Michael Seltzer
New member
Hello,
(Sorry for the length: I wanted to give enough information…)
I have recently submitted images to several calls for entries, and had a few photographs taken for an online exhibition. When the exhibition went up, I noticed that my images seemed quite faded, desaturated perhaps with maybe a slight color shift. I inquired, in an email, whether this was a color profile problem, and if I converted my images to another profile and resent them, might that fix it. The response I got indicated they weren’t sure if the problem could be fixed. They explained that different computers display images differently: PCs displaying images darker and less saturated than Macs, and that they had simply put up what they received. However, they were willing to try if I sent them new files, after doing whatever I thought needed to be done.
My files look pretty much the same to me on my computer (a Mac) and on my wife’s (a PC), so I downloaded (“Save Image As…”) some of the files from the show site. I noticed a few things. They were small jpegs, most between 20kb and 50kb, with a few as large as 150kb. They specified I should resize my images to 1000 pixels on the long side, and at that resolution I am having trouble getting some of my files that small (most of the files on the show site are actually between 500 and 750 pixels on the long side, though even at that resolution I’m having trouble getting some of my files below 150kb).
The other thing I noticed is that when I look at these files in Photoshop’s “Assign Profile…” they all have “Don’t Color Manage This Document” checked. When I take one of my files and assign no color management, it does indeed change them. In Photoshop, they now look super-saturated and red-shifted. But if I save them, without making any other change, they look quite dull in Preview or Finder, similar to how they look on the show site.
So my question is, is this what I have to do, assign “Don’t Color Manage This Document” to all these files, then use Hue/Saturation and Curves adjustments to make them look okay (I can’t see how they’ll look in PS, as they look super-saturated there)? And, is this just a crapshoot? If no color management is being used, does that mean even if I get a file that looks all right to me in Preview, it might still look crappy once they put it on their show site, or if it looks good on my computer when accessing their show site, it could look even worse than before on someone else’s computer when they access the show site?
Clearly they are converting these files, so I’m also concerned that if I send them a 1000 pixel image that is a 400kb file, and that’s too big for them, they’ll convert it to a smaller file, and that will screw with how I got the file to look. I’m also concerned that other submissions I’ve made elsewhere look bad to these people because of color profile differences.
Thanks for any help, and again, sorry for the length.
(Sorry for the length: I wanted to give enough information…)
I have recently submitted images to several calls for entries, and had a few photographs taken for an online exhibition. When the exhibition went up, I noticed that my images seemed quite faded, desaturated perhaps with maybe a slight color shift. I inquired, in an email, whether this was a color profile problem, and if I converted my images to another profile and resent them, might that fix it. The response I got indicated they weren’t sure if the problem could be fixed. They explained that different computers display images differently: PCs displaying images darker and less saturated than Macs, and that they had simply put up what they received. However, they were willing to try if I sent them new files, after doing whatever I thought needed to be done.
My files look pretty much the same to me on my computer (a Mac) and on my wife’s (a PC), so I downloaded (“Save Image As…”) some of the files from the show site. I noticed a few things. They were small jpegs, most between 20kb and 50kb, with a few as large as 150kb. They specified I should resize my images to 1000 pixels on the long side, and at that resolution I am having trouble getting some of my files that small (most of the files on the show site are actually between 500 and 750 pixels on the long side, though even at that resolution I’m having trouble getting some of my files below 150kb).
The other thing I noticed is that when I look at these files in Photoshop’s “Assign Profile…” they all have “Don’t Color Manage This Document” checked. When I take one of my files and assign no color management, it does indeed change them. In Photoshop, they now look super-saturated and red-shifted. But if I save them, without making any other change, they look quite dull in Preview or Finder, similar to how they look on the show site.
So my question is, is this what I have to do, assign “Don’t Color Manage This Document” to all these files, then use Hue/Saturation and Curves adjustments to make them look okay (I can’t see how they’ll look in PS, as they look super-saturated there)? And, is this just a crapshoot? If no color management is being used, does that mean even if I get a file that looks all right to me in Preview, it might still look crappy once they put it on their show site, or if it looks good on my computer when accessing their show site, it could look even worse than before on someone else’s computer when they access the show site?
Clearly they are converting these files, so I’m also concerned that if I send them a 1000 pixel image that is a 400kb file, and that’s too big for them, they’ll convert it to a smaller file, and that will screw with how I got the file to look. I’m also concerned that other submissions I’ve made elsewhere look bad to these people because of color profile differences.
Thanks for any help, and again, sorry for the length.
