>> I don't believe the OPs problem had anything to do with the monitor calibration

i think it does

once Photoshop strips the sRGB profile in a default-configuration Save for Web (SFW) environment — the color shifts — ie, the sRGB numbers are being sent straight through to the monitor just like Web browsers do — this is easy to prove in Photoshop by View> Proof Setup: Monitor RGB

the reason the shift (or problem) doesn't occur in the OP's work around is because he set his monitor profile to sRGB (sRGB an exact match to his source and monitor spaces)

as i understand the theory, all web browsers (except Firefox V1) do not alter untagged Photoshop .jpg files or hex colors specified in CSS and HTML — web browsers simply send the RGB 'numbers' straight through to the monitor unaltered — the "presumption" is that they are in the sRGB color space for display on an sRGB-compliant device

the problem or changes occur when monitor space is different from sRGB

is this not correct?

I have no problems matching image color to css color. A huge number of web designs depend on this. I do it all the time, with a calibrated monitor. So the answer is no, you do not need to choose between a calibrated monitor and css/image color matching. Your "success" using the sRGB canned profile for both display and image tells you nothing.  Sure, the colors match, but you don't have control of the color.

Hi guys,

I don't have time to read the whole thread and it may have already been explained, but because it is still going on, I'll make a guess. If the problem of the OP is to match in a browser a color of an image to a color created by code, for example, a color in an image that matches the background of a web page created by html color, then find out the hex values of the html color, use it, and save it in your image without any eventual color management conversions that can modify the color values. This will match the color of the image to the color of the coded html color. For this task (matching colors) no proper color management is needed. Proper color management is needed only if you want to share or see properly intended colors. In this case the priority is to match colors with non color managed display which will be displayed differently on every monitor. Only images are color managed, interface elements created by coded color are not color managed - even in the Photoshop's interface.

This is mostly used when you have an image on a web page and you want the image to match html elements like the background for which unfortunately you don't have any color control.

As a designer you may decide that matching the color of the image to the color of the background  is more important than matching the color of the image on the destination monitors to the way you see it on your monitor.

I agree with you, I didn't intend to suggest that calibration and proper color management is not important, I simply stated that for that particular task - to match a color of an image to an html element, the proper color management including accurate monitor color profile is not needed which explains as to why the OP had no problems before proper color calibration.  And as I also said, color management is important if yo want to share colors as intended.

Heh, one man's simply is another's more complicated than I'd like to deal with. 

I think one (of several) roots of conflict in color-management discussions comes from the apparent fact that many folks truly believe that they have made the right choices with regard to the many tradeoffs...  For them, given their needs at that moment, they may well have made the right choices.  It's not always easy to put oneself in others' shoes.

The problem arises precisely from the difference between their right choices (well defined if fleeting) and the right choices (a myth).

What was that old saying by National Geographic that seems to apply?  There are no easy answers, only intelligent choices.

-Noel

Gary Politzer wrote:

 

If we are going to ... tolerate

"We" (of which there is no reasonable definition) don't have any authority to "not tolerate" anything.  It's precisely that kind of thinking that breeds said curmudgeons, and I'll wager few folks leave a "raking" by same with much of an education.

Perhaps we should just try to share our knowlege instead of trying to tell people what to do?

-Noel

I don't know whether you're trying to say that I or someone here has given "bad" advice, but if so the best way to deal with that is not to call it "bad", but to debate it in terms of what will and won't happen technically (which has been done quite admirably in this thread).

This is really no different than saying the choice of "Mac" vs. "PC" is "bad" or "good".  While it's easy to become polarized, my choice is every bit as valid as your choice, even though we may have chosen differently.  That's just the way it is in a complicated world.

A month or two ago in a fit of half light-hearted creativity I tried to categorize color-management knowledge into levels.  Once one climbs a few steps into new levels of understanding one realizes that every setting has a reason for being, and there really are no "bad" choices, any more than there is a "best" choice.  For every rule of thumb at one level that says something is "bad", there are perfectly good reasons at another level for doing precisely that.

The "curmudgeons" that you speak of might say "just buy a measurement device and use its software to calibrate and profile your system, then only trust what you see in Photoshop", and that is the "best" or "right" way to do things.  For many folks with mainstream needs, that's pretty good advice.  But we all need to understand that there isn't just one way to get there from here.  As a GPS system might say...  "Recalculating" 

-Noel