I've noticed something very odd about the color of the images that I take when I try to post them somewhere online or even use them as my desktop background. The color looks muddy and not as vibrant as it really is. I'm not really sure what's causing it. The starting images is 240 dpi and a few of them I've taken were raw files that have been converted to jpeg. I change the dpi to 72 and the color is set on RGB, but it still doesn't look right. The images appear fine in photoshop and when I view them in windows, its when I try to use them as backgrounds or upload them somewhere (photobucket, flickr) that the colors appear muddy.

Here's what I'm talking about:

REAL image color



MUDDY color




The way I got that picture to work is by copying the canvas and putting it on its own document, but thats a quick fix and doesnt work with my larger pictures. If anyone can explain this and tell me how I can avoid it i'd appreciate it.

ahh thanks alot. You were close - the color profile was set to ProPhoto RGB but once I changed it I got things right.


btw sorry about strething the page..i thought the images were smaller :thinkover:

sRGB (standard rgb) was created as the most common denominator for color spaces, and it was made so it can display colors on even the cheapest of monitors.

Both color spaces - AdobeRGB and Profoto RGB are far better to use while editing the images (but you will still need to save as sRGB for the web)

ProfotoRGB is only a good colorspace for 16-bit images.

AdobeRGB is the best one to use for both 8 and 16 bit images and is usually the best choice if you want to set and forget this.

Just remember to always save for web instead of using save as.