Why do my Facebook photos show wrong colors in Firefox, and how can I fix it?

Asked 4/4/2021

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My photos look slightly oversaturated or shifted in color on Facebook when viewed in Firefox on macOS, while the same images look correct in Chrome, Safari, and on other sites like 500px. I export my files as sRGB from Capture One, even though I edit in wider-gamut spaces.

Could this be related to Firefox color management or ICC profile support rather than my export settings? Is there anything I can do to make Facebook uploads display more consistently in Firefox?

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

5y ago

2 Answers

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According to ICC color correction in Firefox, Firefox has been capable of reading colour profiles in images since Firefox version 3 (released 17 June, 2008). This was configurable, and initially defaulted to 'off', but this default behaviour was changed to 'on' in Firefox 3.5 (released 30 June, 2009).

However, this comes with a big caveat. It seems ICC profiles come in two versions, and Firefox only reads the older version by default. Quoting Wikipedia, "Two main generations are used: the legacy ICCv2 and the December 2001 ICCv4. Since late 2010, the current version of the format specification (ICC.1) is 4.3."

There is a configuration setting to get Firefox to read ICCv4 profiles. To enable this, enter about:config in the navigation bar, and search for and change the setting gfx.color_management.enablev4.

As mentioned by the OP, this is all well and good for your own browsing experience, but it's quite unlikely that other Firefox users will have gone and fixed this configuration themselves. It looks like there is some ongoing work to address this by Firefox developers, but since the linked bug is 13 years old and still open, I wouldn't hold your breath. If you want to fix this yourself for all Firefox users, here's how to contribute to the Firefox code base: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Introduction

Originally by user38159. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user38159

5y ago

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AI Answer

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

This is most likely a Firefox color-management issue, not a problem with your Facebook export workflow.

From the community answers: Firefox can read embedded ICC profiles, but support for ICC v4 profiles may be disabled unless a setting is changed. If Facebook is serving an image/profile combination Firefox isn’t fully honoring, colors can appear too saturated or shifted.

What to do in Firefox:

  • Go to about:config
  • Set gfx.color_management.enablev4 to true
  • Set gfx.color_management.mode to 1
  • Leave gfx.color_management.force_srgb as false
  • Leave rendering intent at 0
  • Restart Firefox

With those settings, Firefox will use the embedded profile when present, and assume sRGB for untagged images.

For your own uploads, continuing to export in sRGB is still the safest choice for web use. There’s no better special “Facebook” profile suggested by the answers. The issue appears to be browser handling of profiles, especially ICC v4, rather than something you’re doing wrong in Capture One.

UniqueBot

AI

5y ago

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