Last month I had 15,000+ hits to my blog, and quite a few to my galleries.
Most, if not all of my photos are sRGB, but, what if they weren't ?
Not every browser is color managed.
If your website and gallery viewers aren't color managed in their browser appliance, they may have a poor experience and tainted expectations. Your prized imagery may appear soft, flat, or even garish. White points, Gamma, and color Gamut's may be amiss.
You have spent precious time creating an inviting place for your imagery or even a lifeline for your works commerce. You should also take the time to check what your patrons are using thru reports or even surveys. Educating your clientele is imperative for good communication and visual representation. We can't expect that everyone will be using a calibrated Eizo monitor, but we can educate our markets, and minimize poor renditions thru amalgamation of information, updates, and dialogue.
Of course, you could do nothing. Your competition is hoping you won't. Taking pictures is the easy part...
For July I had 3535 hits with 2073 being IE and 654 safari and 114 Firefox along with a few various minor browsers. I keep upload my images as sRGB color space with processing similar to what I post here - just somewhat smaller sizes.
Posted by Lon Overacker on August 7, 2009 at 7:38 PM
Matt,
Most, if not all of my photos are sRGB, but, what if they weren't ?
IMHO, the easy answer is that ALL your images should be sRGB. You can't really expect to train every random user that visits your site to go out and get a color-managed browser? The VAST majority of folks are using IE or some derivative of that and as we all know, IE is NOT color managed, therefore sRGB will of course look best.
So rather than trying to affect or change 6,500 visitors, just change 1.
An analogy would be screen resolution. It used to be 800x600 was the standard, then 1024x768.. now we have wide screens. Our websites should accomodate the majority of screen sizes out there (there is code that does this to make the best presentation for whatever screen size a visitor has.) We can't expect everyone who visits our websites to change their screen resolution or buy new monitors.
Hope that wasn't too blunt. The web is what it is.
Lon
Posted by Chris Rice on September 24, 2009 at 9:29 PM
sRGB for sure. Also full IPTC core. As much as we want to believe that everyone is viewing images that way we want them to be viewed, forget it. Every monitor is different. LCD displays lose their brightness much faster than CRTs nowadays. The best we can hope is that the factory default setting is close to the color temperature you processed for. A long-lasting compelling discussion ensues......
"Just shoot for the middle of a very wide barn door" (Bruce Fraser)
Posted by Al Andersen on November 28, 2009 at 5:43 PM
Several things I've learned in this regard, as a web designer and photographer: A) You can't control your users web habits, B) color management only works on calibrated systems, C) sRGB is the standard, like it or not.
To put it in a different perspective, most users use a non-standards compliant browser (IE), have uncalibrated hardware, and have no clue what a color profile is.
Do what you can for those who can enjoy photos that are color managed and don't worry about the rest.
Just my $0.02.
[Edit] P.S. Your competitors are in the exact same boat [/Edit]
Discussion
5 repliesMost, if not all of my photos are sRGB, but, what if they weren't ?
Not every browser is color managed.
If your website and gallery viewers aren't color managed in their browser appliance, they may have a poor experience and tainted expectations. Your prized imagery may appear soft, flat, or even garish. White points, Gamma, and color Gamut's may be amiss.
Take a look at this graphic (below), it displays last months report of my blog viewers browser. I potentially could have +6,500 visitors not viewing my work correctly ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3425/3775721686_b53efc19a2_o.jpg
You have spent precious time creating an inviting place for your imagery or even a lifeline for your works commerce. You should also take the time to check what your patrons are using thru reports or even surveys. Educating your clientele is imperative for good communication and visual representation. We can't expect that everyone will be using a calibrated Eizo monitor, but we can educate our markets, and minimize poor renditions thru amalgamation of information, updates, and dialogue.
Of course, you could do nothing. Your competition is hoping you won't. Taking pictures is the easy part...
IMHO, the easy answer is that ALL your images should be sRGB. You can't really expect to train every random user that visits your site to go out and get a color-managed browser? The VAST majority of folks are using IE or some derivative of that and as we all know, IE is NOT color managed, therefore sRGB will of course look best.
So rather than trying to affect or change 6,500 visitors, just change 1.
An analogy would be screen resolution. It used to be 800x600 was the standard, then 1024x768.. now we have wide screens. Our websites should accomodate the majority of screen sizes out there (there is code that does this to make the best presentation for whatever screen size a visitor has.) We can't expect everyone who visits our websites to change their screen resolution or buy new monitors.
Hope that wasn't too blunt. The web is what it is.
Lon
To put it in a different perspective, most users use a non-standards compliant browser (IE), have uncalibrated hardware, and have no clue what a color profile is.
Do what you can for those who can enjoy photos that are color managed and don't worry about the rest.
Just my $0.02.
[Edit] P.S. Your competitors are in the exact same boat [/Edit]
-Al