Embedding color profile

I'm using this to do a test of embedding color profiles. I saved this image with and without embedding the profile and I want to see them "side by side," so to speak.

The first is with the color profile embedded; the second is without.

Here's the second ... no color profile.

I don't get it! These look the same to me, on NPN. But I did the same test on Flickr and there is a marked difference between the two! I am 99.999% sure that I uploaded the two different (not two of the same) jpegs.

Here's a link to the Flickr test:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelewilliams/

The (very) minute differences I see here are the same as I'm seeing at Flickr.
Is your monitor calibrated?

John, My monitor is calibrated with Eye-One. Honestly I don't see a difference here, as though the color profile is picked up, but to me the background is quite different when I compare them on Flickr. Hmmmm .... I'll have to get my husband to look at this on my monitor to confirm that I'm not seeing things!

Update: I'm now on my uncalibrated monitor at work and I see the difference in the background, in this posting. So it could be something as simple as the lighting in the room. Anyway, I've learned that I need to use the Embed Color Profile option. I'm going to resave my recent red sunset with the profile and see how it looks. I expect it will make the difference between bold red and garish.

What platform and browser are you using? I can't recite all of the details, but some browsers respect color profiles and others apply a default if there isn't one. That might be playing a part in the differences you see.

Keith is correct in that some browsers are not profile-aware. I know IE is not, and I know Safari is. The safest course is to imbed sRGB in the jpeg file, because all the current browser rendering engines support it.

--P

Preston, Can you explain "profile aware"? If IE is not profile aware, will the embedded sRGB profile be used by IE, or only by other browsers?
Thanks.
Michele

As far as I can tell neither of these images has an embedded color profile. The only difference I can see is that one has a jpeg compression of 1:6 for a file size of 220KB while the other is compressed at 1:9 for a file size of 155KB.

They look the same in color-aware Safari on my Mac.

What steps are you taking to embed the color profile? What application (CS5?) How are you confirming a color profile is embeded?

Michele, as Preston has pointed out, most browsers are suppose to be sRGB friendly if you will. Personally, I use Adobe 98 and covert or embed to sRGB for Internet use. I can barely see the difference when I convert with my Spyder3 calibrated monitor. Going a bit further, I do see slight differences in my various browsers I have from site to site. I do not like that viewing anomaly and find the base line a bit fuzzy as a result. One might think IE8 would be good to use for figuring things out, but I do not find it to be the best Internet browser standard overall.

Anyone curious about the value of embedding an ICC profile and using color-aware browsers should spend some time at this site built to demonstrate the issues.

Richard - Thanks. I'll check out the site. I have no idea how to confirm that a color profile was actually embedded. BUT, I think the Flickr comparison does show a distinct difference. I am now thoroughly confused by the combination of embedded profile, monitor, and browser. It seems that it's impossible to judge, a priori, what your photo will look like. Ugh! But I will check out the site you suggested. Maybe I'll understand something. I have a PhD in engineering and all this color confusion hurts my head. Maybe I need to go back to school. :)
~ Michele

That site Richard sent is cool, but pretty confusing if you don't know what you're looking at.

First, the browsers :

-- MS Internet Explorer is NOT color managed. It will completely ignore your embedded profile and it shouldn't matter whether it's there or not. You SHOULD convert your images (not "assign" - "convert") to sRGB if you want people to see them as their best in IE, since with most monitors, you wind up with something close to sRGB. (Although that's changing, and anyone really looking at photos should not be using IE.)

-- Safari, Firefox are color managed, and will read and properly display the profile in your image; This is the same as using other color managed apps like PS.

-- I'm not sure about Opera, or Dolphin, or other browsers.

It seems that it's impossible to judge, a priori, what your photo will look like.

Absolutely true unless you're using a color managed browser. But even if you are, you have no way of knowing what other people are seeing. They won't see things exactly the same as you do unless you both have very well calibrated monitors (with proper room lighting) and color managed browsers. In that case they should be very, very close.

As usual, David is absolutely correct in his statements.

Thanks everyone. I installed the Color Management add-on in Firefox (thanks - I didn't even know it existed) and restarted the program. I still don't see a difference between these two images on my profiled monitor. Is there a way to check whether a given image has the profile embedded? I obviously have a lot to learn.

I don't recall you saying what post processing software you use. If you are using Photoshop: At the bottom of the frame the image is in (make sure you are viewing the image in Standard Screen mode, not Full Screen mode), there is a small right facing triangle. Normally, the information to the left of this arrow is the document size. Click on the arrow and you will see an option to see the document profile. Select that option. I would suggest you also look at "Edit / Color Preferences". You can have photoshop ask you what you would like to do if the document you are opening does not match your default working space. You can specify your color management policies in this same dialog box. Hope that helps.

I've pasted up this image from a few screen grabs on my Mac using Photoshop CS3.

A: This is the Color Settings panel in PS CS3, accessed from the Edit Menu. Note the first pulldown menu in the "Working Spaces" section at the top. I've set it to sRGB (I think the IEC61966-2.1 is the ICC profile name). Many people advise setting Adobe RGB for the wider color space, but by always working in sRGB I avoid all the surprises people get when they convert to sRGB for web posting.

B: This is taken from the bottom of the Adobe Camera Raw window for an old raw file from my Nikon D70. Note the underlined blue text at the bottom - this is another selectable menu at the time of raw conversion. This confirms I'm opening the raw NEF in sRGB with a bit depth of 16.

So, my raw file is transferred to PHotoshop in the sRGB color space, and my working space in photoshop is also set to sRGB.

C: This is taken from the bottom of the edit window with your Great Blue Heron image loaded, and shows the feature that Keith described above. I used the second image you posted in this thread - without the color profile and this is confirmed by the "untagged" label.

I know this can be confusing so I hope these examples help.

Thanks Richard. That's very helpful. I've been doing some reading and the sRGB vs Adobe RGB vs Prophoto debate certainly adds to the confusion. I understand why you work in sRGB for web photos. Do you use a wider gamut for print?

I do very little printing any more so it isn't an issue for me. But even when I did more printing I stayed in sRGB. If you look at my gallery or portfolio you won't see a lot of color in my images so maybe I'd have a different opinion if I took more colorful stuff.