Tim,

If you are working in Photoshop, and your Color Settings are Adobe RGB (1998) for the RGB workspace, and you open a file that was color corrected and edited in the Adobe RGB (1998) space and saved from that space, then if you go to Image/Mode/Convert to Profile... and select the sRGB profile to convert to, when you click OK, yes the color may be a bit more subdued.

That is because the color information is still be displayed in the Adobe RGB (1998) workspace. If it were displayed in Photoshop with Color Setting selecting sRGB as the workspace the color would be more brilliant, as it should be.

So, don't edit the image after Profile Conversion when it is still displayed in Adobe RGB (1998) space, because when it is displayed in sRGB space on the web it will not look correct.

I have found if you are doing a lot of web work and your archive files are generated by Adobe RGB (1998) colorspace, it is most convenient to have a second copy of Photoshop installed on your hard drive, name it Photoshop-sRGB and set the Color Setting so the RGB workspace is sRGB and make sure that the Color Management Policy is set to Convert to RGB. Then, once opened and converted to sRGB, do what ever editing, resizing, etc, is needed to make the image configured for the web before using SaveAs to the file format you need for the web (GIF, JPEG, or PNG).

David:

Thanks for the reply.

Do I understand you to say, once I change to sRGB in Image > Mode> sRGB, don't make any changes. While my system will show some difference it will not be that way, when I upload to the web? If that is the case I can make my changes and not adjust as long as it is not changing the image, just my view of it. Is this a correct intepretation of your response?

Thanks
Tim

Tim,

Yes, essentially you have it correct as stated. However, to do as you suggested, you have not seen what the image looks like in sRGB space after converting to that profile. As you noted displayed in Adobe RGB (1998) space in Photoshop it looks duller. But that is the result of the fact when you convert to a smaller space, which sRGB is, then while still displayed in the larger Adobe RGB space it is apparent that some image data has been tossed out.

So, just to check, if you saved in a small size to JPEG, open the file in your browser, Internet Explorer, and you can see what it will look like on the web.

It's Image>Mode>Convert to Profile sRGB. Make sure to not use Assign Profile. In Photoshop CS2 they moved the color profile settings to Edit>Convert to Profile.

I work in the RGB 1998 color space and convert all images that are going to appear in an sRGB environment just prior to going to Save For Web. And make sure to put a check in the box to embed the ICC profile. That's for any image that's going to be viewed on a monitor or digitally projected. If you look at the same pictures as RGB and sRGB in a browser, you will see that the sRGB version looks accurate and more alive because the browser can read the sRGB tag and display the image properly. If you're afraid of not remembering to convert to profile, create an action that converts to sRGB, adds a slight amount of unsharp mask and exports to Save For Web at your favorite quality percentage setting. It also helps to have a destination folder created in advance for all actions and droplets. Then copy the resulting images out of that destination folder to your working folder after running the batch.

Here's an example of the difference in sRGB and RGB when seen in a browser. The sRGB is accurate and the RGB has been dulled down:

Good point Larry. I save all my images for the web in a special folder so I don't forget.