Apple has released a new version of the Safari browser. I like to use the Safari browser for its colour management capabilities, but Safari 4 appears to have a error in how it handles ICC profiles.
I am traveling at the moment, so do not have the benefit of my large screen, but am running my colour profiled laptop using a Windows XP Pro platform.
I checked a favorite page on CNET that has a number of test images. The Browser displays the images as being color managed, but it is like the profiles are being displayed incorrectly.
I viewed the CNET images in three different browsers. Left browser is Firefox with color management enabled, center is Chrome, and right is Safari 4.
Both Firefox and Safari display as colour managed browsers, but the Safari browser is displaying the profiles of the top and bottom image differently, where Firefox is displaying the profiles correctly.
This is quite confusing as some tests on the David Harradine Image test page, and directly viewing images from the drive in safari4 are OK.
If I view my images on iStockPhoto they are displayed OK in Safari4, however if I view my images on Alamy or Photoshelter they are not displaying correctly in Safari 4, where they used to display OK in Safari3.
The images on all of these test sites display correctly in my color managed Firefox browser.
It seems like one of the methods for determining colour profiles has been removed in Safari 4.
I am not exactly sure what the error is, but would be interested in anyones comments.
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I am having exactly the same issue with Safari on Mac, I just upgraded a few days ago and now I’m getting depressed because of these problems on my favourite browser. My colours are alternating between much darker and much lighter shades, but only on some sites, including my own site.
I have to say it’s disappointing that Apple released this upgrade without thorough testing, very sloppy on Apples part to say the least, doesn’t look good for them.
I suppose there’s nothing that can be done until Apple fixes it?
Hi Carl,
After a bit of searching I found a thread at Apple Discussions. Apparently it isn’t affecting all users of Safari, but it did start happening with the latest stable release of the browser.
It seems there can be a lot of different causes for it, including third party addons and using dual monitors, For me, I uninstalled an addon called Glims, Reset Safari, and used Disk Utility to Repair Permissions. At this stage I’m still online since my last post here and since I did these repairs, and I haven’t had another issue yet.
Here’s the discussion, I hope it helps you too
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2032159&start=75&tstart=0
Regards
Tommy
Hi Tommy,
You are correct that there is not much we can do about it.
I have reported it through the Safari Help/Report Bugs option, and to the stock sites I notice it affects (hoping they may have some clout).
I am surprised by the lack of reporting of this issue on the web. I would have thought that with the popularity of this browser, users would be all over it.
Regards
Carl
Hi Tommy,
I had a read through the link and it appears to be a different problem that effects mac-books.
I had a reply from Photoshelter to say “it seems that when Safari 4 detects an image that does not have a color profile on the web, they tell the system to use the “device profile” to display the image instead of doing what other browsers do, which is display it in sRGB by default.”
They have notified Apple of this issue.
Carl
Apparently some stock and other sites delete the ICC profile of the photo when it is uploaded. When a buyer downloads the photo the profile is added again.
This would explain why iStockPhoto (who keep the profile) seems to work OK in Safari 4, and Photoshelter and Alamy do not.