PNG images darker in firefox 3.5

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Connor Beaton
Firefox user

I'm also experiencing this issue, and have been for a while now. This issue is not experienced in the Firefox 3.6 alpha, however.

cor-el

67353 Einträge

Do you have color management enabled?
See gfx.color_management.mode (MozillaZine KB) (new name of pref in Firefox 3.5 and above)

jun
Firefox user

I just fixed this problem. I had the same problem. There's an artical about it here:
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/color-correction/
Basically what it's saying that firefox automatically enhances the image, which unfortunately, in some cases, ruins the picture.
The solution to this is to download tweakpng here: http://entropymine.com/jason/tweakpng/
and using the program, delete the gAMA, cHRM, iCCP and sRGB chunks.

Blaze
Firefox user

Yes! I have recognised, if I save the image again in IrfanView (which is the same image in same type and not just PNG) then the image will be normal and not darker, so maybe the Photoshop save the colors in CMYK and not in RGB and this caused this problem. But now in the full version of Firefox 3.5 the images are normaly.

Randle
Firefox user

@Jun

Thanks, I came here to post that exact thing after I came across the solution.

Cheers

Zandog
Firefox user

Easy fix, as explained by MozillaZine:

-Type "about:config" in your address bar.

- In your config preferences, goto "gfx.color_management.mode"
- By default, its set to "2" (Enable color management for tagged graphics only. )
The reality is, according to the documentation, Firefox should have this set to "0" by default. (Disable color management) Not sure how this got messed up.
-Restart browser and look at the same image. Should be fixed.

Zandog
Firefox user

BTW, here's the reference:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Gfx.color_management.mode

chrisweb
Firefox user

i can't ask all the visitors of my website to tweak their firefox if the png graphics are too dark, can i setup something when saving pngs using gimp?

Luis
Firefox user

Hi, the easiest fix I've found is when saving a PNG in The GIMP, to check the box that says "save gamma". That seems to solve the problem for me.

Luis
Firefox user

Hahaha, and now saving the PNG with the "save gamma" option in The GIMP breaks IE!

What kind of color management does IE do?

Now the problem is not that Firefox and Safari do color management, it is that IE also does it, but differently! (The PNGs with the "save gamma" option do work good in Opera and Chrome).

Blaze
Firefox user

The solution of the problem that every webmaster should resave the darker image(s) in RGB and with gamma fe. in Irfanview or in Gimp.

Luis
Firefox user

For Linux developers using KDE, a simple fix is to open the PNG in KolourPaint and save it again. This way it works in Forefox and IE and Safari, Chrome, Opera, Arora... (tested in Windows and Linux only).

Zandog
Firefox user

Luis, stop. Why modify the image when its a FF only problem?

Easy fix, as explained by MozillaZine:

-Type "about:config" in your address bar.

- In your config preferences, goto "gfx.color_management.mode"
- By default, its set to "2" (Enable color management for tagged graphics only. )
The reality is, according to the documentation, Firefox should have this set to "0" by default. (Disable color management) Not sure how this got messed up.
-Restart browser and look at the same image. Should be fixed.

BTW, here's the reference:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Gfx.color_management.mode

Luis
Firefox user

Zandog, you are not a web developer, so you don't understand the problem. Enjoy your fix, but please let us continue with finding workarounds that work for us. Thanks.

Zandog
Firefox user

http://zandog.deviantart.com is my 2009 personal portfolio. Since your not a client, you don't need to see my business portfolio. As I and Mozillazine ( the leading authority on all things Firefox ) were saying, this is a client side issue that's infact, already being addressed in the point release if you read Zines dev log. Changing the graphic is the work around. Simply modifying the browser mistake saves everyone from a minor inconvinience. Your welcome.

Luis
Firefox user

Where has it been addressed and how? Any pointers to any info about it?

And what do you mean this is a browser mistake? It is a feature, not a bug. It was implemented in Firefox 3.0, but it was off be default. In 3.5 they decided to turn it on, obviously knowing the consequences. Are they now backing off and admitting it was the wrong decision? I'm rather skeptical about it...

And this is not a Firefox "problem" only. Safari does color management too for some time now. So finding ways to prevent color management seems like a decent strategy for now, at least until they (browsers) can do color management in the HTML/CSS too and in all kind of tagged and untagged images.

Honestly, if you _are_ a web developer, I don't know why you were proposing me that fix of changing _my_ browser's settings. I couldn't care less about _my_ browser (and of course I knew about the "fix" anyway).

chrisweb
Firefox user

Iuse PNGs a lot on my websites because i can easily create transperency effects that are cross browser compatible, GIF is not that good although it can handle transperency as well.

Now all my PNGs that are over a background which has a CSS color, have a different color compared to the background. I didnt find any easy fix, yet. So please tell me, if somebody knows how to fix it ;)

@Zandog we got it! Its clear what you mean, no need to make 20 posts ;) The problem is, if you work for a firm and a customer calls you, because people complain about strange colors on his website, you simply cant tell him that he needs to ask the thousands of visitors that visit his website to tweak their browser before they can enjoy it!

I did what "Jun" told to do, it worked great, but during one weak i had to review all the websites i have done in the past, download the PNGs, modify them with tweakpng and reupload them. So i lost one weak, thats a lot of money.

Liz
Firefox user

If are using Photoshop...on your images you will need to go to:

Edit > Assign Profile > Do not color manage this document

If you are using Save for Web, make sure you do not have "convert to sRGB" checked.

I am not having the problem for PNGs as much as JPGs personally. But it could just be because I already did this with my PNGs and forgot :p But I had a similar problem to this in Safari and that's where I learned to do this in PS.

This image enhancing thing was a bad move. Now I imagine lots of websites are going to look bad if their makers don't get them fixed. We can't expect all FF users to turn off the option. In fact, I myself wont just so I can make sure my images show up the way I mean them to.

James
Firefox user

Liz, Jun, thank you.

As said many times before... while the root of the problem may be in the browser, it can not be expected for every user of a browser to apply a fix. This is just another variation of the same issues that we web developers have been dealing with for ages.

From box models to proper PNG rendering, the solution is never to change the browser settings on every client machine. Leave that to the browser developers. It's their software, not ours... thus its flaws are their responsibility.

In the meantime, we do what we've done with every inconsistency that's presented itself. We find a workaround that we can apply to minimize the impact that the browsers' changes have on how our clients and their audience see and use our work.

As a side note, PNG has been especially troublesome because the format stores so much data that most browsers don't render. The solution used to fix IE's off-color rendering of PNG a while back was the same as with Safari and Firefex now - ditch some or all of the extra data.