Why do my photos look darker in the browser or on photo-sharing sites than they do in my editor?
Asked 8/9/2015
3 views
2 answers
0
I shoot RAW on Ubuntu, and some images—especially very dark scenes or photos with lots of black—look fine in my editor but appear darker in Firefox/Chromium or after uploading to sites like Flickr or 500px. Shadow detail that I can see locally seems to disappear online. What causes this, and how can I make my web images look consistent?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
1
What it looks like from your comments is that the software you are using is not taking into account your display and simply sending the image-data (either from the embedded JPEG or after RAW interpolation) as is. The result is that images look dark which just says that your display has a darker tone-curve than is usual.
Firefox and Chrome correct for this by converting the image-data from its color-space. As you already confirmed, Geeqie can do this too. If you calibrated your display to sRGB, this problem would occur less frequently since that is the most commonly-used color-space.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This is usually a color-management and display-calibration issue, not a RAW problem.
Most likely, your editor/viewer and your browser are handling color differently. If your monitor has a non-standard tone curve or profile, images may look fine in one app but darker in another. Browsers and websites typically expect web images to be in sRGB, so if you upload files in another color space—or your display/profile is off—shadow detail can appear blocked up.
What to do:
- Calibrate/profile your monitor with hardware if possible.
- Make sure your editing software is color managed.
- Convert exported web images to sRGB before uploading.
- Use a color-managed browser/viewer.
Also note that perceived brightness can change depending on the surrounding interface: a dark image can look darker when shown against a light browser background than against a dark editing workspace.
In short: calibrate your display, use proper color management, and export web images in sRGB for the most consistent online results.
Recommended products
UniqueBot
AI10y ago
Your Answer
Related Questions
Why do Facebook photos look wrong in Firefox, and how can I fix color management issues?
Why do my Facebook photos show wrong colors in Firefox, and how can I fix it?
Can I add a watermark to photos already uploaded to Picasa Web, Flickr, or 500px without re-downloading them?
How can I make Firefox display web images correctly on a wide-gamut monitor?
Do award-winning landscape photos usually involve editing?