Pale in comparison
Lauren Teo asks:
Choice of web browser?
Mostly Firefox 2.0 on the MacBook Pro at the moment, because it's got the most functionality and works with most web sites. Sometimes I fire up Safari to look at sites like Flickr, because believe it or not Safari actually makes the photos look nicer!
This is because Safari is the only mainstream browser that supports embedded ICC colour profiles. ICC profiles help maintain accurate colour representations across media, so a printed picture looks as close as possible to the screen version and so on. OSX and a lot of Apple applications handle ICC profiles almost transparently using software called Coloursync.
As Coloursync is all about moving between mediums (between monitors, or from screen to print, etc), you wouldn't think that this would make much difference when moving digital pictures from your desktop to the web. After all both ends of the equation are digital and effectively using the same monitor.
But with my MacBook it seems to make quite a big difference. A picture that looks rich and colourful in iPhoto or similar looks washed out when uploaded to Flickr and viewed in Firefox.
This "should-be-good-if-it-actually-worked-properly" feature is one of my few major annoyances with OSX, because you can't really turn ColorSync off. It does a great job with printing, but when it comes to working purely digitally it doesn't seem to be able to resist sticking it's oar in, and getting it wrong.
I'm by no means an expert on this, so I've scoured the web for a solution. So far nothing, apart from other people agreeing that it's the case. Any (non-patronising) suggestions gratefully received!
I seem to have strayed somewhat from the original question. :-S
Browsers: Firefox 2.0 first, Safari second, Camino when I feel like a combination of the two (but alas not the best of both worlds it could be).
On the PC side, Firefox again, occasionally Internet Explorer when I need to check what wild interpretation it has for a particular bit of CSS I've written at work!
Choice of web browser?
Mostly Firefox 2.0 on the MacBook Pro at the moment, because it's got the most functionality and works with most web sites. Sometimes I fire up Safari to look at sites like Flickr, because believe it or not Safari actually makes the photos look nicer!
This is because Safari is the only mainstream browser that supports embedded ICC colour profiles. ICC profiles help maintain accurate colour representations across media, so a printed picture looks as close as possible to the screen version and so on. OSX and a lot of Apple applications handle ICC profiles almost transparently using software called Coloursync.
As Coloursync is all about moving between mediums (between monitors, or from screen to print, etc), you wouldn't think that this would make much difference when moving digital pictures from your desktop to the web. After all both ends of the equation are digital and effectively using the same monitor.
But with my MacBook it seems to make quite a big difference. A picture that looks rich and colourful in iPhoto or similar looks washed out when uploaded to Flickr and viewed in Firefox.
This "should-be-good-if-it-actually-worked-properly" feature is one of my few major annoyances with OSX, because you can't really turn ColorSync off. It does a great job with printing, but when it comes to working purely digitally it doesn't seem to be able to resist sticking it's oar in, and getting it wrong.
I'm by no means an expert on this, so I've scoured the web for a solution. So far nothing, apart from other people agreeing that it's the case. Any (non-patronising) suggestions gratefully received!
I seem to have strayed somewhat from the original question. :-S
Browsers: Firefox 2.0 first, Safari second, Camino when I feel like a combination of the two (but alas not the best of both worlds it could be).
On the PC side, Firefox again, occasionally Internet Explorer when I need to check what wild interpretation it has for a particular bit of CSS I've written at work!
The monitor default is sRGB so thats your best bet; if you are to post a picture to make sure its in that profile. Majority of consumer digi cams shoot in this profile anyway.
Camino...word up ;-)
Surely?
<rabid fangirl>
I do feel though, that it falls to me to point out that it's hardly MacOS X's fault that Firefox et al don't play ball and take advantage of inbuilt colour-management software.
</rabid fangirl>
FWIW, BTW, I love Camino :) It's speedy and doesn't have the godawful memory leaks that Safari does. If it was just a little slcker on the UI, and implemented an ⌘1 ⌘2... thing to select the Bookmark Bar favourites, I'd drop Safari as my default
Surely?"
You'd think. :-) As April points out, most monitors that don't do Colorsync are displaying something close to sRGB.
sRGB is also the ICC profile that my Canon camera uses (if you tell it not to use the Adobe one). You can't tell it not to use one.
Equally you can tell iPhoto not to embed a profile if not is present, but you can't tell it to remove one. So if you've got a profile, it stays.
Cue much fiddling about in Photoshop to try and get the best result, and settling, as April rightly suggested, on sRGB. It's good, but it's not quite there.
It's frustrating, because, rabid fangirling aside, you're right. Safari is better for having a decent colour management system. If I follow the colorsync route throughout, the pics look fantastic in Safari.
It's actually spoilt me a bit, because I know how rich a picture can look on a screen. It's just annoying that no other browser supports ICC profiles yet, and can't quite match it!
Gah, it's hard to describe without seeing it. Remind me someday to sit you down in front of my Macbook and show you the symptoms. It's probably exasperated by the lower-quality display on a MacBook compared to a "proper" monitor. I'd be grateful for your input. :-)
Oh and curse you for making me blog about techy Apple stuff. ;-)
Ah. Of course.
Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure there's something that strips profiles from images with a simple drag'n'drop - but I can't remember what it is. I'll have a look see if I can find out a bit more about it for you.
> "Remind me someday to sit you down in front of my Macbook and show you the symptoms."
Yes. We should do that. It's really hard (I find this with my students too) to listen to a problem, without actually seeing it. From memory (because to be honest, I never really got my head around ColorSync, and how to use it properly) I think what you're supposed to do is assign a profile to all of your devices, so that colour is consistent across the board (ie. camera takes picture - it displays the same as on the LCD on your screen - then comes out the same on a printer) ... but for the most part, it's a lot of voodoo ;)
If I can get my backside to Liverpool, let's have a look at it then :)
> "Oh and curse you for making me blog about techy Apple stuff. ;-)"
It's just payback for everyone banging on about the iPhone on mine, whereas I'd really like to hear about the tranny scene in Leeds insted ;-)
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