ATTACHMENTS TOO DARK

Question

ATTACHMENTS TOO DARK

Mail displays my attached photos darker than the rest of my Mac displays them:

I have a calibrated Monitor and CPU (new Quad Mac Pro, 3gb and 30" Cinema Display), which are calibrated with Gretag Macbeth's Eye-One Photo, Professional bundel and regularly checked. Sanners and printers are also calibrated.

Photoshop CS2, Preview, and Safari all display my photos pretty much exactly the same as far as tonal values etc. are concerned. But when I finish the photos in PS2 and then attach them to an email in "Mail" to send to my webmaster to put up on the net, the photos appear darker than in the other applications. Safari even displays the photos the same as PS2, even though they were sent with "Mail" to the Webmaster and Safari is reading them from the internet.

Only "Mail" evidently does not utilize the ic profiles accurately and falsifies the tonal values in its display of them.

Tech support could not do anything about this, but did register a complaint.

What are my options for matching Mail's tonal values to everything else?

This is an annoying problem when one labors over photographic values and then sees them differently in stages of the further process. Especially on a Mac, with Apple software, which is supposed to be so great and advanced for graphic and photo work.

Really annoying to me.

Mark

G5 dual 2.5G, NVidia card and 30 display., Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Dec 17, 2006 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 17, 2006 8:15 AM in response to Mark B Anstendig

Mail is an email program, not a graphics application. It will show you a preview of the images you attach, but it does not modify them. If you actually look at the source for an email with an image, the image is actually sent as a long text block at the end of the message.

If the image looks fine in other applications, then once it is put up on the website, it should be fine, regardless of how Mail displays it. Providing of course that you saved it correctly for Web use.

Hope that helps,

Jerry

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Answer 2

Dec 17, 2006 9:20 AM in response to Jerry Pringle

That much I know, more or less.

But other email aps display attached photos accurately.

Why can't Apple's email ap?

Mark

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Answer 3

Dec 17, 2006 9:38 AM in response to Mark B Anstendig

That much I know, more or less.

But other email aps display attached photos
accurately.

Why can't Apple's email ap?

Mark

I am not sure really why you are seeing this, I have not noticed it myself really. Saying that, I do not really pay that much attention to how the images display. If I am happy with an image, then I email (or more often FTP) the images, I do not really use Mail as a viewer.

But are you saying that you have compared the images in Mail, Entourage and other mail applications, and that it looked substantially different?

Jerry

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Answer 4

Dec 18, 2006 8:47 AM in response to Jerry Pringle

yes, I am saying exactly that. I and also the Tech support techjnician, to whom I emailed a photo, had PS2, Safari, "Mail", and preview open on our desktops, each displaying that same photo.

My 30" monitor is large enough to be able to display two or three of those not-so-small photos next to each other to compare tones, and lartge enough to have the main sections of each photo visible all at once.

All but the pohoto showing in "MaIl" looked the same. The tones in Mail were decidedly darker.

The tones of a photo should be the same on the same CPU with the same monitor, no matter which application is displaying them. Apple makes the use of the Mac for all graphics and photo usages a big selling point and touts the great precision and accuracy of their computers over others for that purpose.

When I am working and finish a p[hoto in PS2 and send it on to another step in the provess, and it appears different in one of the steps, that throws me off. Now that I know that the one stage is darker, I can try to ignore it. But please remember that, Until I did my own comparing, I was told and assumed my photos looked the same everywhere on my calibrated and color-sync adjusted Mac. So I spent a lot of time checking and double-checking and adjusting, first thinking that having reduced the photo in size before sending it made the photo seem darker.

To me, this is unconscionable and, if technologically unavoidable, should be a big part of the instuctions for my computer and for Apple's OS uponm delivery, with reminders, whenever one downloads an attachment that the display of the attachment in Mail is inaccurate and should not be used for image adjustment or evaluation of any kind....which would be a big bummer, because a lot of photos are sent embedded in email messages. millions of people are doing that and expecting the recipients to be seeing their photos accurately in the respective browsers.

There is no excuse for the CPU displaying the same photo differentlly in any part of the OS, once the computer's system is calibrated. And Mail is part of the Apple OS. And even if it weren't that would still be a great flaw!

And I don't enjoy being questioned as to why I am asking about something so obviously necessary that it should be taken for granted, which most people do. (Most peoiple take for granted that their email aps display attachments the way the rest of the computer would display them.)

Is there a way of getting Mail's display of atrtachments to match those of the rerst of the CPU??????

If not, that is a flaw! No matter what the reasons or difficulties of making it do so.!

Mark

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