1000 Things To Learn, #3: Uploading Images To The Internet Without Losing Color Fidelity

Warning!  Bunch of technical stuff follows.  May not be for everyone.  Skip down to the last post to get to a Chandra page.

As I broke it down in THIS POST, I'd been uploading images to this website with an incorrect color profile.  I was wondering why they were looking so washed out and ragged.  Well, it turns out that you have to really pay attention to the 'color space' of the file in Photoshop and then in the internet.  The analogy used is that of a box of crayons, the internet has a smaller box than Photoshop, so you have to be very specific with what colors you tell it to use.  LUCKILY this is an easy fix.

The Dark Knight in an Unsaturated Nightmare...and Restored!

Some websites seem to adapt the file automatically (smartly), others, like Blogger, don't.  Also, it should be borne in mind that the large thumbnail images that are created for a graphic file are always washed out a certain amount.  I can't seem to figure out how to affect that.

Color is a really tricky business and I know when it comes time to actually make a graphic novel, meaning, print one up, there will be a whole host of new headaches.  But for now, let's limit ourselves to uploading properly.

Continued after the break.


First things first in Photoshop: 

Convert the profile.

Once you're in the dialog, just make your settings look like these.

Now you need to Save For The Web.

The last step is to save and output.  Don't decrease the quality of the image in the Save For Web box.

And that's it!  As far as I know, I'm doing it right.  If anyone knows a better way I'm more than happy to hear it.