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The graph above shows the difference between a standard-gamut Dell monitor (colored outline) and the sRGB profile (dotted outline). Browsers will guess the color space to be sRGB if they guess at all. Note that an Adobe RGB image without a profile embedded looks muted in most situations and must be avoided.
An sRGB image looks oversaturated in color on a wide-gamut display. sRGB images look roughly correct on a standard-gamut display. An Adobe RGB image looks muted in color on a standard-gamut display. An Adobe RGB image looks roughly correct on a wide-gamut display. When color management is absent from the browser or app for whatever reason, the following statements are true: If you publish images without profiles embedded, you’re relying on the viewer’s browser to guess the color space correctly. Why Monitor Gamut MattersĬolor management needs at least two profiles to work (image profile and monitor profile in this case). You must use “convert to profile” if you want to create an sRGB version of your photo for the web. Color in the right-hand image above has gone flat as a result of assigning an sRGB profile to an Adobe RGB image. Using “assign profile” in Photoshop to convert between profiles will cause a color shift. sRGB).Īlthough most browsers have improved in their handling of color recently, it’s still good practice to embed the profile. Two or three of the more popular browsers will still display the color faithfully because they automatically guess the profile correctly (i.e. If you must leave the profile out, making sure that the image is in the sRGB color space will limit any resulting damage. On a wide-gamut monitor, the colors will pop a bit more.Įmbedding the profile into an image adds about 3-4 kB to the file size, so the only time it makes sense to exclude it is when you’re uploading vast quantities of photos to the Internet. By embedding the profile, I’ve given it the best chance of looking as intended to the majority of people.
If it looks muted and drained of saturation to you, it’ll be because you are viewing it in a non-color-managed browser. The rich color in this ProPhoto RGB image will look okay in many browsers despite not being sRGB as normally advised.