

Ask HN: Why do images look different in Firefox and Chrome? - shocks

A friend recently drew to my attention that Chrome and Firefox render images differently.<p>Images in Firefox look much more vibrant, with more detail and colour. Here are a couple of example images that show the difference very well:<p>https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jikklor/5804669752/in/photostream
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jikklor/6204745249/in/photostream<p>Images in Chrome just seem flat and washed out in comparison.<p>Can anyone explain this? Why does this happen?
======
wmf
I'm betting this has to do with color correction.

[http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPE...](http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html)

~~~
shocks
Wow thanks for this, so Chrome is not colour managed? That seems a shame,
since it virtually cuts out all photographers as users...

~~~
wmf
Experts say (and I agree) that all images posted to the Web should be sRGB
with no ICC profile (the profile is not needed since sRGB is the default on
more or less all systems); AFAIK such images should appear the same in
different browsers. If you post an image using a low-dynamic-range format
(e.g. JPEG) with a non-default colorspace (e.g. AdobeRGB), it will either be
displayed wrong (in non-color-managed browsers) or it will lose color accuracy
(possibly introducing banding) when the browser converts it to sRGB.

~~~
dholowiski
That's all nice and geeky, but those images don't look as good in Chrome as
they do in Firefox.

~~~
wmf
My point is that those images were probably converted wrong, so of course they
look bad.

------
cgallello
Could you post a screenshot? I'm with fferen, don't see any difference.

~~~
shocks
Sure, here is a screenshot:

<https://underrun.org/~stack/colour.png>

Firefox 10.0 and Chrome 16.0.912.77 m

------
zeynalov
Only Windows version of Chrome has some color correction and render problems.
On Apple devices there is no difference.

So if you use a macbook or imac don't try to find any difference.

------
fferen
I see absolutely no difference at all. I'm using OS X 10.6, Chrome
16.0.912.77, and Firefox 10.0.

~~~
dholowiski
Windows 7, Chrome 16.0.912.77 and Firefox 9.0.1 and I DO see a difference. Not
in the gradient picture, but in the motorbike picture everything seems to be
slightly more contrasty, like the fire and the tent in the background...
Firefox just updated to 10.0, still more contrasty. IE9 looks the same as
Firefox.

------
chrisacky
Nothing ever happened with WebP from what I understand though, but you can
still check it out. Just Google and click on any one of the thousand of
stories.

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20018146-264.html>

