Why do my photos look different from CS3 on the forum?

[Autumn]

Here is a photo I posted in the Critique Forum today.

The sky looks different to what I see in LightRoom and in CS3.

Does this mean that my monitor is not calibrated correctly, or does everyone have some differential between what they see in their Image Processing Software and the web?

Just another quick question - the photo on the right has been reduced - I clicked the "Sharpen" box and I don't think it looks as good.

Is is recommended to Sharpen when reducing or not? I am not sure that it works.

In fact seeing it here, makes me think that the saturation needs reducing!

[rogleale]

How do you mean 'reduced' Audrey? Something has really gone wrong during the process, definition has been ruined especially in the breakers, and all the white water has been given a blue tint. The original is a good shot though, and looks correctly sharpened on my monitor.
How do you view the posted pictures, in FF or IE? Even if you post in sRGB you stand a better chance of seeing the correct colours on the web if you use FF with colour management switched on.

Roger

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Here is a photo I posted in the Critique Forum today.

The sky looks different to what I see in LightRoom and in CS3.

Does this mean that my monitor is not calibrated correctly, or does everyone have some differential between what they see in their Image Processing Software and the web?

Just another quick question - the photo on the right has been reduced - I clicked the "Sharpen" box and I don't think it looks as good.

Is is recommended to Sharpen when reducing or not? I am not sure that it works.

In fact seeing it here, makes me think that the saturation needs reducing!:

Most web browsers do not respect colour space profiles, like Adobe RGB, or sRGB, etc.

sRGB is the safest colour space to use, but there is still some distortion of the colour sometimes. So it's best to ensure you are saving the final version of your image after it has been suitably converted to sRGB if the original was not (Adobe RGB for example).

As Roger hints, you can get reliable colour by using the colour management option in FireFox, one of the few browsers that can render files with recognised colour spaces.

If you have FireFox, you can enable colour management support by following the instructions here:

http://dpnow.com/forum2/showthread.php?t=5850

One thing to remember is that if you post pictures that look good colour managed in FireFox, they will probably not look good to anyone else unless they use colour managed browser as well.

Ian

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by rogleale

How do you mean 'reduced' Audrey? Something has really gone wrong during the process, definition has been ruined especially in the breakers, and all the white water has been given a blue tint. The original is a good shot though, and looks correctly sharpened on my monitor.
How do you view the posted pictures, in FF or IE? Even if you post in sRGB you stand a better chance of seeing the correct colours on the web if you use FF with colour management switched on.

Roger

This is how I reduced it Roger. The drop down menu at the bottom gives the option to sharpen, but I am thinking that it is not really working for me.

Should I be using this?

Anyway, what it the best way to reduce a picture (after all these years. )

[Stephen]

Audrey, if I may make a suggestion. As you use Lightroom and I imagine this picture has been imported into it at some point, then you should export from LR and use the export dialogue to resize the image, set the compression, sharpening etc. I usually find that 800 px wide and a quality/compression setting of 90 gives a file that is spot on for the forums.

IMHO this picture is over compressed and thats what is causing the artefacts/blockiness you can see esp in the sky.

[Autumn]

Thanks Stephen, I will try that, but how do you get frames and my signature on in LightRoom? That is why I have been finally editing in CS3.