Camera Labs

Hi folks,

I've just "upgraded" to Firefox 3.5 and wish I hadn't. Out of the box it's grossly exaggerating the colour saturation of images here on the forum and there appears to be no way to control this. The same images (sRGB colour space) are shown in Photoshop and even Windows Paint correctly so it appears that Firefox 3.5 is to be avoided for now.

I'm just off to do a spot of Googling and I'll come back if I learn anyhting.

Bob.

Edit: Thread title changed to reflect discussion of Firefox 4

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

just upgraded to 3.5 as well but i see no difference in image quallity on my macbook

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Nikon D700+Nikon D-80 + Nikon SB 900 Flashgun+Lumiquest Ultrasoft softbox + Nikon 50mm F 1.8 + Tamron 28-75mm F 2.8 + Sigma 12-24mm F 4.5-5.6 + Sigma 70-200mm F 2.8 + Sigma 150-500 F 5-6.3 Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod+Manfrotto 3265 Joystick Head+Gorillapod SLR-Zoom+Crumpler 7 million dollar home bag+ Crumpler Karachi Outpost Backpack
http://www.kristymacleodphotography.com/

Hi folks,

Well, the issue is solved, sort of, but there is an underlying problem which is described as a footnote to the web page ICC color correction in Firefox. Namely:

The new QCMS color management system introduced in Firefox 3.5 currently only supports ICC version 2 color profiles, not version 4. This may result in images being too dark. See bug 488800

Too dark is definitely where I was with my own images in this thread but, as mentioned above, they displayed just fine in a whole raft of other programs, including IE. This is particularly galling as I take the trouble to convert from my working Adobe RGB colour space to sRGB before uploading images to the Net.

The workaround was to disable Color Management in Firefox 3.5 (type about:config in the browser address bar and hit Enter and set gfx.color_management.mode to 0) but this is hardly ideal as I'll probably never know when Mozilla gets around to fixing the bug, so allowing me to enable Color Management once more.

So my recommendation stands: Under Vista (at least) avoid Firefox 3.5 until it's fixed!

In the meantime I, and others, will no doubt start getting criticised for displaying images here on the forum which are too dark even though the underlying problem is the Firefox browser.

Thanks a bunch, Mozilla.

Bob.

Update: I've now added my own comment to the bug report so at least I'll get notified of any fixes.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I'm still on 3.011.

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I've upped my Iso, now up yours.
Nikon D700, Nikon D80, Micro Nikkor 105 f2.8 AI-S,Nikon 85mm 1.8D, Nikon 50mm 1.8D, Nikon 35mm F2D, Nikon 16-35 f4 VR, Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 AF-S, Nikon 70-200VRII, Nikon 70-300mm VR, 300mm f2.8 AI IF ED, SB-800, SB-900. Noiseware pro,NIK Dfine, Nik Colour Effex, Nik Sharpener Pro

3.0 is just horrible on the Mac (it pushed me to Safari) so I'm really hoping this is an improvement.

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Graham
Flickr

Thanks a load for the warning guys

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Good tip, thanks Bob...

When I switched to Safari 4, I noticed that all the colours were over-saturated and FF 3.5 now looks exactly the same. I don't use my browser for critical viewing but it's annoying anyway.

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Graham
Flickr

I can report that i have installed Firefox 3.5 and have disabled Colour management, and it all seems how it was before.
Although i will say in favour of the upgrade, that firefox is still alot snappier, in general usage. On my pretty well spec'd machine, it used to take about 10 secs to open Firefox and 2 secs to open IE (not that i ever use that) now it is about the same as IE, so a big improvement. I have also noticed that it does load pages, just that bit faster as well.
My only little gripe, is that Cooliris dosen't work yet with 3.5, but that'll come soon i'm sure!

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Ed


Canon 40D + Grip | Sigma 10-20 EX | 17-85 | Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 EX II | 50 F/1.8 | 430 EX II + Other Stuff
Flickr
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Hi folks,

Great news.

Firefox have just released version 3.5.2 which, in addition to an important SSL fix, has now mended the broken ICC colour profile bug mentioned above.

Mistakes happen in any software project so kudos to Mozilla for responding in such a timely manner, though I think they may still have a little fine tuning to do as the Firefox rendering is still just a tad darker and/or more saturated than I see in Photoshop.

If anyone applied the workaround I detailed above then just right-click on gfx.color_management.mode, select Reset and then close Firefox. The next time you start it the new setting will be active.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi folks,

I've resurrected this thread because I've made an unpleasant discovery. So far as I'm concerned colour management in Firefox under Windows 7 is still way less than optimal. I posted this image in another thread:

Ignoring the blue border I see blocks of fully saturated blue colour intruding from left and right about halfway up the image and there is no graduated transition into the surrounding cloud. If I save a copy of the image to the Desktop by dragging it from the browser and then open it in IrfanView or PhotoShop I see what I originally created during post-processing. If you aren't seeing the problem I'm describing then I'm delighted for you but just so you can get a sense of what I'm banging on about here's a screen grab of a portion of the image with colour management enabled:

It's a fair call that I overdid the blue saturation in the original image but that's no excuse for Firefox to make it worse. Disabling colour management in Firefox (about:config in the address bar and setting "gfx.color_management.mode" to value 0) solves the blocky artefacts but it also means that Firefox is unable to pick up and use any ICC profile embedded in an image as the test page Is your system ICC Version 4 ready? clearly illustrates. Even with color management enabled in Firefox that test shows that Firefox is only ICC 2 capable.

Bizarrely, or perhaps not , when I view the image above using Firefox 4 under OSX it displays just fine.

This is very disappointing. Firefox under Windows 7 has to be the gold standard for that browser and to find out that after the Firefox 3.5 debacle, which kicked off this thread initially, Mozilla still can't get the most basic image rendering as good as it should be when support for monitor profiles is enabled is a real kick in the gut so far as I'm concerned. It would be a major hassle for me, and I do mean major, to switch browsers and a switch to OSX for my workstation is not an option either because I'm heavily invested in Windows software. As things stand I either have to view images in Firefox with an unwanted colour shift (colour management disabled) or with less than good rendering when the going gets tough (colour management enabled).

I find the lesser of two evils is to turn off colour management in Firefox.

Bob.

Update: And Firefox 5 has just been released. Not only does it apparently not fix the issue above but by progressing to a new major version number for what essentially is just a bunch of bug fixes Mozilla have also created compatibility issues with some Add-Ons. And the only way to check if your Add-Ons are compatible would seem to be either to try installation of v5 and pray or manually go through each and every one and check the documentation. Aargh, it's time the Mozilla guys were shut up in a locked room until they come to their senses. Idiots!

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Hi Bob

This is interesting and I've tried several options and i'm just not getting the result of your screen grab, what rendering intent have you got it set at?

J

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"I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order" - Eric Morecambe
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D7000 and too many lenses.

***** it, I'm going to chrome.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

I used FF4 until this evening, and I didn't get the purple either. Must be a setting somewhere?

Personally I have IE/FF/Chrome installed on all my systems. Can never have enough browsers Yes, I know you can open multiple instances of any one, but some websites do behave differently between the browsers and sometimes it can be handy to log in to different accounts on a site at the same time.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Hi popo,

Maybe you already have gfx.color management.mode set to 0?

Your point about multiple browsers is well taken but it would be nice if Firefox displayed images correctly and used ICC profile information. Far more useful to me than WebGL (I've turned that off because of security concerns and don't miss it at all) and equally useful, I suspect, for just about every keen photographer who publishes images on the web. It is so irritating to spend time in PhotoShop getting the desired result, making sure the profile is set to sRGB and then seeing one's work mangled by sloppy browser coding.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.