photoshop - sRGB -- really?

[tepidarium]

It has been my understanding that when saving images for the web, one should set Photoshop to an sRGB color space and make sure that the color profile of the document in question is converted into sRGB. The theory behind this is that sRGB reflects a range of average PC monitor settings & while not guaranteeing accurate color on all platforms, will render uniform color reasonably well on disparate platforms.

In terms of my actual experience, I have found this to complicate working with images in Photoshop. There is a noticeable color shift from Photoshop to the Web Browser when using sRGB. From what I have read, Internet Explorer for the MAC and possibly Safari are the only browsers that accurately reflect color profiles. Other browsers do not display the color profile and ignore color management.

Because of this, I have found that setting the work space to my monitor color space is the best option.I also convert images with different profiles to my monitor space. These changes cause Photoshop to simply turn off color management. What I see in Photoshop is what I see in the browser (as browsers ignore color profiles).

This has been a point of confusion for me for some time - I have never been able to adequately resolve this issue. As I sit here trying to work in sRGB color space, which many say really is best for the web, I am not able to come to terms with it.

Anyone have any insight, opinions?

Thanks.

[jusdrum]

Color management is not worth thinking about for the web. I am part of a color management user group and we have discussed this many times over. What it comes down to is that everyone's monitor is different. I know you are probably already well aware of this fact.

Color management on the web has several problems:

• Browsers don't universally (or at all) support color profiles.
  
• There is no color profile that effectively deals with the color gamut difference between Macs and PCs, which already harms a great deal of image quality.
  
• Most people are using an older monitor which can't accurately reproduce color anyway.
  
• No two monitors reproduce color the same way, even if they are the same make and model.
  
• The monitor's onscreen color will be different depending on the color temperature of the environmental light (including whether or not sunlight is present).

Unfortunately, you are already doing the best thing you can do, which is to work with the colorspace of your monitor. Hoping that your monitor looks like the majority of monitors on the web.

Photoshop has a ton of built in color management features that override the OS color management features and is therefore the worst application to determine what your web graphics will look like in a browser (although the save for web preview window is not bad). You could spend hours dialing in the built in color management settings on Photoshop to try and replicate the colorspace that is the median representation of monitors on the web, however, the effort is futile because of the list of reasons found above. The best thing you can do is accept that the web isn't color accurate and would require significant effort to change that and it would be decades before it's realized. I was bummed by that in the beginning because I have clients that want to show fabric swatches or color samples for products, but there's no way to ensure a uniform look and feel.

BTW, sRGB is not the best solution for the broadest range of accessibility, rather sRGB is the color space that has the largest color gamut and therefore will make graphics look their best (assuming the user's monitor can handle it). When people say to use sRGB, they mean that sRGB profiles take the greatest advantage of the colorspace available from a monitor.