Mac and PC gamma question

[racingpinarello]

Hello all...

I am moving my website to a new hosting company, and the website is now housed on a mac. What this means is that all of my images that were edited and saved to web using a PC will now show up being lighter because of the 1.8 gamma compared to the 2.2 gamma on the PC.

My wife has a Mac and there was a difference in the images when viewed from her computer.

Is there anyway to convert an image to a different gamma (i.e. similar to a colorspace conversion) so I don't have to re-edit my work? Most of us convert Adobe RGB to Srgb for the web, and I was hoping that there may be a similar shortcut. Most of my current clients have macs and I want them to be able to view my work accurately. If not, I guess I will have to use the Mac softproofing tool to re-edit the work.

If you want to see a sample of my new website go to:
http://www.lorencrannell.com.temp.live-books.com/


Any help would be welcomed...

Loren

[Sebastian]

Where the images are stored is irrelevent, gamma only matters on the machine that displays it. The images do not change just by moving hosts, they look different because your wife has her Mac's gamma set differently than whatever machine you used to view the images before.

[racingpinarello]

Okay... let me rephrase the question....

I understand that the housing of the images is not important, but I have to present the images to Mac clients. All of my images were edited on a PC.

Is there a faster way to convert the images to the Mac platform? I can softproof, so I wanted to know if I could do a convert image.

Loren

[Peter_AUS]

But Loren, it is going to change if all the viewers have different settings on their own machines. It is fine for you to have yours set to view them the way the should be, but you are never going to guarantee that others will see lighter/darker images because they don't have their monitors calibrated correctly or set to the correct colour space etc.

Are we wasting time with all this questioning and changing the images unnecessarily.

[racingpinarello]

Hi Peter,

You make a valid point about the variant of everybody's monitors. I guess that only a few have them calibrated. For those who don't have calibrated monitors it's not really going to matter. You are correct on that point.

For me, the people that I send my images to and the people that I want to send my images have calibrated monitors. The place that I am using to host my website will be able to have two sets of images, mac and pc. so that I have the best of both viewing worlds. This is a big reason why I am choosing them.

I just wanted a quick way to convert the images to a different setting so I wouldn't waste time. It's not fruitless, imho, of trying to achieve the best end product if it provides value.

Loren

[Peter_AUS]

True, maybe an action in Photoshop will do the trick, but I would have thought that that wouldn't have been necessary given that monitors are sRGB ??? aren't they. I have never struck this as a problem before, also haven't come across any hosting companies that have two sets of images either for Mac and PC, a first for me.

[SmartWombat]

Peter, it does matter.
The default Gamma applied by the Mac is different from the default of a PC.
I don't know how our graphic art department adjusted it (and they were Mac users) but they had two sets of images, one for PC and one for Mac, so that our corporate website would have the correct orange in the graphics.
then the site used a browser/OS check to display different images for different platforms.

Loren, sorry I can't remember how they did it.

[Sebastian]

Paul makes a good point, you can use a browser check to load the appropriate images. Frankly, I don't waster my time and calibrate everything to the PC gamma of 2.2, the industry has largely switched over to that anyway.

[Asylum Steve]

Loren,

You're probably getting frustrated because no one is answering your G&%# D*@# question...

Ok, here it is. Create an action in ps that applies a Curves adjustment layer to your copy psd file. Using Curves, adjust the midpoint down slightly to lower the brightness of the image.

Then either save or continue the action to save as a new jpeg.

To Batch this action for large folders of images, use Adobe Bridge. With a group of images selected, use Tools>Photoshop>Batch, and choose the new action from the pull-down menu.

If you've never done this, or have trouble, I may be able to help walk you through it. I've only just started using the Bridge Batch feature, so I'm no expert...

BTW, you can easily check these new files on your wife's Mac, and tweak the Curves adjustment so the images appear the same as the PC versions...

[Sebastian]

Ah, missed your third post... sorry , quickly skimmed through this.

Open your files in Imageready. Click on image->adjustment->gamma.

[Asylum Steve]

Open your files in Imageready. Click on image->adjustment->gamma.

Yep, I guess that's a lot easier, in the short run. I'm not sure how to batch process files through IR, though. Don't see anything in Bridge to do that. Does PS's Batch feature include IR actions?

Any ideas???

[Sebastian]

Just make a droplet and drag a whole folder onto it.

http://catalyst.washington.edu/how-t...mageready.html

[Asylum Steve]

Just make a droplet and drag a whole folder onto it...

Ok. I never use IR, so I'm not familiar with the batch features.

I thought about it a bit, and it would seem you could also create the PS action and simply make some of the steps open in IR and adjust gamma.

Sure, a little more work, but then you could work through Adobe Bridge and use the ps batch...

[racingpinarello]

Thanks Sebastian...that's perfect and very easy.

Loren

[racingpinarello]

Hi Steve,

thanks for the help and the understanding. I was using the curve method, but thought that there must have been a faster way.

btw... I liked your images that you had up in your gallery showing. I have been so busy at my day job to write back about it.

Loren

[Sebastian]

NP Loren, 99% of the time I think Imageready is a huge waste of space. It's nice to know it actually has SOME use.