Why do my image colors look faded in Microsoft Paint?
Asked 12/2/2021
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2 answers
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When I open a photo in Microsoft Paint, the colors look faded compared with other apps. The file has an embedded ProPhoto RGB color profile. Is Paint ignoring the embedded profile or changing the color depth? Why does this happen, and what should I do so the image displays correctly in basic viewers?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
4y ago
2 Answers
1
I don't have a PC I could run MSPaint on to test or provide a 'fix' but I'm betting it doesn't know how to handle the ProPhoto profile that's embedded in the picture & is treating it as though it were sRGB.
It suffers the same colour loss if I open it in Photoshop & assign an sRGB profile without any colour management. You likely need a better [smarter] app to handle it.
Here's a mockup [translated properly to sRGB] of how each looks if the app understands or doesn't understand ProPhoto…
As for suggestions as to what will be able to handle it properly - I don't use Windows, so don't know what's available. Gimp, as mentioned by xenoid, is cross-platform & very capable… but not the easiest app to throw yourself into.
Originally by user57929. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user57929
4y ago
0
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This is most likely a color-management issue, not a color-depth problem. Your image uses an embedded ProPhoto RGB profile, which is a wide-gamut color space. Microsoft Paint and other basic viewers/editors may not properly read or honor that profile, and instead display the file as if it were sRGB. When that happens, colors can look flat or faded.
So the cause is the embedded color profile being mishandled, not necessarily any change in bit depth.
What to do:
- Open the file in a color-managed editor/viewer.
- If you want broad compatibility for sharing or viewing in simple apps, convert the image to sRGB before saving/exporting.
- If you keep editing in a wide-gamut space like ProPhoto RGB, that’s fine, but export an sRGB version for general use.
In short: Paint likely isn’t respecting the ProPhoto profile, so the colors are being displayed incorrectly.
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