Has anyone else experienced something like this?

I created an animation in Flash on a windows machine.

I open the flash animation on my work machine - which is a mac.

I take a screenshot of the animation.

When I open the screenshot in Photoshop, the colours are very different. Much more saturated.

When I open the same screenshot in Preview or in a browser, the colours look the same as they do in Flash (all of these on a mac)

Why the colour shift in Photoshop?

i have noticed that too... very weird and i'm not sure if there's a way of correcting this

Hmmmm... I wonder if it is your monitor in some way?

I remember there used to be wicked color shift with Flash 2 but haven't noticed anything for quite some time.

I've noticed this too. The color values stay the same (it doesn't shift the hex or rgb, etc) but it looks much more saturated. I've noticed it mostly when working with photographs. Strange....

I dont think its the monitor, because the same image looks different on the same computer, depending if I view it in Photoshop or in Preview (or a browser, or Flash)

And what is especially weird is this:
When I go "save for web" and view the image on a 2 up view (so I can see both the original and the optimized) the original looks for saturated, and the optimised version less so. In the Photoshop save for web preview.. Why would that happen?

Hey klip, I think most of what you're describing can be fixed by changing the color settings in Photoshop. Photoshop by default is in sRGB mode which has a larger color gamut than the normal RGB. When you save for web, it's dropping that profile and going into normal monitor RGB. However, in the 2up view both the original and optimized are both in RGB mode, it's the compression in this case that's losing color information.

You can mess around with the sRGB / Monitor RGB settings in Photoshop > Edit > Color Settings.

Here's some more info, hope it helps!
http://www.viget.com/inspire/the-mysterious-save-for-web-color-shift/


*edit* oh, apparently CS3 will save sRGB JPG's, and the latest FireFox and Safari will actually display them in that profile, so one more step is needed to keep consistent colors across the web. Check the very bottom of the article if you're using CS3.

Wow! Cool info serostar!

that sounds like the stuff I need to know. Have to go home now but will check it tomorrow

That's the ticket. That link you gave me is exactly what I was looking for. Especially this bit:

Thankfully, it's an easy fix: Open up any image on your machine and File / Save For Web. Next to the Preset option, there's a sneaky little arrow...click it and uncheck "Convert to sRGB." (Note: From what I can tell, this is only the default setting in CS3)

That is what finally fixed it. Excellent! Cant thank you enough.