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Blue cast & increased sat with sRGB posts

Discussion

3 replies
Posted by David Schoen on January 31, 2018 at 4:24 PM
Despite having all my images in sRGB format for posting to this site, I continue to notice a slight blue cast & increased saturation with images I post that have been converted from TIF format to JPEG format. The TIF image is saved to Photoshop in sRGB format. I typically use Tony Kuypers sharpening action which in addition to sharpening allows one to resize an image for the web and save for the web.  Although there is an sRGB checkbox in this action, it appears that I get even more saturation if I check that box.  Pressing the save for web tab in the TK action links to the Photoshop save for web dialog box which also allows one to save the RGB file as sRGB.  I am not finding a lot of difference whether or not the sRGB box in the Photoshop save for web dialog box is checked or not.  My monitor is calibrated at least once every 2 to 4 weeks.  So is the increased saturation and blue cast a result of JPEG compression?  And is there anything one can do about this other than adjust the resulting sRGB formatted JPEG file?  What do others do?
Posted by Dennis Plank on January 31, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Hi David.  I'm lazy.  I have Lightroom do the work for me using their Export function.  It converts it from TIFF to sRGB, resizes the file, adds the logo, and does a "sharpen for web-normal" sharpening routine.  You can create presets for the export function and select them on the fly.  I have eight or ten different ones set up so I can just grab the one I want for a particular application, including one for each size for NPN.  You can also move or skip the logo in the export dialog box, so it's pretty simple.

I haven't noticed any issues with color casts beyond the occasional sky color shift that seems almost inevitable when saving for the web.
Posted by Preston Birdwell on January 31, 2018 at 11:57 PM
David, I do not know if it will help. but here is something to try...

When you are ready to use TK's Web Sharpening action, do the following:

Save your master file as an Adobe RGB PSD file.
Flatten the image
Choose Image>Mode>8-Bit
Next, go to Edit>Convert to Profile and choose sRGB
Use TK's Web Sharpening action as needed
In the Save for Web dialog,  make sure Embed Color Profile is checked, and Convert to sRGB is unchecked.
Save the image.

This seems to work well for me, although I do notice differences between posted jpg's and how they appear in Photo Shop. I attribute this to the fact that browsers are notoriously bad at color management/rendering.
--P
Posted by David Schoen on February 1, 2018 at 12:25 AM
Thanks Preston.  I'll give that workflow a trial.  The other option is to redo the jpeg prepared for posting on NPN but that is a lot of extra work.  In the past I have made a guess and desaturated the TIF file to a point where after converting to sRGB the resulting JPEG looks normal on NPN.