we are a retail store preparing to launch a website and an html
newsletter. we are getting set up and testing and we discovered that
some of our product photographs lose a lot of color when viewed in a
browser or microsoft imaging program vs. viewed in photoshop or adobe
reader. (in adobe the colors are very vivid and rich. after emailing
the file and viewing it in the browser the colors become much brighter
yet at the same time washed out.) my best guess is microsoft renders
screen color differently than adobe products. does anyone know if
there are settings we can use or techniques we can apply to better
maintain color integrity? i know the colors can never be completely
controlled... especially on the user end, but to find the cure we must
first understand... :) thanks in advance!

Hello 2mark,

I'll offer a comment since I can't be sure this will solve your
problem. This may be an "old" problem and these solutions may not be
suitable for what you are seeing.

With older systems / browsers, there was a problem with the limited
number of colors. A set of 216 colors (browser safe colors) was
defined that was portable across MS Windows, Mac OS, and other sytems.
For reference see:
  http://www.dotparagon.com/resources/color.html
as an example. I believe you can select this pallete in Photoshop if
you want to see what that will look like (on your system and that of a
customer).

However, most PC's now have many more colors. There is a nice description at
  http://www.lynda.com/hex.html
which describes the origin of web safe colors as well as some more
appropriate alternatives. The example at
  http://www.lynda.com/products/books/dwg/dithering.html
is particularly interesting. Lynda now basically recommends use of
adaptive pallets for photographs. Note that you should process a
number of photos (e.g., all those on a page or newsletter) or else you
may run out of colors anyway.

If this takes care of your problem (and another researcher does not
answer the question), please let me know so I can post a more proper
answer.

  --Maniac

I. What are you saving the images as?

If you use photoshop to turn the image into a GIF, for instance, be
sure to "Image: Mode: Index Color" it before you save as a GIF.  This
should simulate how it will appear as a final GIF.

II. Are you creating AND viewing the images on the same platform?

Macs and PCs render color differently, and there's not but so much you
can do regarding this, other than designing for the best target
audience while reasonably accommodating the other.

III. Is your gamma set properly on all the computers?

On the computer with Photoshop, go into the Control Panel in Windows
(assuming it's a PC) and use the Adobe Gamma interface to set a proper
gamma.  This may reveal that the designer computer's gamma isn't
properly calibrated.  Fixing it should reveal how images *really*
should look on the average computer.

--Joey

Hello there,
Am a freelance web designer and was surprised to see your query ... I
didn't realise that people still have problems with colours. I sure
would like to look at your website to learn more about this. Perhaps I
mightalso  be able to post something useful here for you. Can you
point me to your site so that I can have a look at it? Thanks.