same page that sRGB is the best profile to convert to for web images; sRGB is the default colorspace for most browsers, as you've noted, and I totally agree we should only be posting photos converted to that colorspace. I thought in your original post you were implying that I might be worrying more how the image looked to me, as apposed to others. My apologies if I misunderstood.

To quote my original post, "It has always bugged me when an sRGB photo shifts color, so that it looks different in my web browser than it does in Photoshop." My original post was more along the line of the best way to view photos after they have been posted in sRGB. I wasn't referring to being able to see AdobeRGB and ProPhotoRGB files correctly, but more specifically how to better view an sRGB file.

So, if an image is displayed online with an embedded sRGB profile, it should display properly regardless of what browser you are using.

The whole point of my post is that I don't think this is always the case. If I understand correctly (and it's very possible that I don't ), the reason a color-managed browser will sometimes show an sRGB photo different than a non-managed browser is that the color aware browser maps the color to the monitor profile while the non-managed browser doesn't take the monitor profile into account. Since Photoshop also takes the monitor profile into account, a color aware browser will better match Photoshop in some sRGB photos.

(Now that I think about it a bit more, I believe I am incorrect in my above post when I say that you can tweak a photo for a browser that is not color-managed, because there is no way to take into account the end user's monitor profile. You might be able to tweak it for your monitor profile, so that a non-managed browser matches Photoshop on your machine, but not for other viewers and their different monitor profiles.)

Here's another interesting link.

Ah, I gotcha.

I'm still not convinced its as much of an issue as you're making it out to be though, because as I understand it, unless a browser is specifically told to map to the monitor profile, it will default to sRGB. When the monitor isn't mapped to sRGB, then you'll see inconsistencies between PS and the web, but I haven't noticed any difference between PShop sRGB and FF sRGB. I could be completely wrong about this though.

On second thought, I have noticed some minor differences with the brightness of some of my images on Flickr vs. what they look like in either PS, LR or Windows Picture Viewer, but its always an issue of gamma and not color.

I agree, definitely not something to make a big issue out of. Rather a point of interest, especially if a person is using Firefox 3 and assuming it's ICC compliant by default.