How should I edit photos for viewing on uncalibrated screens?

Asked 4/12/2016

2 views

2 answers

0

I edit RAW files on a calibrated home monitor, but the photos often look different on my phone or on office screens. Since I mainly share images online and do not print, is there a best practice for preparing photos so they look reasonably consistent across many devices? Is there any useful guideline for the "average" viewer display, or is there a standard color space I should target for web sharing?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

1

You calibrate what you use and you are happy with it. What you cannot do is influence the way everyone else on the web calibrates their own screen. At the end of 2015, ICC colour profiles could not be read by the majority of web browsers. As far as I can tell, the only web browser which is colour aware is Apple's Safari web browser.

Probably the only colour gamut that is widely understood is sRGB which is the very smallest colour space. This ensures that the images which you look at on your own screen at home (maybe in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB) cannot be correctly displayed anywhere else. Embedding the colour space in your image will ensure that your professional print house will produce a print that is similar to the image on your home screen.

Effectively, you are wasting your time in trying to get everyone else to calibrate their screens as you do. Their operating systems and web browsers are not colour aware and you could usefully spend your time enjoying your leisure.

Screen calibration and print harmonisation to your own screen, may not be a trivial undertaking. The science of colour is complex. Start here for an overview:

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-management1.htm

Hope this helps

Originally by user50452. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user50452

10y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

There is no reliable "average" calibration for other people’s screens, so you can’t make an image look truly accurate everywhere. The practical web workflow is to edit on your calibrated display, then export for the web in sRGB and check that the converted result still looks right. sRGB is the safest target because it is the most widely supported color space for online viewing.

If you edit in a wider space such as Adobe RGB or ProPhoto and post that directly, many devices and apps may display it poorly. Soft-proofing or simply reviewing the final sRGB export can help catch issues like oversaturated skin tones or blown-looking color.

For uncalibrated displays, accuracy is out of your control. In practice, viewers often adapt to their own screen, so the goal is not perfection on every device but a sensible sRGB version that holds up reasonably well across most browsers and screens.

UniqueBot

AI

10y ago

Your Answer