# Color not showing as expected on Flickr and Behance



## prbimages (Jul 16, 2020)

I have a color (colour)-related problem which I am trying to understand, and would appreciate any help I can get. This is my procedure:

I take a photo which I intend to publish on Flickr, and in Photoshop do "Convert to Profile" to convert to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (from ProPhoto RGB). I then add a border whose colour I specify as R:16 G:16 B:16 (#101010) - this is a very dark gray, almost but not quite black. I then do a "Save for Web" to save as a JPG file. In the past I have always ticked the "Embed Color Profile" box, as I believed this was generally accepted best practice; but I also believed that it shouldn't make any difference, since web browsers should assume the sRGB colour space if there is not one embedded in the file.

I have just discovered, however, that when viewing the online image on both Flickr and Behance, that the border colour turns out to be R:23 G:23 B:23 (#171717). I measured this by taking a screenshot of the Flickr and Behance pages and loading them into Photoshop, and using the eyedropper tool to test the colour.

However, if I _untick _the "Embed Color Profile" box when saving the JPG version, then the border colour  comes out correct, at #101010. 

Why am I getting these different results? And specifically, why does the procedure which I thought was best practice, produce an incorrect colour?

Any and all ideas welcome!


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## clee01l (Jul 16, 2020)

What you have no control over is how Flikr or Behance treats images that they display and you have no way of knowing  if your (calibrated) monitor is sending a 101010 signal to a pixel or a 171717.    The only way to be certain IMO would be to inspect the pixel value of the file sent to Flickr or Behance vs the pixel value of the downloaded copy of the image  received from Flickr or Behance (IOW) take the monitor out of the data flow. 

You can create a small JPG file of just border and upload that.  Then using a  hex editor inspect the files sent and received


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## prbimages (Jul 17, 2020)

Thanks Cletus. It turns out that this is a browser issue. Your post prompted me to download the JPG files which Flickr was serving back to me (which I could figure out by looking at the web page source code). I downloaded two of my own files, one of which had an embedded colour profile, and one which did not. I opened these files directly in my browser, and as before, the one _without _the colour profile displayed correctly, while the one _with _the colour profile showed distorted colour. I then opened the two files in Photoshop, and the colour in _both _files was correct. So it seemed that Flickr was handling the files well enough; the browser was causing the problem.

Next step: try different browsers. I had been using Mozilla Firefox; I tried Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. In both Chrome and Edge the colours showed correctly for both files. Going back to the original web pages, both Chrome and Edge showed correct colours. Only Firefox was doing something wrong. I did a quick web search and found a few references to colour issues in Firefox, so my issue may be part of a known problem.

_Conclusion_: Mozilla Firefox has a problem representing colour correctly in certain circumstances.


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## clee01l (Jul 17, 2020)

prbimages said:


> _Conclusion_: Mozilla Firefox has a problem representing colour correctly in certain circumstances.


Things  have changed since I last looked.  Only Chrome and Safari were color managed and Now more browsers nee the ICC4 standard.   Check this out: ICC Color Management & Rendering Intent Test
You can set up Firefox to be color manages but by default, it isn't
https://cameratico.com/color-management/firefox/


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