Adobe Community: CS6 "Save for Web" "Convert to sRGB" Issues

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CS6 "Save for Web" "Convert to sRGB" Issues

Sep 7, 2012 9:44 AM

Tags: #color_management #save_for_web #color_profiles #convert_to_srgb

Hello,

I'm aiming to take RAW photo files, edit them in a wide color space, and when posting them to the web, save them as sRGB.

My workspace is as follows:

I open RAW files in Photoshop via ACR as 16-bit ProPhoto smart objects.

When I finish editing them, I use "Save for Web" with the "Convert to sRGB" and "Embed Color Profile" boxes checked.

Photoshop and Bridge tell me the profile in photos saved as such is sRGB as expected. When I upload to a site like flickr, however, the metadata says the photo is still in ProPhoto. See an example here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nrbelex/7950202448/meta/in/photostream

If I use "Convert to Profile" and change it to sRGB, then upload to flickr, the metadata says the photo is in sRGB, as it should be.

What am I missing here?

Thanks!

2691 Views 22 Replies Latest reply: gator soup, Sep 7, 2012 7:23 PM

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1. ssprengel,

Sep 7, 2012 9:49 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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Your photo is marked as private so we can’t see it.

How are you uploading the site to Flicker?

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2. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 9:53 AM in reply to ssprengel

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Apologies! Been doing a lot of experimenting and forgot which ones were public. Try this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nrbelex/7946647546/meta/in/photostream

Uploading via their upload page in the browser: http://www.flickr.com/photos/upload/

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3. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 10:12 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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Also wanted to add some more info. Here's what Windows shows for the details in images saved in each of the two ways. On the left are the details when saved via "Save for Web," on the right via "Convert to Profile," then regularly saved as a JPG. As you can see, "Save for Web" does not show a "Color Representation" setting.

And just for confirmation, here are my settings in "Save for Web"

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4. ssprengel,

Sep 7, 2012 10:31 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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Can you upload both a Save For Web and a Convert to sRGB then Save As JPG version of the same shot to Flickr, or if you don’t want to confuse your Flickr stream, just attach both photos to a reply on the web-version of the forum, using the little camera icon.

There is ambiguous profile-related information in the JPG on Flickr. Using EXIFtool to view the various tags in the JPG header, the Display Device profile is listed as sRGB, but earlier the ICC Profile is listed as ProPhotoRGB.

Here is EXIFtool. For Windows you can unzip the EXE and then drag-and-drop your JPG onto it to see all the EXIF tags.

http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

The important thing is if the photo pixel data is in sRGB or ProPhotoRGB. With a saturated image like a sunset it is a little hard to guess if it is correct as displayed in the browser or not, which is why I asked for both versions of the same image be available for examination.

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5. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 10:43 AM in reply to ssprengel

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ssprengel - Thanks for the link to exiftool. Haven't used it in a long time, forogt it existed. For some reason, Save for Web is not converting to sRGB, according to exiftool.

Attached is the image, saved via both methods.

Via "Save for Web":

Via "Convert to Profile":

Let me know if you need larger versions, for any reason.

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6. ssprengel,

Sep 7, 2012 11:16 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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A quick clarification, are you using PS CS6 13.0.1 that was released a few days ago, or the original 13.0 one incase this is something that has changed in the 13.0.1 release? And are you using ACR 7.0, 7.1 or 7.2 RC?

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7. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 11:18 AM in reply to ssprengel

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Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.0.1 (13.0.1 20120808.r.519 2012/08/08:21:00:00) x64
ACR 7.1.0.354
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit

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8. ssprengel,

Sep 7, 2012 11:35 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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The color-numbers for the pixel values in the S4W version appear to be sRGB regardless of the ICC Profile being listed as ProPhotoRGB. This may be a bug or it may be a feature that Flickr doesn’t know how to interpret.

This is mainly a user-to-user forum. I would suggest that you consolidate your information and example photos and links into a single post in the Report a Problem section of the http://feedback.photoshop.com/ site that Adobe claims to read every post of and include:

Problem description as something like ProPhotoRGB tag included in Save for Web sRGB JPG uploaded to Flickr while the Convert to Profile / Save As version of the JPG seems as expected.

Your PS/ACR/OS versions.

The link to Flickr EXIF information page.

And then attach the following images with descriptive names: the JPG just before Save for Web that has ProPhotoRGB as its profile, the Save for Web resulting JPG, the Save for Web settings screenshot, and the Convert to sRGB / Save As version of the JPG. I don’t think you need the Windows screenshots, but saying you see the ProPhotoRGB listed in the EXIFtool information for one and sRGB for the other is useful to suggest that it is not Flickr filling in bogus info and also lets someone at Adobe debug the photo info without having to use Flickr to check things.

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9. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 11:41 AM in reply to ssprengel

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Thanks, ssprengel.

I was hoping I was simply doing something wrong and it's not a bug, but it looks like that may be the case. This would seem to be a pretty typical workflow issue; why hasn't it been mentioned before?

Anyway, waiting on a call-back from Adobe, and assuming no solution comes out of that, will consolidate and post.

Thanks again.

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10. JJMack,

Sep 7, 2012 11:54 AM in reply to Nrbelex

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I beleive if there is a color profile in the EXIF Data it would only be a name of one not a profile. EXIF data is for camera settings. You can paint a picture in Photoshop and save it with a srgb color profile the image file will have no EXIF data for what camers was used note. In your save for web dialog you see fields for both embedding color profile and embedding metadata and what matadata to stript or include. I think color profile may special amd outside of normal metadata. Just a guess on my part don't know for sure.
This may be helpful http://www.color.org/profile_embedding.xalter

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11. Noel Carboni,

Sep 7, 2012 12:02 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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Without using Flickr, I'm not seeing any problem with any of the color-managed software I have here.

The ProPhoto test file I prepared, when Save For Web is used, is saved with sRGB numbers and (since I checked the box) has the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile embedded in it.

Photoshop re-opens the file and correctly judges that it has the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile.

A search through the binary data from the file Saved For Web using a text editor turns up a number of references to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, but none to ProPhoto RGB.

Your first image above, however, has BOTH references to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and ProPhoto RGB, the latter appearing in a string of text data that looks like:

<rdf:Description
rdf:about=""
xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:aux="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/aux/"
xmlns:photoshop="http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/"
xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/"
xmlns:stEvt="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent#"
xmlns:stRef="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#"
xmp:Rating="3"
xmp:ModifyDate="2012-09-07T12:40:05-05:00"
xmp:CreateDate="2012-09-06T19:18:56"
xmp:MetadataDate="2012-09-07T12:40:05-05:00"
xmp:CreatorTool="Adobe Photoshop CS6 Windows"
dc:format="image/jpeg"
aux:SerialNumber="022031001932"
aux:LensInfo="70/1 200/1 0/0 0/0"
aux:Lens="EF70-200mm f/2.8L USM"
aux:LensID="165"
aux:LensSerialNumber="0000000000"
aux:ImageNumber="0"
aux:ApproximateFocusDistance="4294967295/1"
aux:FlashCompensation="0/1"
aux:Firmware="1.1.3"
photoshop:DateCreated="2012-09-06T19:18:56.056"
photoshop:ColorMode="3"
photoshop:ICCProfile="ProPhoto RGB"
xmpMM:DocumentID="xmp.did:0F84D078F91311E19565E271D59D6831"
xmpMM:OriginalDocumentID="98EDC08C95F6E809F2FB9CADB1F3442D"
xmpMM:InstanceID="xmp.iid:0F84D077F91311E19565E271D59D6831">

-Noel

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12. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 12:07 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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It seems as if the profile itself is sRGB, as it should be. As JJMack suggested, by embedding all metadata, Photoshop is for some reason embedding my default workspace profile in the EXIF data (confirmed by flickr, exiftool and the strings Noel called out). As mentioned, this does not impact the pixels themselves, nor the attached profile, it's simply an EXIF field. Thanks for pinning that down.

So I suppose my questions are:

A. From a non-technical standpoint, why would Photoshop embed EXIF data for the workspace?
B. EXIF data should have no impact on how color-managed (and non-color managed) software interprets the image, correct? That is to say, leaving that EXIF data in, though it is wrong, will not change how the image is displayed anywhere, will it?

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13. Noel Carboni,

Sep 7, 2012 12:08 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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The file I had tested with before had the Metadata field set to None.

Based on further testing I see that the info shown above is only stored if for the Metadata field you choose All or All Except Camera Info.

-Noel

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14. Noel Carboni,

Sep 7, 2012 12:17 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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None of the software I use seems to misinterpret the color profile, but that's not saying much. I couldn't say whether any other softare might... Flickr obviously interprets those fields in some fashion - even if just for display of the settings.

I don't know your intent with sharing these images, but if the info isn't really needed then maybe you can avoid the issue and save everyone a few milliseconds of download time by just excluding it during your Save For Web operation.

-Noel

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15. JJMack,

Sep 7, 2012 12:20 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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Its stamping in a profile name a name not a Profile its just a name of a color profile I'm sure there is much more to a profile then a name. Youw you need a specification for just a name.
http://www.color.org/icc_specs2.xalter
http://www.color.org/specification/ICC1v43_2010-12.pdf

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16. Noel Carboni,

Sep 7, 2012 12:15 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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One last piece of trivia...

When re-opened by Photoshop, this shows up in the Advanced section of the File - File Info display:

-Noel

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17. JJMack,

Sep 7, 2012 12:29 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Noel I beleive all that is is metadata not an embedded ICC profile http://www.color.org/specification/ICC1v43_2010-12.pdf

Embedding ICC profiles in JPEG files
The JPEG standard (ISO/IEC 10918-1[2]) supports application specific data segments. These segments may be used for tagging images with ICC profiles. The APP2 marker is used to introduce the ICC profile tag. Given that there are only 15 supported APP markers, there is a chance of many applications using the same marker. ICC tags are thus identified by beginning the data with a special null terminated byte sequence, “ICC_PROFILE”.
The length field of a JPEG marker is only two bytes long; the length of the length field is included in the total. Hence, the values 0 and 1 are not legal lengths. This would limit the maximum data length to 65 533. The identification sequence would lower this even further. As it is quite possible for an ICC profile to be longer than this, a mechanism is required to break the profile into chunks and place each chunk in a separate marker. A mechanism to identify each chunk in sequence order is therefore necessary.
The identifier sequence is followed by one byte indicating the sequence number of the chunk (counting starts at 1) and one byte indicating the total number of chunks. All chunks in the sequence should indicate the same total number of chunks. The 1-byte chunk count limits the size of embeddable profiles to 16 707 345 bytes.

Message was edited by: JJMack

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18. gator soup,

Sep 7, 2012 12:34 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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it is pretty easy to determine if Save For Web is Converting to sRGB (and embedding the profile) as your screenshots and posts indicate you're doing (just reopen it in Photoshop and observe)

likewise, it is just as easy to copy your file off your server and open it in Photoshop to determine if it is unchanged (it's still sRGB and tagged, or not)

more than likely, the server upload process retained the sRGB 'numbers' and stripped your profile -- and any changes you are seeing in web browsers (and unmanaged apps) are showing the difference between sRGB and your monitor profile (assuming you have a custom OS default monitor profile set)

if a person has his OS default monitor profile set to sRGB (not ever recommended by me), his Photoshop Working RGB set to sRGB -- it is understandable Photoshop would "match" all Windows web browsers and not show the problem

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19. Nrbelex,

Sep 7, 2012 12:54 PM in reply to gator soup

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gator soup, it seems that the server did not strip the profile. The issue seems to be an additional EXIF field is added (which has no impact on the display of the image) which simply describes the color space. When using "Save for Web," the EXIF field is populated with the wrong color space - it's using the old color space prior to the sRGB conversion. When using "Convert to" and saving regularly, the correct color space is populated in the EXIF field. Why the EXIF field even exists is a mystery to me...

Either way, the image is in sRGB and the profile is properly embedded, no matter what the EXIF data says.

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20. JJMack,

Sep 7, 2012 1:17 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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You got it...

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21. Noel Carboni,

Sep 7, 2012 4:25 PM in reply to JJMack

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JJMack wrote:

Noel I beleive all that is is metadata not an embedded ICC profile

Absolutely, I never said it was the profile, and in fact I saw the sRGB profile in there plain as day.

The point is that Flickr clearly feels they can interpret that metadata into some indication. Whether some other software will have been written to read it and make some decision on it is anyone's guess. Better not to publish it at all.

-Noel

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22. gator soup,

Sep 7, 2012 7:23 PM in reply to Nrbelex

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Nrbelex, so colorspaces and profiles are behaving as expected there, the problem is SFW is inserting bogas EXIF?

Good catch...

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CS6 "Save for Web" "Convert to sRGB" Issues

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