Vast color shifts across multiple applications

Today I uploaded an image to the web to show a colleague. When I previewed the photo online I was shocked by the huge shift in color. The entire image was over saturated and had a green tint to it.

Curious, I decided to check out the exact same image in a different browser. I pasted the URL in Safari and the result was a completely different looking image. The exact same image file now looked desaturated and a little washed out. I saved the image file to my desktop and opened it up in Photoshop. Again, there was another color shift. What is up with that?

Here’s the image as it renders in Firefox.

Here’s the image as it renders in Safari.

Here’s the image as it renders in Photoshop.

Am I stupid?—Wait. Don’t answer that. But, why is this happening? Anybody?

3 Comments to “Vast color shifts across multiple applications”

  1. Katrina Neufeld 3 March 2010 at 4:34 pm #

    As it turns out, I AM stupid! I was working with images for print that needed to be output in CMYK. I didn’t take long for a few tweeps to give me a real schooling.

    RT @hundred10: Safari uses Colorsync profiles while Firefox doesn’t. Try outputting in sRGB from Photoshop and see if that makes a difference. [link]

    RT @SonicFoundation: sRGB color pofiling can help with x-browser consistency. [link]

    Thanks guys!

  2. Layne 3 March 2010 at 4:37 pm #

    This is probably happening because Safari has stronger color profile support. Depending on which version of Firefox you’re using, it may be assuming an sRGB image when there isn’t one. Try saving for web & devices from Photoshop with sRGB checked and see if that makes a difference.

  3. Jared 3 March 2010 at 4:47 pm #

    Here is nice in-depth article on the subject which I found helpful. http://www.gballard.net/psd/srgbforwww.html


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