Problem with color saturation and photo uploading

Diana

Hi Greg,

I've noticed a weird issue with photo uploads and color saturation recently. When I upload my file (jpg, from iphoto) it always shows up lighter/less saturated than the original file on my computer.

See the visuals below:
#1 is the screenshot of image in my actual post, after I uploaded it.
#2 is the screenshot of my photo in iphoto, on my computer. It's much more saturated.
#3 is what happens if I upload the photo (from #2) to this post. (less saturated)

Oddly, uploading the screenshots doesn't change their intensity. It only appears to happen w/ my photos.

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12 years ago

Technical Support

8 replies

Latest reply was from Diana

Greg

Administrator

Thanks Diana. This is very interesting and I will look into it. If you have a moment, would you check whether the same thing happens in all browsers?

One other experiment that might be interesting is to take a screenshot of the photo in iphoto (i.e. a screenshot of the more saturated version) and see what that looks like when it is uploaded.

Also: how does the photo look in Preview?

BTW, I have found a related issue that I will probably obsess over at some point. If you load YLF and look very carefully you will notice that the color temperature of the background textures (like the cream leather texture here in the forum) are ever so slightly different on different browsers. I think it has to do with the way the browsers implement color profiles.

12 years ago

Diana

Veteran

Greg, #2 is a screenshot from iphoto. The saturation stays fine in the screenshot. I just cropped out my personal file names and stuff at the left. That version of iphoto is older, the one I have on this computer at work is newer so I will check that in a moment too.

Am on firefox right now, will check in safari in a moment.

ETA: This is weird, it's ok on this computer.

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12 years ago

Diana

Veteran

trying from safari...also looks OK. I wonder if it has something to do with my home laptop which is running an older version of iphoto (everything else, system and firefox, is the same)?

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12 years ago

Diana

Veteran

OK, now i am really confused. Because I am looking at my original post and all the photos look exactly the same now. So now I'm thinking this might be a problem with my home computer somehow?

Do the photos in the first post look at all different in terms of intensity to you?

12 years ago

Greg

Administrator

What *might* explain this is that iPhoto (at least, the version at home) has some color related information stored separately from the photo file itself. So when you upload a photo from the file it doesn't take that info into account.

Of course, when you take a screenshot the info is included. That would explain the difference you are seeing.

12 years ago

Greg

Administrator

The screenshot of iPhoto (#2 in the first post) looks more saturated than every other photo you uploaded here.

12 years ago

Diana

Veteran

Hmm, OK, I am not crazy then. I think the difference is more pronounced on my home laptop (2007 macbook pro, not unibody) because it has a different (older, matte) screen. The newer one is a unibody w/ glossy screen and the difference is much less pronounced on this screen or on the ipad.

Here's the screenshot from preview.

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12 years ago

Diana

Veteran

trying with a different photo. I don't think this one has been edited at all in iphoto, although it is from the iphoto library.

#1 is screenshot, #2 is direct upload.

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12 years ago

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