Pictures darker on Windows machines

jupiteronejupiterone
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
The photos (created on my Mac) that I publish on a web site or send via email look just fine on my Mac. If I look at the same pictures on a Windows machine, they look darker. Has anyone else noticed this? Is there something that I can do to make them appear the same on both platforms? I mostly use iPhoto to import and manipulate the photos.



Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    It's the default gamma setting on the monitors. Apple monitor profiles are adjusted for this, Windows monitor profiles do not seem to be adjusted for this out of the box. There isn't any way that I know of to control this from the content provider end. If you make the images lighter to loog good on a PC they will wash out on a Mac. I guess you could host 2 images and display the one that matches the default OS gamma setting. But that is almost positively too much effort for the return unless you are trying to sell the images.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    skatmanskatman Posts: 609member
    Depends on the monitor, the application, and the color profile.

    On a Windows machine, you need to load the color profile (sometimes part of the monitor driver) for your particular monitor.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    jupiteronejupiterone Posts: 1,564member
    OK, thanks for the info guys.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    from wikipedia:

    In PC video, images are encoded with a gamma of about 0.45 and decoded with a gamma of 2.2; in Mac systems, the corresponding typical values are 0.55 and 1.8.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Windows is miserable for color calibration. On macs, there's ColorSync. On Windows (or Linux for that matter) there's not. I am forced to use a PC at work and have tried hard to make up for this with expensive third party calibration tools, but it's not even close to as good as out-of-the-box ColorSync.
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