I've been noticing lately that images I upload to steemit have looked very desaturated. Initially I assumed my monitor needed calibration, but after performing this, the problem didn't go away.
Eventually it clicked that I had changed my workflow recently... where I used to finish all the images froma shoot in one sitting, I'd export all the final photographs from Lightroom. Lately though, with too much of a workload to get through, I've been forced to finish one or two images from a shoot, move onto another session, and at some stage later on return to the first one. An effect of this is less time in lightroom (LR), more time in photoshop (PS).
What I had overlooked is that LR, by default, will convert your colour space to sRGB (shit for print, perfect for the web) automatically. PS will not. The colour space I use is ProPhoto RGB, simply because it contains a HUGE colour range, and is 16-bit - great for retouching and colouring images. Problem is, most browsers can't handle all those beautiful colours, and what you get is a poorly rendered version of your image, with the colours replaced with what the browser can display.
Note, when I say colours I refer to a "range" of colours. Blue is still blue, just a less vibrant blue.
I should also point out that I never seen this problem on FB or IG - turns out they're rich and can afford the expense of converting to sRGB on your behalf.
So, my photographs were not looking good. I'm not trying to say they were masterpieces to start with, but they were a lot lower down the ladder than they should have been. Case in point, a recent upload can be seen at https://steemit.com/bescouted/@colmedwardsphoto/pippa-doll - in that image Pippa is meant to be shining and golden toned, not the corpse bride it displays as :(
Maybe some folk like the washed out look, but it's not for me. Just cause I shoot with a Fuji doesn't make me a hipster (I'll be moving to Sony soon enough, the most unhipster brand on the planet second only to Hotpoint).
Anyone out there more tech savy than me (that'll be all of you) can correct my errors or offer suggestions, please shout.
I'll do a second post about this shortly when I have less whiskey in my bloodstream, but for now here's a few samples. This mightn't work btw - the previews while I'm typing look fine. Typical.
Mary Unconverted saved direct from PSD file as jpeg
disclaimer: this image was never finished - I already know the masking is a hatchet job, no need to call me out on it :P
Mary Converted converted to 8 bit and ICC profile removed
Pippa Unconverted saving directly from PSD file
Pippa Converted exported from PSD in Lightroom
Pippa Converted using legacy save for web in photoshop
