Uploaded photo quality on Flickr v. SmugMug

[djsmitherman]

Greetings.

I have a pro account at flickr, and have been generally pleased with the service. But recently I've become convinced that the quality of my image files is seriously degraded when I upload images to my flickr account. The photos look great on my computer, but then when I upload the photos, they look like shit - on the same computer, same monitor.

I'm seriously considering moving my photos to smugmug, but not if there is the same problem. Can you users and admins tell me if the image files are mucked with in the upload process, and if my photos are gonna look identical pre/post upload?

Thanks alot for the help.

danny

[twincitiesphoto]

I don't use Flickr at all - but a co-worker of mine does - I've never noticed any degradation of his photos - they always look good to me, I just can't tolerate the layout and format of the Flickr site so I try to avoid it.

[Andy]

Hi Danny! Thanks for posting. We take image quality very seriously here. We prepare 8 display copies from your originals, and we do so with a fine balance of quality and speed. Examples:
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=760090&postcount=152

http://nancyrose.smugmug.com/gallery/3394142_AmcCJ#257858359_ArAZw-A-LB

[ivar]

Hi Danny, welcome to Digital Grin :wave

We believe our display copiers are good, but the best thing to do is judge for yourself; You can get a free, no-strings attached, 14 day trial with SmugMug (www.smugmug.com). Upload a few photos and see what you think :thumb

Let us know if you have any questions!

[jfriend]

Greetings.

I have a pro account at flickr, and have been generally pleased with the service. But recently I've become convinced that the quality of my image files is seriously degraded when I upload images to my flickr account. The photos look great on my computer, but then when I upload the photos, they look like shit - on the same computer, same monitor.

I'm seriously considering moving my photos to smugmug, but not if there is the same problem. Can you users and admins tell me if the image files are mucked with in the upload process, and if my photos are gonna look identical pre/post upload?

Thanks alot for the help.

danny

Are you observing color changes? or sharpness changes? or compression artifacts? What makes the Flickr images look bad?

If it's color, then I may know how to answer the question.

[djsmitherman]

Are you observing color changes? or sharpness changes? or compression artifacts? What makes the Flickr images look bad?

If it's color, then I may know how to answer the question.

Yep, it's mostly color - most of the photos end up looking washed out once they're on flickr, compared to the originals.

[jfriend]

Yep, it's mostly color - most of the photos end up looking washed out once they're on flickr, compared to the originals.

OK, then there are several possible causes, some of which would happen on other photo services and some of which would not.

First, are you posting your images in the sRGB color profile with that profile embedded (e.g. tagged) in the images? If you are posting AdobeRGB images on the web (instead of sRGB images) and viewing them in a non-color-managed browser (like Firefox 2 or IE), the browser will not understand the AdobeRGB colorspace and the result is the image will display with washed-out colors. Even if you are using a color-managed browser (like Safari), many photo services do not preserve the color profile on their smaller web sizes so it gets dropped and then assumed by the browser to be something other than AdobeRGB (so your images show as washed out again). The web today is larged an sRGB world. There are some isolated places where you can use something else if you control the browser that the viewer is using, but in general, today you should use sRGB for all images on the web. This will change a few years in the future, but we're stuck with sRGB on the web today.

Second, try a test. Take the exact same JPEG image file that you uploaded to Flickr and open it in separate browser windows, once on Flickr and once from your hard disk. Do they look the same or different?