Iphoto facebook exporter - faded images

Hi can anyone help me with my problem? Ive been using the iphoto facebook explorer for ages, but all of a sudden it is uploading my images with the colours very faded to facebook.
Ive uninstalled and reinstalled - done the lastest iphoto upgrades..
any other ideas?
Thanks!!

Mac OS X (10.0.x)

Posted on Dec 22, 2009 4:02 AM

Reply
38 replies

Dec 22, 2009 4:15 AM in response to carly4282

Select a pic in the iPhoto Window and use the Info Window (click on the 'i' lower right) to note it's size.

In my case the image is 2.1 MB.

Upload to FaceBook. Wait for it to finish "Processing" the image.

Now drag the Image from FaceBook to the desktop and use Get Info to see the size of the Photo.

In my case the 2.1 MB file that I uploaded has become... 66kb.

In the process of "processing" Facebook trashes your file and throws away more than 90% of the data.

You need to ask FaceBook why they are ruining your Photos.

Regards

TD

Dec 22, 2009 10:35 PM in response to carly4282

No, I think it's the "processing" that FaceBook do. If you feel the results are better or acceptable going the other way. do that. FWIW the test image I uploaded featured a child in a bright red jacket. The red in the jacket was still strong, just the image was entirely faded. You simply cannot throw away more than 90% of the file without there being some consequence.

Regards

TD

Dec 24, 2009 2:19 AM in response to carly4282

Hi I got the same problem as you too. Been using iPhoto to upload photos to Facebook for ages and lately I noticed all the new photos I uploaded the colours are faded/desaturated. And it seems this started happening after I updated my iPhoto.

Not sure if it's the iPhoto or Facebook's fault, but to prove that it's just not my eyes, I re-uploaded a photo that I've uploaded last month to Facebook. The difference in colour is so severe, the new one looks very desaturated.

Also, if I tried uploading using the default Facebook photo uploader, the image will also be desaturated! Although not as much as if you're doing it with iPhoto, but still compared to the one I uploaded last month the colour is different.

Can anyone else please help?? Thanks

Dec 24, 2009 3:05 AM in response to Yer_Man

Which pretty much demonstrates that the "processing" done by Facebook is the culprit.


Based on the evidence, I have to agree with you on that. I have also asked questions on Facebook but no reply so far.

But would you say iPhoto is at fault as well here? Since the photo uploaded using iPhoto is significantly worse than using the default uploader.

And I don't know if this is just a coincidence but I started having this problem just after I have updated my iPhoto to 8.1.1 and installed the new Java update for Mac. In fact, last week before I installed the new software updates, I just uploaded some pictures using iPhoto and they all look fine.

Dec 24, 2009 3:20 AM in response to iherdian

Frankly I don't know. There's so many variables - FaceBook, your Mac, iPhoto, the uploader, the web browser you're using, the screen on your Mac, your own personal preferences and preceptual ability, etc etc. To be honest I've yet to see any photo on Facebook that did not look flat, characterless and washed out. Stick something up there taken with a D300s and it looks like it was taken with a cheap phone camera. I honestly don't see how anyone who cares about their photos and how they look would use FaceBook, especially with much, much better services out there for free - like flickr and so on.

Regards

TD

Dec 25, 2009 9:18 PM in response to carly4282

I am having the same problem and it's driving me absolutely nuts. I've tried exporting the photos to my desktop and uploading them to facebook through various methods: the facebook function in iphoto, the facebook exporter plugin for iphoto, and the manual uploader on facebook itself. Nothing seems to work. This is a recent problem -- started about 2-3 weeks ago. Never had a problem with photo quality when uploading to facebook before. I'm thinking its a problem with iphoto because no one else on facebook seems to have this problem !! Any suggestions ?

Dec 25, 2009 10:34 PM in response to adrienne589

How can it be a problem with iPhoto if it also occurs when

I've tried exporting the photos to my desktop and uploading them to facebook through various methods: the facebook function in iphoto, the facebook exporter plugin for iphoto, and the manual uploader on facebook itself. Nothing seems to work.


If the problem was with iPhoto then you would get the results you want using the manual uploader.

Regards

TD

Dec 27, 2009 5:30 PM in response to Yer_Man

Looks like you still don't get it. Normally if we upload photos using Facebook Exporter for iPhoto, the images would still retain the 'colour information' but obviously lose some quality (like size, clarity, etc.) but the COLOUR stays, thus the photo will look similar to the one we have in iPhoto.

Meanwhile, uploading manually using the default Facebook photo uploader will result in the stripping of colour information, so basically before this problem happened, photos uploaded using this method will look a little faded in color and of course crappier than using the iPhoto. However, most Mac user might not realize this fact since they have been uploading photos to Facebook using iPhoto.

And the problem we're having right now is uploading using iPhoto actually results in really crappier images than using default method. The colour information is no longer retained, the colour looks 'faded', desaturated, less contrast. It's so bad, that people who normally use iPhoto to upload would realise a huge difference. This is a fact, the discussions page for the Facebook Exporter for iPhoto is full of people complaining about this. It's not about why should we care about photo quality in Facebook, it's about why this problem happened. And so far no one has come up with any solutions, and neither Apple nor Facebook has responded.

Dec 28, 2009 5:45 PM in response to bendylanmathews

Same problem here. Uploading to facebook or Walgreens looks horrendous. From what I can tell, iPhoto exports images with their colorspace preserved. In my case, a quick "Get Info" in the Finder on the exported pic from iPhoto shows that the image's colorspace is "*Adobe RGB (1998)*" since that's how I save them from Canon's DPP before importing to iPhoto.

Since the web seems to prefer sRGB as its colorspace, uploading a pic to Facebook, Walgreens, etc. displays the Adobe RGB-based picture as an *sRGB picture* (since it must strip the colorspace info on upload). This, I think, is the source of the crap.

It'd be nice if iPhoto had the option to convert the image to sRGB on export...it might preserve some semblance of the vibrant colors in the original image. Now I'm off to find a way to batch convert to sRGB before uploading...

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Iphoto facebook exporter - faded images

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