Edits look great on Macbook with retina display, but washed out on other devices.

Joined
Jul 25, 2017
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Hi! I am just wondering how to solve the issue i am having which is that my edits i do in PS look amazing, but when I upload them online and view them from a different device, lets say my iphone or ipad etc, they lose a lot of color and look very different than how it looks to me while editing on my computer. Is there a way to make the colors I see while editing, translate over when these images are posted online?
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
Welcome to the forum.

In a word, no. You cannot control the quality of the receiving device.
 
OP
C
Joined
Jul 25, 2017
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Welcome to the forum.

In a word, no. You cannot control the quality of the receiving device.

So is there a way to see how it will appear on other devices, on my mac? That way while editing I can edit in a way that is appealing on other devices.
 
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Messages
2,014
Reaction score
184
Points
63
Location
Tyneside, UK
Your Mac's Specs
MBP Retina mid 2015 15.4" 16GB 2.5 GHz OS Monterey; iPhone 12 128gb; iPad Mini 5, 64gb
The quality of the images depends on the resolution offered by the site where you are posting.
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
So is there a way to see how it will appear on other devices, on my mac? That way while editing I can edit in a way that is appealing on other devices.
No. What governs what is seen on another device are the settings on that device, plus the hardware on that device and, as Sue said, sometimes the limitations of the site on which the image is posted. To see the challenge, go to any store selling televisions and notice that all the screens look just a little bit different. They all get the same signal, but the individual settings on the TV make it look warmer, cooler, more or less vivid, etc.

Consider this: No matter how vivid you make the colors, if I have a black and white monitor, I won't see any of the color. Or, if I suppress all red, then no matter how much you add red into the image, it's not going to be displayed on my monitor. Those are extremes, but show the issue for you.
 
Joined
May 21, 2012
Messages
10,739
Reaction score
1,189
Points
113
Location
Rhode Island
Your Mac's Specs
M1 Mac Studio, 11" iPad Pro 3rd Gen, iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch Series 7, AirPods Pro
I believe PS is for Photoshop, at least that was what I learned in school. But I understand abbreviations are hard to get sometimes.
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
Guys, what Carmen wants is for the colors to be exactly like the Mac screen when seen on any other device. Can't be done, no matter what the output. Screens and screen settings vary from system to system. And on my system, from one time of day to another. I have my system set to use Night Shift to put more red and less blue in after 10 pm to avoid the syndrome of not being able to sleep because of the blue stimulation when I am on late at night. So if Carmen sent me something to look at, it would be more blue during the day and more red after 10 pm. Carmen cannot control the colors on the other end.
 
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
17,541
Reaction score
1,576
Points
113
Location
Brentwood Bay, BC, Canada
Your Mac's Specs
2011 27" iMac, 1TB(partitioned) SSD, 20GB, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
Can't be done, no matter what the output. Screens and screen settings vary from system to system


I know I'm way out over my knowledge depth here, but isn't that what the Mac's "system color profiles" files were for or some color calibration equipment files that are shared??

And how do the designers get their project files to the printers to get their color printers to print them as WYSIWYG and matching colors?? Or is that really a different situation???






- Patrick
======
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
Patrick, system color profiles can be used to assure that YOUR monitor is set to properly display colors/intensities/hues, usually in terms of Pantone definitions of the colors, but you cannot control MY monitor to make sure that I'm set for the same accuracy.

For printing, the Pantone standard defines colors accurately. So a designer wants the monitor used to design printed material to be dead on with Pantone standards, which is usually done by putting a sensor in front of the screen and then displaying various colors to get the profile of the particular display, then building the color profile for that monitor from that set of results. At that instant, the designer knows that what is seen on the screen will appear in the printed material if the data is sent to a Pantone-accurate printer (not your average home job, one of those big expensive things).

Now, for 99% of us, screen and printer are close enough. But what the OP is seeing is that what is on the screen as it is developed is exactly what is on the iPhone and iPad, or any other phone and tablet. And that cannot be controlled by the sender. It's on the receiver.
 
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
17,541
Reaction score
1,576
Points
113
Location
Brentwood Bay, BC, Canada
Your Mac's Specs
2011 27" iMac, 1TB(partitioned) SSD, 20GB, OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan
but you cannot control MY monitor to make sure that I'm set for the same accuracy.

OK, thanks Jake, and I guess that also means that if I sent you a color display file to use, it wouldn't really change your perception very much.

But I was just wondering if using the Safari Develop menu options could help the OP using a different "User Agent" and maybe get a different view??

i.e.:
Screen Shot 2017-07-26 at 11.31.47 AM.png




Just a thought… and my screenshot is from my Mavericks OS if things have changed for options. :Smirk:

- Patrick
======
 

Raz0rEdge

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
15,765
Reaction score
2,106
Points
113
Location
MA
Your Mac's Specs
2022 Mac Studio M1 Max, 2023 M2 MBA
User agents have nothing to do the topic of colors..that's just use to tell the server what type of browser you are using for tracking and potentially rendering things differently for each browser...

Anyway, to the topic of color, the primary issue is that the MBP (for the past few generations) have the high quality Retina display whereas other devices do not have the same quality screen. On the external and internal displays, you can specifically calibrate them to a particular color space and save that as your color profile. Now if all of your displays are calibrated to the same profile, then the image should look the same across all of them.

However, when it comes to other devices (iDevices or other devices), you cannot change the screen calibration, so you are really at the mercy of their color profiles..

One thing that helps with this is to ensure that you use the highest possible quality on exports for your files. The file type also matters, so using PNG instead of JPG helps. Using SVG is even better. Using CYMK color space as opposed to RGB helps the receiving devices to better map the colors..
 
Joined
May 21, 2012
Messages
10,739
Reaction score
1,189
Points
113
Location
Rhode Island
Your Mac's Specs
M1 Mac Studio, 11" iPad Pro 3rd Gen, iPhone 13 Pro Max, Watch Series 7, AirPods Pro
Anyway, to the topic of color, the primary issue is that the MBP (for the past few generations) have the high quality Retina display whereas other devices do not have the same quality screen. On the external and internal displays, you can specifically calibrate them to a particular color space and save that as your color profile. Now if all of your displays are calibrated to the same profile, then the image should look the same across all of them.
Will different manufacturer model monitors, on the same system, with the same profile, display images the same?
 
M

MacInWin

Guest
And even with the same quality screen, the slight variations in the electronics of the screens will yield slightly warmer/cooler colors, difference in brilliance, etc. I worked with a Graphics Arts department that we ended up putting little sensors on each monitor for calibration. The sensor was on a swing arm, so the artist would swing the sensor over the screen, invoke a calibration program, the actual colors displayed would be calibrated and the resulting profile put in place for the monitor. Some monitors would hold that profile for a long time (all day), while others would need recalibration as the screen warmed up or cooled down during the day and with use. We had one customer that was extremely picky, defining the company logo in terms of Pantone colors, so no matter how well we calibrated, we ended up doing the design, then editing the resulting files to define that THIS color was THAT Pantone number, no matter what it actually displayed on the monitor. After that, it was up to the printer to get the Pantone colors right.

As Ashwin has said, the higher quality export of the images will generally have better results because they convey more information. But because Apple uses different vendors for different parts, and the natural variation in those parts, no matter how carefully monitored, will result in slightly different outcomes, there is simply no way for a sender to guarantee the the receiver will display the same image precisely. Close, but (almost) never exactly.
 

Raz0rEdge

Well-known member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
15,765
Reaction score
2,106
Points
113
Location
MA
Your Mac's Specs
2022 Mac Studio M1 Max, 2023 M2 MBA
Will different manufacturer model monitors, on the same system, with the same profile, display images the same?

Assuming same display technology..i.e., both IPS or VA or (the inferior) TN panels, supporting the same resolutions, configured to the same color profile (assuming they support the same color spaces) will most likely display the images the same. However, there is a higher likelihood that the panels are different, the color spaces supported are different and virtually guaranteed that the color profiles are different across manufacturers..

Companies that are sensitive to colors (think animation companies or photo editing companies) tend to purchase the same display across the entire company and use 3rd party calibration tools to get them all to show the same thing..

At one of my jobs, we had a client called XRite that creates a tool that has a camera/sensor on it that you dangle over the LCD and then it goes through a process of calibrating the LCDs. The nice thing about that tool was that is worked with Mac and Windows, it you just had to plug it into the USB port and let it do its magic. The one thing I had learned while talking to these folks is that their tool was used at Pixar Animation to calibrate all of their monitors so that all of the folks working on the various parts of the movie were looking at the same color..
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top