21 May 2019

When I began posting pictures online, I was annoyed to discover that the colours I spent time on tweaking in photo editing software to get them as I wanted were looking distinctly different when the pictures were seen in the Firefox web browser.

I was already aware that there are several different ‘color spaces’ that control how a picture looks on screen or when printed, and that the key to colour consistency on the web was to use the sRGB space when saving an edited photo.

It seems that not all browsers and photo viewing software are written to deal with this in the same way when you view a picture, so what you see in your browser or photo viewer may be different to the picture the photographer originally made. That’s before we get to any issues caused by differences in the types of screen we’re each using, and the way in which it is adjusted to show colours.

The solution had two parts. First as the originator of the image, I have to make sure that not only do I save my file with the sRGB model, but that I also embed a ‘color profile’ in the image when I save it. Most browsers will then render the image as I intended. Second, as a consumer of pictures I needed to make a change to Firefox so that it would interpret image colour information correctly in images that don’t have a colour correction profile embedded.

Interestingly the Windows 10 Photos application in the Microsoft Store also suffers from poor colour management, whilst the older Windows Photo Viewer (bundled with Windows XP onwards) does not.

If you notice these problems, try looking here for instructions on configuring Firefox and here to restore the Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10.

Disclaimer! These links are to external websites. I’ve made both changes successfully, but they involve altering settings on your computer. Assess the risks and rewards for yourself and make your own choice as to whether you want to proceed.

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