Saving digital photoshop paintings to JPEG (Colours become REALLY washed out)

winter_combat_knight

Hey ppl,

Ive been trying to save a jpeg image of one of my digital paintings. Problem is, as soon as i try to save a jpeg version, the colours become really washed out. I go through the save-for-web options, and my colours look almost grey. Anyone know a way around this. Its really giving me the shits. Cheers for any help.

NightDragon

I actually think there was something on this in the Questions thread in the AC. I think it has to do with embedded color profiles.

It's not a permanent fix, but what I tend to do (because I keep forgetting what's needed to be done exactly, and also the files I save usually aren't massive) use "Save As" instead of the "Save for Web". That typically keeps the original colors in my jpeg's.

Rye

This can happen for a couple reasons, and it's not necessarily your color profile:

1) Make sure the photo is not being previewed in CMYK or being saved in CMYK. If the photo were to have been saved as a CMYK when it was originally RGB, it tends to grey out the photo because it's "guessing" what colors to lay down instead of the actual screen values of the image.

2) Make sure your preview mode is set to "Proof Colors" and "Monitor RGB":



(The screen shot doesn't have proof colors checked, but you should.) Sometimes photoshop automatically "adjusts" the contrast and saturation of photos when you import them, so by selecting "Proof Colors" you make sure it only show you how the file is going to be saved.

A quick way to toggle proof colors on and off is Ctrl + Y

3) When you save for web, make sure you aren't leaving it on Gif. I know you said you were saving a jpeg, but it never hurts to double check. A gif's dithering and other settings can grey out as photo.

That's all I got. Messing with and adjusting color profiles gets dicey sometimes, so I like to run down my checklist first to make sure I'm not missing something easy.

flatlinegraphics

90% of the time its a proof colors thing. esp if you are file->save for web.
http://www.gballard.net/psd/saveforwebshift.html

winter_combat_knight

thanks for the advice people!

Rye, i looked into that monitor RGB, helps alot. Adjusted my images to look right for web versions, so thats cool.

Cheers again guys.