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Ryan Moyer

9 Years Ago

Display Srgb, Print Argb?

Images look better on computer screens when using the sRGB color space, but look better in print when using aRGB color space. This leads to a catch-22 when uploading files to this site. If you upload your images in aRGB, as recommended, they'll look great in print but may look dull on computer monitors leading to less people buying your image. If you upload in sRGB they'll look great on the screen possibly leading to more purchases, but the quality of the actual print will be lower.

Is it possible to upload both an sRGB version for display on the site and an aRGB version for printing? I suspect it's not, in which case consider this a suggestion for a possible future improvement to the site.

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Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

i do it all on sRGB without issues. you can only upload the one thing. it's not a huge catch because your only losing a little in the blues and greens. go with what everyone has already.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Adele Buttolph

9 Years Ago

I usually use aRGB for my uploads so that the images will be most true to color when they print. After some time, I stopped worrying too much about how colors look on a computer screen for two reasons. One is that most people won't have calibrated monitors. The second is that some internet browsers ignore color calibration, even if a monitor is calibrated. What people see on the screen will vary a lot and at this pont in time, there is nothing that we as artists can do about that.

 

Melissa Bittinger

9 Years Ago

After learning about this last year (clueless prior to then) I do everything sRGB, the prints I've ordered from various places have so far...all been a dead on match to what I see on my monitor, so I'm happy.

 

Dan Carmichael

9 Years Ago

Been discussed many times and the bottom line solution is always the same: there is no solution. So choosing between the lesser of two evils, the best thing to do is upload sRGB.

I doubt you will ever see the ability here to upload separate print files and display files. But if you could, it would also open up other benefits - like the ability to place your own watermark on the display file. Not to mention the differing mechanical requirements of each upload, and the lack of understanding of same by some.

From FAA's point of view, I can see why it can never happen. On top of error-prone logistics, allowing two separate uploads opens the possibility of artist-caused image mismatches where the buyer does not get what they saw. There are a lot of great artists here on FAA, but to be unpopularly blunt, there are some technically clueless ones, too. If two uploads were allowed, it's guaranteed there would be problems. FAA staffers already have too much to do without adding the responsibility of following up on, and verifying each upload set to their tasks.

Edit: there is one thing FAA could do, tho. A change in code to modify the aRGB upload to sRGB when creating the display image and leave the aRGB hi-res original upload unchanged. That way any printing vendor that uses aRGB would use it, and any that uses sRGB could modify. There could be a slight mismatch between what the buyer sees online and the print, but I doubt many buyers would complain about it.

 

Dan Carmichael

9 Years Ago

And Mike, it's not just a loss of blues and greens.

Bright oranges and reds, like in brilliant fall color pieces, can be dramatically reduced when moving from aRGB to sRGB.

 

Bradford Martin

9 Years Ago

I always upload RGB. If it looks really awful when dispalyed I will convert it. Browser now do a fairly good job of displaying Adobe RGB 1998 images. A lot has to do with the browser and the site itself. For marketing off site I will sometimes make sRGB thumbnails. The issue id not unique to here. All my stock images since 2007 are uploaded Adobe RGB 1998 and look great. When I started here there were images that did not display right on some browsers ( as compared to how they display on my other sites). That was corrected by FAA.

I may be in the minority using "aRGB" but I would rather have one set to use for printing and have consistency. I agree with Adele that it matters very little as most people are not using calibrated monitors. Ever take a close look at the way an Ipad handles color? Take some Pepto Bismal first.

 

Bradford, I had that experience just yesterday. At a holiday gathering, someone handed me an iPad and asked to see one of my sites. I was equal parts eager and wary of doing so, but pulled up my website, www.art166.net . . . which immediately led to us Googling 'how to color calibrate an ipad'. :-/

Luckily, there was a decently-calibrated desktop system that I moved to for viewing my work.

What an eye-opener! I don't have a cell phone or tablet, myself, so had no idea what an issue this might be!

 

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