Screen vs. Web gallery

[buzzlghtyr]

Hello All

I could some education in the area of what you see on your screen is not really what you see on a website. Or at least, that is the case with most of my photos.

What I am using...
Macbook Pro 17"
Adobe Lightroom
Nikon D40
.nef and .jpg

Basically, my pictures look more washed out online then they do in either lightroom, iphoto or preview.

So I am trying to learn how to take a picture, then how to make it look good, then how to show everyone else. I fear that perhaps I am taking on too many learning projects at once. But I don't think I will ever stop learning how to snap pics, so that is a constant. Post processing images is a mystery to me. I don't know what looks great and what doesn't. I adjust one thing and something else suffers. So then I try to redo the other and then before you know it, I got a picture of something that makes no sense. So I start over and the basic pic that was taken still looks the best, but from all I hear and read, it shouldn't.

In the process of all of this learning, I am also trying to figure out if I should take pics in .nef (raw) format or in .jpg format, cause I hear all these things and honestly, I don't know what is better. If I have to touch each picture after I take it on a computer, I might as well use .nef. It is only 1 more step to then send it out as a .jpg.

Anyways, back to the main question. Why are a lot of these pictures washed out??? I only touch the temp of the color and the exposure, that is it.

http://picasaweb.google.com/karmagrace

Thanks in advance.

[ndsimm]

first of all, you have a cute daughter!
Can you give us a few examples of the images? The ones I saw on there didn't look washed out.
not sure about picasa, but I know when I upload my images to my smugmug gallery, I make sure I have applied their color profile to the images so what I see is what my clients see.

[Daylon]

You might look into monitor calibration tools.. what looks good to you at home isn't always what prints out or what looks good on the web..

D.

[DeLeon]

I didnt see anything washed out..maybe a few orang ones..bu who hasnt shot an orange pic every now and then...lol

As far as shooting in RAW or jpg...it depends on what you want to do with the pics. Anything important, I shoot RAW. At my folks house on sunday afternoon, I just shoot .JPG Basically those go strait to the printer and often never get on my hard drive.

[buzzlghtyr]

Originally Posted by ndsimm

first of all, you have a cute daughter!
Can you give us a few examples of the images? The ones I saw on there didn't look washed out.
not sure about picasa, but I know when I upload my images to my smugmug gallery, I make sure I have applied their color profile to the images so what I see is what my clients see.

Thank you. She is something else, that is for sure. 8)

I am not sure if I can give you an example. They looked good in lightroom or iphoto, but when I launch firefox and look at them on the web, there is something lost in the translation, so to speak. They have a washed out look to them. Could it be sRGB or Adobe RGB or something along those lines?

I want to try printing next, so I can confuse myself even more. 8)

[buzzlghtyr]

Originally Posted by Daylon

You might look into monitor calibration tools.. what looks good to you at home isn't always what prints out or what looks good on the web..

D.

I thought the same thing and calibrated the display yesterday. I used eye-one. There was a difference once it was done, but it still doesn't seem right when I see the pics in firefox.

Like, I opened the picture through lightoom, then opened the same picture through firefox/picasa and the colors are flatter/ washed out through firefox. Like my daughter's skin has more tone and color through lightroom, but it is the same exact picture.

One of my friends thinks it might be something on google's side, like an upload compression or something.

[buzzlghtyr]

Originally Posted by DeLeon

I didnt see anything washed out..maybe a few orang ones..bu who hasnt shot an orange pic every now and then...lol

As far as shooting in RAW or jpg...it depends on what you want to do with the pics. Anything important, I shoot RAW. At my folks house on sunday afternoon, I just shoot .JPG Basically those go strait to the printer and often never get on my hard drive.

Maybe I am over thinking or over worried about it?

RAW vs .JPG seems like a question of amount of time for results.

[theophilus]

Web jpegs need to be converted to the sRGB profile. Using Prophoto or Adobe RGB will make them look washed out.

[picasso]

Originally Posted by theophilus

Web jpegs need to be converted to the sRGB profile. Using Prophoto or Adobe RGB will make them look washed out.

Agreed. I had the same problem. A lot of web gallery sites will convert them for you on the upload but posting here and other places you have to have them in sRGB.



Paul

[buzzlghtyr]

I doublechecked this morning and lightroom was exporting the jpgs with sRGB. So for more testing, I went ahead and changed the pixel per inch from the huge 240 to 72. I also resized the export images and it looks to have done the trick. I feel that I am getting a better image now through firefox.

http://picasaweb.google.com/karmagra...88157165458354
vs
http://picasaweb.google.com/karmagra...94313573928130