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Photo presentation in Firefox vs. Safari

I was shocked, shocked! to discover recently that my beloved Firefox appeared to be reinterpreting the color and exposure of my photos when I viewed them online. The strange thing was that I noticed the difference in Firefox only when viewing my own photos on Flickr, then on my website (this one you’re reading now). Examples: here is a sample of how a recent photo of my daughter Julia looks on Flickr when viewed with Safari:

Julia as seen by Safari

And this is the same photo as seen by Firefox:

Julia as seen by Firefox

Safari’s rendering is exactly how it should look. Firefox both brightens the exposure and softens the colors.

Another example, and this is the one where I first noticed the problem. Here is a photo taken specifically to highlight the bright red color. This is how it looks in Safari:

Red as seen by Safari

And here it is in Firefox:

red as seen by Firefox

The reds are much more muted in Firefox and it looks like a completely different exposure. Safari comes much closer to the original.

So what’s going on? Why do I only notice this for some of my own photos? Well, I think it must have to do with my photographic workflow. The photos above were taken in RAW format with my Nikon D50. I imported them into Adobe Lightroom, played around with the exposure and color a bit, then exported them to JPEG. There must be something about the process that messes with Firefox’s little brain and causes it to reinterpret how the images should look.

At least, that’s my guess. Does anyone have details on what this effect is and how to overcome it?

In the meantime, I’m considering switching to Safari when looking at photos online. It seems to most accurately present a photo as it is meant to be seen.

In Apple, Browsers, Firefox, Lightroom, Photo, Photography, Safari, Web on 6 September 2007 with 4 comments


4 Comments

I am just starting to get more familiar with how color profiles work since joining Adobe. Are you on a Mac or PC? How do the images look in IE?

What could possibly be going on here is that both Lightroom and Safari may be using the AdobeRGB color profile. I read somewhere that Safari has better support for ICC color profiles than Firefox or IE does. What may end up happening is that Firefox does not properly handle the AdobeRGB profile and what you end up with is some washed out color.

Now, I’m not by any means a color expert, but what you might try doing is changing the color profile to sRGB, which is a more ubiquitous color profile, but I think it’s not quite as good as some of the others. What you may see is that the image color becomes more consistent across browsers.

The good news is that Firefox 3 is supposed to have better color profile usage. I would probably use one of the better color profiles out there (instead of sRGB), but that’s up to you.

Posted by jim on 6 September 2007 @ 11pm

The problem exist with Firefox on either a Mac or a PC. And IE 7 has the same problem as Firefox. The colors are muted.

That’s an excellent suggestion to experiment with different color profiles. There’s a lot to Lightroom that I have yet to understand. Thanks!

Posted by Carrick on 7 September 2007 @ 9am

Since you’re seeing the problem in IE, that suggests to me that it has to do with the color profile. I think Safari has the best color support, so you’re going to see the best reproduction there. Too bad no one else is going to see it (since Safari market share is still basically non-existent).

Posted by jim on 7 September 2007 @ 11am

Only some browsers support non-standard color profiles. Firefox will have this support in the next release.

http://mozillalinks.org/wp/2007/08/color-management-support-added-to-firefox-3/

- A

Posted by Asa Dotzler on 7 September 2007 @ 4pm

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Carrick Mundell lives in Seattle with his lovely wife and two delightful daughters. More ยป

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