How to view images in wide gamut

kave · October 14, 2016

I have done some experimenting with "wide gamut" images. It seems smugmug converts to a lesser gamut when viewing them. The only way to see images in their full gamut is to download them.
Why is this?
I have taken example images from https://webkit.org/blog-files/color-gamut/comparison.html
I uploaded it to my smugmug and here is an example:

https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-RwMZ25p/0/O/i-RwMZ25p.png

Here is the "download" link which looks as expected:
https://photos.smugmug.com/Forumbilder/n-TgccW/i-RwMZ25p/0/D/i-RwMZ25p-D.png

tomnovy · October 14, 2016

Hey Kave,

This is because most browsers are unable to display your images correctly if you are using a different colour profile than sRGB. sRGB is an universal web friendly colour profile that should be used on images that you upload to SmugMug.

Adobe RGB, ProPhoto etc are great for when you edit your images - not for web.

kave · October 14, 2016

Well, Safari on iOS and Mac and Firefox supports it so why not? I just dont want the auto conversion and I imagine high profile photographers dont like that either trying to showcase crippled images to customers.
To the others without it they would just see sRGb as supposed.

tomnovy · October 14, 2016

Kave I recommend that you check how many users are using Safari as their browser - not many, especially not PC users. At the moment there is no possibility to turn the conversion off.

kave · October 14, 2016

I have tested with squarespace and wide gamut images works as expected there.
So, a photo oriented site like smugmug doesnt support viewing images at its best but a webhotel supports it?
Strange to me and should be fixed.
Here is the same image on squarespace:
http://www.livingwithtech.net/news/2016/10/14/test-of-wide-gamut

Even more disturbing, Flickr supports it too:
https://flic.kr/p/MecLYw

And Google Photos supports it.

I wonder if people are aware we dont get the best experience from our pictures?

tomnovy · October 14, 2016

Kave,

I understand this, but on most browsers that do not support wide gamut colour profiles your images will look much different. This is why we always display your photos in sRGB colour profile.

kave · October 14, 2016

I have seen that argument about most browsers but I dont see how that applies here. Will smugmug give users a similar experience as competing providers or something sub par?
Or should this be moved to feature request?

tomnovy · October 14, 2016

Kave,

You can add this as feature request, but since most browsers are unable to display images with higher gamut correctly - I really don't think this would ever be implemented. The fact that we convert your images to sRGB { if they do not have this colour profile } it is a bonus, because your images will look great no matter which browser your visitor is using. This is something that Squarespace and some other service do not offer.

leftquark · October 17, 2016

Hi Kave,
There's a lot more going on with color spaces than can often meet the eye. First, different monitors support different color spaces, and second, different browsers handle color space differently. Chrome for Mac, for example, is notoriously bad at properly handling Color Space (especially on high quality monitors). Downloading both the Living with Tech and the SmugMug photos and viewing them in my OS, the two look nearly identical. That's not the case when I look in Chrome, since Chrome completely butchers the color space and converts things incorrectly.

We convert everything to sRGB for 2 reasons:
1) Most monitors only support sRGB
2) Most browsers can only properly display sRGB

This ensures that your photos ALWAYS look beautiful, no matter what display the photos are being shown on. If we don't do this, then the browser or the monitor may ruin the colors of a non-sRGB photo when a visitor views it.

I suspect SquareSpace, which only officially supports sRGB, does not convert everything to sRGB, so while you may get a better viewing experience on monitors that support a wider gamut, on most other monitors that do not, you'll find a worse experience.

Sine iPhones and iPads are supporting the P3 space, it's possible we may add support for a wider gamut in the future. Browsers would need to get smarter, as well, and let us know whether it's capable of displaying P3, so that we can ensure we display the best photo possible.

AceCo55 · October 17, 2016

It is my understanding that if you WERE able to display your images in a wide gamut colour space, what your viewers see would be a lottery. For most users, without a wide gamut screen or an uncalibrated screen, they would be seeing something different to you.
Using the standard sRGB at least allows for a more consistent viewing experience by the greatest number of potential users.
Then again ... I may be completely wrong!

PS I do not work for Smugug. Just another user

leftquark · October 17, 2016

AceCo55 wrote: »

Then again ... I may be completely wrong!

You're not wrong

We'd need the browser to let us know if the viewer is using a wide gamut screen, then display the wide gamut version to that viewer. For all others, we'd show the sRGB.

How to view images in wide gamut

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