Color difference on Mac and PC?

[riced]

So, I've had a mac for a few months now and have been processing pictures through PS CS4 and the colors are generally very vibrant and nice. As a side note, the color remains the same all the time (after processing, saving, previewing, viewing on Safari).

There have been a few times I've went over to my GF's house and viewed them on her PC.. The pictures look dull and desaturated. Now I'm wondering.. could this be that MY monitor is not properly calibrated or hers isn't? I haven't viewed it on any other PC's so I can't tell. She uses Firefox btw.

So, this picture

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3624787955_0dc15828f7.jpg?v=0

looks nice, bright and red on my Mac. However, on her PC it was desaturated.. what do you guys see?

I use sRGB in PS if it makes a difference.. any insight would be great.

[msommers]

I can notice a big difference between my calibrated monitor and my laptop screen. I'd say it's her monitor buddy.

[eglove]

looks red on my macbook pro, looks red on my pc too.

[riced]

Thanks, do the reds change at all from Mac to PC? Does it look desaturated?

On mine, it looks like the exact red a Recaro red should be..

[eglove]

looks the same as when i go to the garage to look at my seat, lol. on both the mac and pc it's identical

os x 10.5.7 and window 7 rc1

edit: on bootcamp xp on my mbp the colors are slightly desaturated.

[CivicDXR]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read this somewhere else on the web:

Generally on a mac, the screens and monitors are only made by a handful of choice companies that apple uses. So if you're doing this work on an iMac, or a MacBook/Pro, the monitor is already calibrated with the proper color profile by OSX depending on what screen its displaying on, so what you're seeing on the mac is proper. On the other hand, there are hundreds of different video card manufacturers and screen manufacturers that make stuff for the PC, so it is more important to do a proper color calibration on those than it is on a Mac.

Also, I've seen different browsers display pictures with completely different colors on them. I've done a side by side comparison between Safari, IE, and Firefox on a laptop with WinXP, and the same pictures looked like they had slightly different or washed out colors than the other.

Off topic: you're never parting with that seat, are you? :poosie:

[KKY]

Looks like you're using Adobe RGB. For images you post on the web, convert to sRGB.

[eglove]

^ he already is using srgb

[KKY]

Not for the image he linked to.

*EDIT

The following would look different when viewed with a browser that doesn't display Adobe RGB images properly.

His image (Adobe RGB)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3624787955_0dc15828f7.jpg

Converted to sRGB
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/kkykky/Misc/srgb3624787955_0dc15828f7.jpg

[riced]

Originally posted by eglove
looks the same as when i go to the garage to look at my seat, lol. on both the mac and pc it's identical

os x 10.5.7 and window 7 rc1

edit: on bootcamp xp on my mbp the colors are slightly desaturated.

Thanks for doing that check for me!


Originally posted by CivicDXR
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read this somewhere else on the web:

Generally on a mac, the screens and monitors are only made by a handful of choice companies that apple uses. So if you're doing this work on an iMac, or a MacBook/Pro, the monitor is already calibrated with the proper color profile by OSX depending on what screen its displaying on, so what you're seeing on the mac is proper. On the other hand, there are hundreds of different video card manufacturers and screen manufacturers that make stuff for the PC, so it is more important to do a proper color calibration on those than it is on a Mac.

Also, I've seen different browsers display pictures with completely different colors on them. I've done a side by side comparison between Safari, IE, and Firefox on a laptop with WinXP, and the same pictures looked like they had slightly different or washed out colors than the other.

Off topic: you're never parting with that seat, are you? :poosie:

Hmm, interesting... I need to check on other monitors and see what's up.
And nope, never. HAHA


Originally posted by KKY
Not for the image he linked to.

*EDIT

The following would look different when viewed with a browser that doesn't display Adobe RGB images properly.

His image (Adobe RGB)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2483/3624787955_0dc15828f7.jpg

Converted to sRGB
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v187/kkykky/Misc/srgb3624787955_0dc15828f7.jpg

Ok, so this is where it gets confusing. In the first picture (Adobe RGB), the picture looks great and vibrant. However, when you converted to sRGB, that's what it looks like on my GF's laptop - desaturated and dull.

So, what would be my solution to this? Because if I'm processing pics on my Mac in sRGB, then would that mean I'd always be seeing desaturated pictures but on every other monitor, it would look fine?

When I go into PS, and edit color profiles, the RGB working space is already at sRGB.. unless I've not converted to sRGB properly.. any help? Thanks for all the help guys..

[quazimoto]

I'll shed some light and information on this for you. This is the way it works....

Macs and PCs use two completely different native gamma levels which typically means the birghtness and saturation will be different. Different monitors now a days will also display images differently.

Images edited on a mac will look different than those edited on a PC. It just has to do with the native gamma levels used by macs and pcs.

I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you had clients that used a PC or something. I personally use a Dell XPS 435 with dual 23" Apple Cinema Displays.

The apple cinema displays are worth every single penny for a person wanting clear and accurate colors. The colors were so accurate that my colormunki pretty much didn't even alter the color.

I wouldn't worry to much about it though. When you are saving the photo it will give you an option to apply a given ICC profile and I think in some cases adobe rgb might automatically be pre-selected.

[mboldt]

Weird. Someone just asked this on another board I go on. His color difference is between Firefox and Safari for browsers.

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj287/alexisonlineTGI/Picture2-1.png

This might explain a bit to you:

http://photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/color-management/

[ZorroAMG]

Yeah I get that even on my Apple 23" display...

[soupey]

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/web-browser-color-management.html

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

[riced]

After doing some reading and playing around, I found that my camera has been shooting in Adobe RGB, but my colorspace on CS4 has been sRGB. I can imagine that would make some problems.

Thanks for those links btw, guys!

quazi-moto, I do not save for web.. I simply save as JPEG.. but I don't recall there being an option to apply an ICC profile?

I've changed my camera to be shooting in sRGB and my colorspace to be sRGB.. I hope it works properly now.

Also, if you've shot a picture in Adobe RGB, it's not possible to switch it over to sRGB is it? Or maybe I'm confusing myself.

[ZorroAMG]

Interesting links, Soupey

That second one, the browser test shows my safari works fine but Firefox shits the bed.

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by CivicDXR
Also, I've seen different browsers display pictures with completely different colors on them. I've done a side by side comparison between Safari, IE, and Firefox on a laptop with WinXP, and the same pictures looked like they had slightly different or washed out colors than the other.

Yes, that can (and does) attribute to the colour difference, so it's not just whether or not one display to another is properly calibrated. Until recently, web browsers displayed only sRGB. Safari 2 was the first to start using aRGB, then Firefox 3. And while Firefox 3 does support aRGB, it's not enabled by default. Internet Explorer does not support aRGB (at least I haven't seen anything that suggestions IE8 does). So on my computer and laptop, colour photos look identical on Safari and FF3.

[djayz]

Originally posted by riced
Thanks, do the reds change at all from Mac to PC? Does it look desaturated?

On mine, it looks like the exact red a Recaro red should be..

On my PC on IE and Firefox the seat looks like it should.
When I check my MBP it looks desaturated haha.

I had this problem a long time ago and there was a website with a monitor calibration setup thing. It was great as I got my monitor and tv looking identical and my TV looked amazing.

I'll see if I can find the link as it was the best calibration thing I've used and best of all it was free :D

[quazimoto]

When you go to save a file in photoshop look under the name you should see this part that says color and it lets you embed the aRGB 1998 ICC into the photo. I'm still not entire sure what it does.

I personally shoot all my photos in .CR2 with aRGB. When I save files for clients I do an sRGB conversion so the photos don't look like crap on their computers.

I refused to buy a mac simply over fears my photos would look like bunk on my clients home computers since most people don't have a colormunki to calibrate their monitor, printer and don't have fancy apple cinema lcd displays. Granted I now use a mac for my personal stuff just not for my photo editing which sounds wierd lol.

[KKY]

Originally posted by riced
Also, if you've shot a picture in Adobe RGB, it's not possible to switch it over to sRGB is it? Or maybe I'm confusing myself.
good that you figured it out. I had that problem when I had my first DSLR and took me a while to figure out what the issue was.

you can convert your Adobe RGB images to sRGB in Photoshop. Edit > Convert to Profile...

I recommend using Save for Web for your web images, as it optimize your file and lets you change multiple settings all on one screen, including convert Adobe RGB to sRGB.

[riced]

Perfect! Thanks so much guys.

I still have to see if shooting in sRGB and processing in sRGB makes a difference on PC's. Like you guys said, I think it's the Mac's fancy monitors.
Makes me wonder if I should start upping the saturation or something... lol

I'm still confused as to why the pictures KKY are different for me. The Adobe RGB one looks right, but the sRGB one looks exactly like on my GF's...
you'd think they'd be better?

[quazimoto]

It's not really anything to do with the monitors. If you use a Apple cinema display on a mac the color will be differen than the pc. It just has to do with the fact the Mac operating system using a different native gamma level than windows. Because of this the colors are different.

Just to be perfectly clear though, the apple cinema display is not the problem. They are one of the best monitors you can buy especially for photographers or really anybody that works in design. Everyone thinks they are overpriced at $1,000 but they out perform 1080p lcd televisions.

I am pretty sure that use of a monitor calibrating system such a a spyder3 or a colormunki you can alter the Mac standard gamma to be the same as windows. I am not shocked apple did something like this they are always trying to force their proprietary crap on the world. It's really the only reason I didn't buy a power mac for photo editing. Well that and the fact my dell is more powerful and half the cost.