Your browser should display all versions of this test correctly, if not, you may not be able to make a valid judgement on a posted photo because your not seeing the color, white point, nor gamma correctly ...
This test has nothing to do with Mac vs. PC, or even V4 compatibility necessarily. Unless you're using Safari or Firefox with color management on, you won't ever see that image correctly. Most web browsers aren't color managed and won't do what's necessary to show those quadrants correctly, no matter what system you're running on. If you are using Firefox you can turn the color management on and off and see the difference (not sure about Safari). Other browsers (and a lot of other programs) just ignore the color profiles in images and (I think) assume they are either in the monitor space or sRGB.
For what it's worth, I see the image correctly in Firefox on my nearly 7 year old Windows XP laptop. And the V4 profiles came out in 2001. I bet just about everyone on here's system supports V4 and already has it installed.
Yeah - I figured that Matt. No problem....but I thought Phillip's question was serious, so I wanted to explain a bit more about why/what people may be seeing on that link. The page itself doesn't really explain.
This has always been a problem of mine, color management (or lack thereof) in web browsers. As a side note, the new version of firefox (I believe its 3.5?) has color management on by default (at least the mac version does), and as opposed to prior versions in which you had to enable it, the feature actually works correctly.
Posted by Phillip Noll on July 30, 2009 at 10:02 PM
I have a Mac and my question was serious!
On my Mac running 10.5.7 and using Firefox 3.5.1, the image looks like the 2nd one of the three shown suggesting that my system supports ICC version 2 profiles only. So how do I get my system to support the v4 profiles? The website you referenced doesn't tell you what to do.
Posted by Phillip Noll on July 30, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Note the caveate at the bottom of the page that says:
The new QCMS color management system introduced in Firefox 3.5 currently only supports ICC version 2 color profiles, not version 4. This may result in images being too dark.
Peter - That's because we all post things in sRGB. The reason we do that is because browsers that aren't color managed just assume everything is sRGB, or something close to it. If you posted something in some widely disparate color space, you would be able to see a difference in the browser. That's why if you post something in Adobe RGB that looks great in PS, it will look different in your browser. The browser is ignoring the profile.
I found it useful to download the .pdf. If that looks good I guess that means that the system supports v4.
Posted by Peter Barnes on August 1, 2009 at 6:49 AM
It seems to me that this is all unecessarily complex, just who uses e-sRGB, or YCC-RGB, or GBR? They are certainly not profiles that I have ever seen recommended for images posted on Web pages. If you are not using good old sRGB for your web photos, in my book you are doing your viewers a disservice, and deserve to have your images look out of whack. But I am willing to be told I am wrong.
Posted by David Bostedo on August 2, 2009 at 1:52 PM
It seems to me that this is all unecessarily complex, just who uses e-sRGB, or YCC-RGB, or GBR? They are certainly not profiles that I have ever seen recommended for images posted on Web pages. If you are not using good old sRGB for your web photos, in my book you are doing your viewers a disservice, and deserve to have your images look out of whack. But I am willing to be told I am wrong.
Well I would say you're right because of the state of things, but things really shouildn't be that way. If all operating systems and browsers were properly color aware, you could post your image in whatever color space suited you, and it would look fine on everyone's monitor. Some would say that current software is doing everyone a disservice by limiting us to sRGB. This is becoming especially true as monitors attain wider and wider gamuts.
Plus, most people (at least on here) use something wider than sRGB to edit their photos (usually Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB), and it's an extra step with potential problems to convert them to sRGB for the web.
Discussion
12 replieshttp://www.color.org/version4html.xalter/[url]
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my BloG:[url]http://blog.widen.com/blog/industrial-retouch-and-color
For what it's worth, I see the image correctly in Firefox on my nearly 7 year old Windows XP laptop. And the V4 profiles came out in 2001. I bet just about everyone on here's system supports V4 and already has it installed.
My point is, one should have a heads up on whether or not your viewing images correctly, or should I say, as intended.
Safari color manages thru the display profile that is chosen thru the system preferences.
Yeah - I figured that Matt. No problem....but I thought Phillip's question was serious, so I wanted to explain a bit more about why/what people may be seeing on that link. The page itself doesn't really explain.
On my Mac running 10.5.7 and using Firefox 3.5.1, the image looks like the 2nd one of the three shown suggesting that my system supports ICC version 2 profiles only. So how do I get my system to support the v4 profiles?
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/ICC_color_correction_in_Firefox
Note the caveate at the bottom of the page that says:
Using Safari everything looks great!
Well I would say you're right because of the state of things, but things really shouildn't be that way. If all operating systems and browsers were properly color aware, you could post your image in whatever color space suited you, and it would look fine on everyone's monitor. Some would say that current software is doing everyone a disservice by limiting us to sRGB. This is becoming especially true as monitors attain wider and wider gamuts.
Plus, most people (at least on here) use something wider than sRGB to edit their photos (usually Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB), and it's an extra step with potential problems to convert them to sRGB for the web.