How to Use Photoshop Color Profiles for Web Images
I’ve noticed lately that some web designers don’t seem to be using color profiles correctly in Photoshop. If you’ve ever saved images for the web and discovered that they come out slightly lighter and more desaturated than what you saw when you worked on them, this guide is for you.
There are some blog posts that advocate disabling color profiles in web images to “fix” this problem. This isn’t the right way to go about it because modern browsers like Firefox 3 and Safari do use color profiles, so you can get much better results by using them correctly. What’s more, color profiles are dead simple to use. Here’s how…
NOTE: The following instructions are for Photoshop CS3 running on OS X, but it will be the same for Windows and similar for older versions of Photoshop.
First, we need to know what profile to use for your web images — that’s the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile. It is standard across many PC monitors and so is recommended for use on the web. To set your working space to this profile, open up the “Edit” menu, and click on “Color Settings…”
You’ll be presented with the following options:
Look at the “Working Spaces” section and select the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile from the RGB drop-down. The other settings aren’t relevant here since we’ll only be working with RGB for web images.
Now you’ve got the working space set up correctly, but we’re not done. What you see now isn’t what you’ll see when you save the image for the web because what you see isn’t affected by your monitor settings — to see the “real” colors we need to use color proofing.
Click on the “View” menu and then on “Proof Setup”. You should see another selection. We want to see the image as it will appear on our monitor, so select “Monitor RGB” at the bottom.
Finally, we need to activate color proofing as it is off by default. Click on the “View” menu again, and click on “Proof Colors” if there is no check already next to it.
Once you click on it, it will be checked indicating that the colors are now being proofed using your monitor settings. That’s it, what you see now on your screen will be pretty much what you’ll get when you save the image.
People will still see the colors slightly differently across many devices and operating systems (for example, default OS X gamma differs to the standard Windows PC gamma, so images are a little brighter — if you are working on a Mac it is advised to set your gamma level to 2.2) but the output will still be consistent with your working space and will be ready for modern browsers that do use embedded color profiles.
Awesome. ive been wondering about that for a little bit now. thanks. found your post through design float, ill have a longer look around your site. awesome so far. thanks again.
Thanks Travis, I’m glad you found this useful.
One thing to note is that the “Proof Colors” mode is off by default on every new image, so you have to make sure to turn it on — can use a shortcut (Command+Y on OS X or Control+Y on Windows). I’m not a Photoshop guru so not sure if it’s possible to turn it on by default.
ohh, thats a really good post, extremly helpful, im glad you posted thanks.
Max | Design Shard
This tutorial is recommended reading for anyone who designs for screen.
Thank you Dmitry.
Personally, I just turn off all colour management. That way what’s on screen, is just the way it will be in your browser.
Does this offer any advantages?
Well, I´ve been working with web images for the last few days, so this has been a great help. Good Blog!!
Un abrazo y saludos desde Guadalajara, México.
Thanks everyone for the positive comments.
Kevin — good question :) A lot of browsers right now don’t use color profiles, but the newer ones do (Safari by default, and Firefox 3 if you turn it on). Basically, your colors should be richer and stronger with profiles (though you’ll only see the difference in a modern browser).
Here are two great links with lots of example comparison images:
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go.....files.html
http://www.dria.org/wordpress/.....04/29/633/
I think it’s not crucial for you to use color profiles today, but as they will be used by all browsers in the future, I think it’s a good idea to know how to set them up.
Great just what I was looking for!
I always make sure my “new document” in Photoshop uses sRGB2.1 as well but didnt know about the “View > Proof Setup”.
I tend to turn off Proof Colours now though so that it looks the same as the Windows version since most of my clients are on Windows I know how it will look while designing.
Dimitry - thanks for the explanation. I’ll read up on that with a view to doing it in the future.
Thanks for this usefull informations…
Thank you for this tips. Very helpful.
Thats cool, I was wondering if i set this up will i have to change it every time i want to use the color settings for print? can I save the two diff setups? or even three setups with the PSCS3 standard saved?
Hi Gavin,
Don’t think there is a faster way to switch color profiles than through the Color Settings menu under the “Edit” menu.
You can save the different settings you change in that menu for future use — however you’ll have to go back to Color Settings to switch to them though. Not amazing, but it’s not too bad either.
A great way to switch between color profiles and apply it to all your Adobe Applications is doing the color setting with Adobe Bridge: Open Bridge > Edit > Adobe Suite Color Settings >> Choose, Adobe North “America web/Internet”(web settings) or choose “North America Prepress” (Print Settings)
*The setting you choose will be applied to all your Adobe Applications.
Thank you thank you thank you from another grateful reader. This just saved me a year’s worth of head scratching and adjustment making. You rock!
High 5*
Thanks dude.
Thank you, quite a useful post.
loswl that’s a useful tip — thanks.
Thanks for the positive comments everyone, I’m happy this post was helpful.
Thank you! I’ve been looking for this solution for such a long time and finally its here… I’m working with mostly web interfaces using both PC and Mac, the color problems always making things complicated all the time.
i’ve been looking for this for such a long time. thanx a lot man
Thanks for this. I’ve been struggling with this issue for sometime now. I usually ended up over saturating my images before saving them to make them look normal when i saved them for the web.
That’s what was messing them up! I’ve been wondering what the hell it was, thanks!
Amen.
Hmmm, great post, but shouldn’t you give cred to the pros posting on said blog about disabling color profiles? Heh.
Hello webmaster , Your blog post about photoshop is absolutely great. Easy to understand it and with excellent value. I just stumbled up and dugg your site to digg as good news article about photoshop on Monday . Cheers, Mike Brown , keep up the good work !
well done, brother
The issue I find with enabling Proof Colors is that your document will now appear to be a different color than the hex code that you swatch from it. if you eyedrop a color in Photoshop and then paste that hex value into your CSS document, the HTML is NOT going to match the exported .png.
In other words, with color management and “Proof Colors” enabled, you cannot accurately sample colors from your document within PS to use in your HTML/CSS document, because the raw hex has no color profile associated with it.
The solution to this would be to swatch from an exported .PNG but doesn’t that seem like a hassle?
What are the advantages for web graphics with color profiles embedded anyway? I was always under the assumption that profiles were intended for photographs exported from PS. Can you not get as “rich” or accurate colors by just starting a fresh template with no color management and making the colors appear the way you intend them to look in the first place?
thanks man, sorted out some minor problems I was having.
It was my major prob.
Solved, a BIG thanks to you.
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Ive been searching everywhere and was even playing around the photoshop and did exactly what you did today before I saw this post. Thank you for reassuring me my computer wasn’t the crazy one! Great tutorial!
Thanks for clearing up a whole load of conflicting advice around the web. I’ve been struggling to get my head around this one for ages.
Does anyone have any good advice on a workflow for picking hex refs for style guides? When you’ve finished a design is there an easy way of picking out the background and font colors for the CSS developers? Do you have to Save for web and colorpick? Or turn proofing on and use Digital Color Meter?
Somebody out there must get this right every time. Where are you!? ;o)
[...] are still rather mysterious. I’ve now crossed RGB color profiles off that list when I found this consise and easy to read post on how to accurately reproduce color when exporting for the [...]
[...] Usability Post是一个关于可用性设计的博客。博客文章中提到了很多技巧，比如用页面空白改进用户界面、用Photoshop颜色配置文件设计web图像等。 [...]
[...] are still rather mysterious. I’ve now crossed RGB color profiles off that list when I found this consise and easy to read post on how to accurately reproduce color when exporting for the [...]
I’ve been looking and asking (including Adobe) for this everywhere and you solved my problem. Thanks a lot.
@Amir Ardalan:
While I can see where you’re coming from, I think you’re incorrect; when you view in proof colors, you aren’t changing the RGB or HEX value, you’re just seeing it through a “lens” - that is, you’re telling photoshop to show you these colors as they would be displayed outside of photoshop.
Therefore, when sampling colors from a document, you would be grabbing the correct HEX values regardless of what lens (in this case, monitor profile) you were looking through.
If I’m wrong and you can document where your concern is popping up, I’d love to see it.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK LIL BROTHER
Just installed Photoshop CS4 on my new Mac Pro running Mac OS 10.5.6 and am moving from using ImageReady on an old G5 running 10.3.9. The second I opened an existing file created in ImageReady, disaster struck. Colors are not matching what I see in Firefox. Did everything mentioned in article above, but still slightly off. In the Color Settings menu, found the Advanced Controls settings (under “More Options” button) had the “Desaturate Monitor Colors By: 18 percent” checked off. Not sure why this was checked by default but when I unchecked this option, colors are now fairly close, but, not perfect.
Thanks for this! Always been frustrated with having to correct an image over and over after seeing it different on the web
You fuckin rule, I have been so pissed off about this for a while. Thanks buddy.
Thanks, Dmitry!
Do you know why the images may still look different in CS4 and FF3 or Safari? I have executed the sequence that you have described but for some reasons images in FF3 are much more saturated than in CS4…
Thanks a lot for this article!
Finally i can get my designs to look like the final product :)
Great article, it has really helped me out. Given that colour management will be more prevalent on the web in the future, I am aiming to design with this in mind. Apart from ensuring images have the correct profile, is it possible (or will it be possible) to specify a profile within the page itself, so that both the page and images match up?
Very nice modern theme thank you. = )
THANK YOU! It has been driving me nuts. i couldnt figure out why my photographs looked less colorfull once uploaded. Thank you for your help now i can work in peace. lol
Где-то я уже нечто подобное читал, причём слово в слово… :)
So I process my images in sRGB mode, but in Proof view for Cinema - and it works fine for web saving. But if I now want to print the image do I need to turn Proof view off and process the image again? As the processing I’ve just done is now too dark in sRGB view.
Реально удивили и даже порадовали :) Не поверил бы, что даже такое бывает :)
Dmitry, Incredibly helpful info here, wish I had found it sooner. Many thanks!
[...] Usability Post是一个关于可用性设计的博客。博客文章中提到了很多技巧，比如用页面空白改进用户界面、用Photoshop颜色配置文件设计web图像等。 [...]
Какие положительные результаты :)
Thank you so much Dimitry.
:)
thx for great article. today i learn sth new and in the sametime it will help me in the future
[...] How to Use Photoshop Color Profiles for Web Images http://www.usabilitypost.com/2.....eb-images/ [...]
Действительно, на самом деле все очень просто :)