Stills

The sRGB version is HERE
 

Of course, whether the colour are junk or not depends on which browser you use.

The best explanation of which I've found is on www.gballard.net
 

What I don't understand is why Windows Picture and Fax Viewer showed the ProPhotoRGB accurately.

I did know IE ignored embedded profiles. It looks like there is more to be gleaned from that article.
 

Does that mean the two look very similar with your browser?
 

Rex, yes. I'm using Safari and it consistently the best at dealing with colour profiles. It'll even make a good hash at pictures without a profile in them at all. Many of the early pictures that I put on the web didn't have a profile attached (I was constantly making the same mistake), but I couldn't tell because Safari made it all look ok.

Most web browsers make wild guesses unless you feed them sRGB. I did a lot of side by side comparisons on calibrated monitors using different browsers about 12 months ago. The results were both amusing and appalling. I understand the IE for Vista (what's it going to be called?) will be better, because Vista is finally bringing MS into the world of colour management.

My working model is to keep everything in ProPhoto until I'm ready for output. Then I convert to the right space for the medium. Everything I put on the web is sRGB (mistakes notwithstanding) unless I'm putting it there for someone to download into a properly colour managed environment.

If the website I mentioned is still there it has some good rollover examples and games to play.
 

Rex - if you prefer the sRGB version, why don't you repost here? Maybe the answer to that would be that then all the erudite debate would be obviated.

I have to admit that I work to the colour that I like and am ably helped in that by Capture One RAW developer. I shoot in aRGB and convert to 's' for the web. I never alter colour in a developed Jpeg. I'm still not clear how you ended up with the hues above.

What hasn't been said yet is that this is a great photo and I love the post-modernist fairground Union Jacks. I was thinking at one stage that it would be nice to see someone but, deliberately or not, you have gone to great lengths to keep everone's faces hidden so all hinges around cartoon representations. I don't think that you were into such symbology but that's what emerges slowly from the chaos.
 

I'll try to understand the colour/color space issue when I'm not having my postprandial coctail.

As to the photo itself, there's so much going on that my eye doesn't know where to look. It took me a while to notice that there's a human under all that mylar.
 

Commenting on the sRGB version and avoiding the colour issue......

This image just jumps out of the screen. Just an assault of colours with some favorite characters thrown in for good measure. This could have so easily been a crowded fairground shot, with bits of people everywhere but it looks clean and calm somehow. Focused, except perhaps for the individual on the left hand edge.

The sky, however, looks slightly suspect Rex. I can''t put my finger quite on why (and I'm commenting on the sRGB version). Perhaps it is just me....anyone else notice anything up there colour wise???
 

JohnE: I thought you shot in raw. If so, you are not shooting in aRGB. The colour space is something that you are choosing during conversion.
 

Rex: in reply to your question in the other thread....I don't know how Safari copes with colour at a technical level. I've always concentrated on the effects, not the cause. It is something to do with where the browser looks for help when faced with an embedded profile that it "knows" can't be displayed. Because Macs are coloured managed throughout, Safari can rely on sophisticated software to take the incoming data and covert it to something viewable. Pre Vista Windows machines aren't colour managed so the browser has to "guess" what to do with the information. The results will look different in IE, Firefox, Opera etc. Even on a Mac, third party browsers don't always deal with the issue very well. It depends on how integrated with the OS they are.

As at 12 months ago the only colour space that all browsers on all operating systems dealt with consistently was sRGB. Developments since may mean I am out of date.
 

I was wondering if I'd get away with the sky, it looks too blue. It comes from the Isle of Wight and a different time of year.

I agree with the shooting in RAW comment. I've had discussion with folk about sharpening who think it happens in the camera during RAW. I like the Oly software for conversion because the default setting for RAW conversion are what you have in the camera. CS2 confuses me every time I look at it so I avoid using it for RAW conversion. I described RAW as being like a negative ready for printing. Someone (colour management expert!) said "No" it's like a negative before you develop it. I think that puts it better.

By the way I did an experiment with RAWShooter and its conversion engine is junk. I did some comparison experiments and have convinced a RAWShooter fan that it is nbg.

We have some machines running Vista here but the two balloon images still look different and there is no command in the viewer software to turn on colour awareness.

I hadn't thought about the OS converting the image internally before being displayed on the monitor. Stupid of me I thought it would do it dynamically and therefore could not see how it could cope with two images with differing colour spaces simultaneously.
 

Auspicious - you're absolutely right. I suppose my comment was partially superfluous. Of course, with the E-1 one can only set Adobe RGB or sRGB, there is no 'no' setting. It makes sense though, to have the setting that my workflow will follow (adobe RGB); the only change will be for the net or projection.

I thought I sent this at lunchtime but it disappeared!
 

John.

Have you tried any experiments comparing sRGB with aRGB in printing out? (Given there is no point for web publishing)

My experiment showed sRGB and aRGB prints to be virtually identical. I didn't see a difference until I used ProPhotoRGB. I also struggled to find any of my images where the difference might be apparent.
 

Rex - the short answer is no. Having read all there was on the subject two years ago, I took it as an article of faith that Adobe RGB was better for printing (my paper supplier - Fotospeed- also advised it). I can well believe that there is miniscule difference and I am sure that with my inexperience with handling prints (I think it is something that one need to start doing professionally from an early age) I would not be able to pick out the difference. But it is like using RAW: you never know what you might be gaining. When I develop 16 bit TIFFs for A3 prints I can never see the difference with an 8 bit Jpeg. But the other way round is more noticeable: sRGB is noticeably better on the net.

Otherwise, I follow the gospel of St Auspicious!
 

Well I printed out my Balloons using ProPhotoRGB having seen the difference in my experiment. I used my JPEG demo image (the one I used to dispel the myth about how bad JPEG is (isn't)) to do the comparision between the three colour spaces. It was a lady's coat which showed the greatest difference. http://www.myhome.uk.com/How%20Bad%20is%20JPEG_files/frame.htm

In terms of 8 vs 16 bit I haven't done that experiment yet. Its my guess you will only see the difference if you try to extract info out of the image in PS after changing the bit depth. Again a guess that straight print won't show much difference.
 

The link takes me to a page that won't show a picture.
 

jpg good, frames bad :-)
 

The server that has this on is slow and the images will take time to download as they are not resized. So they are the 3.5Mb Jpgs.

Try this

This is a poerpoint presentation, it is 14Mb and slow to download.
 

poerpoint=powerpoint!!!!

It took 2min 15 secs to download at work. That is caused by the server it is on not your BB speed.
 

The powerpoint downloaded fine. You have confirmed what I have been practising! Anyway, working in RAW, one could always do another!
 

For me the photo was about the pair of legs. (after all the debate about colour space!)
 

Just the legs? Or the face above them as well? And presumably all the hidden human faces were coincidental? Returning to the colour, the slightly 'independent' blue of the sky just so happens to accentuate the whackiness of it all.
 

There's just a little too much going on in the centre of the photograph. A little longer in the waiting game for people to leave the scene would help. Otherwise, a wider angle lens to ease up on the compression front-to-back and a lower shooting point? Hindsight is such a marvelous tool!

All those eyes looking at the viewer is a little intimidating. The angle of the seller's feet, the hand resting on the knee and the fact that they are seated gives me more than enough to put an expression on their hidden face.

As an idea it works very well.