I don't think I'll be renewing my Flickr Pro Account

[sk66]

I am about fed up with their compression and what it does to the colors of some of my images.....
I usually have to re-edit images with their picknic crap in order to get the pic right again, if it's even possible....

I use photoshop/lightroom, export as Jpeg/SRGB, everything's great on my computer (calibrated monitor), and then they look wrong after upload.

I guess I'll have to set up my own page on my server space....kinda sucks.

Unless anyone can come up with some idea as to what else might be the issue.

[NaturalWoman]

i didn't know flickr compressed shots. what size photos are you uploading? i thought they were one of the few online sharing sites that uploaded the resolution the photo was taken in. shutterfly compresses everything. i don't like them, but use them as a back up back up back up and it is free.

oh my. well i haven't had any problems with them. i don't know of any other place, it might be best to set up your own website, at least you will have control over everything.

maybe you can save them in another format. jpeg, so i was told, is not really the choice for perserving much of anything.

[rockbigdave]

I've noticed this too on some images, it's really annoying! (But not all)

(Hey, I'm new by the way. )

I've noticed that DeviantArt doesn't deteriorate pictures as bad, even for mobile viewing. Flickr on my mobile comes up with really bad deteriorated, blocky images where as DeviantArt has some deterioration but the image looks much better.

I guess it's their server side tech that needs having a look at.

[Usuqa]

i haven't seen anything like that on flickr yet, or maby ive just not been paying much attention.

I uploaded this lately...



and the colors seem the same.

[sk66]

It doesn't happen too all images.

Flickr uploads the original size resolution, not sure about colors....I'm pretty sure they're doing something to the images for all "smaller" sizes they generate.(the originals at full size sometimes seem ok)

I'm often uploading full resolution D300 images... (aprox 4k x 3k)

[Usuqa]

hmm ill need to keep an eye on that then...

maby its some way to save space?

or could it be that the color profile of the uploaded file isnt the same as what flickr or web browser would support ?

[Saralonde]

I've noticed my colors aren't always the same and often my pics look a little darker on flickr. I know others complain of the same thing.

Welcome to DPS, rockbigdave!

[Usuqa]

i know when i upload stuff to flickr i use srgb color profile.

if u were to use adobe or something else profile then maby thats the problem? (im a little drunk so i could be talking crap lol)

[Murtasma]

Flickr does not resize or change colors of your images when you upload them.

Direct from Flickrs site..
"Why do my image colors look different on Flickr than on my computer?

If you uploaded an image to Flickr and the colors look different than they did on your computer, it usually has to do with how the image was saved.

What exactly is happening?
All digital image files have something called a "color space" associated with them—a set of instructions telling programs how to display the colors in that image (how red should the red be, what blue is the blue, and so on).

If your images are saved with a color space that your web browser can't understand, then the photo will display with the "wrong" colors. (Safari being the exception, as it can handle any color space an image has.)

How can I fix it?
To make sure that your image's colors look the same on the Internet as they do on your computer, you will need to save them using the sRGB color space. If you're not sure how to do that, try looking in your image editor's Help menu for instructions."



Depending on your lighting in your room, your workspace within photoshop (do you have a black background set on your canvas?) colors can appear to be different. If you are really saving your images in the sRGB color space the difference you notice is probably because of the white background surrounding the image.

What you can try to do is upload a picture to Flickr then download it again from Flickr and use a binary file compare against the two files (the one downloaded from Flickr and the one you have on your workstation). I have tried this several times on images that appeared different then the way they look within photoshop.

Bit for Bit the images I have tested have been identical. When viewing them both within photoshop they are identical however when viewing within a browser sometimes that can appear different, tested both firefox and IE.

I suspect it's related to how the web browser displays the colors space, probably some nice undocumented feature for optimization that one person knows about sitting in the dungeons of Microsoft. Or the fact much more white space surrounds the images on the Flickr website along with other colors, text and graphics that may be causing your eyes you interpret a color differently.

Use a tungsten light in your room, then switch to a compact fluorescent light bulb, give your eyes time to adjust between light bulb changes and you will see the colors your brain interprets are different then what the monitor is displaying, that's why they sell color calibrators that take into account the lighting of the environment in your work room. I have one and it really helped a lot.

====
All bets are off for images Flickr resizes, I have not been able to determine what Flickr does when resizing images but I suspect they also compress the image on top of resizing which could obviously effect the image. What you need to compare is the original sized image you uploaded to Flickr.

[Usuqa]

ha im glad you posted all that and i wasnt just being a drunken idiot lol!