Latest Chrome Browser

[David Eichler]

The latest version of the Chrome browser appears to have disabled color management and I can't find any way to enable it. Am I missing something? I do not see anything in Chrome's settings for this.

[TonyW]

I am unsure if this of any help as I have not used Chrome in ages, but posting in the hope it may.

I can only speak from experience with an earlier version of Chrome in Windows.  Chrome used the monitor profile and converted tagged images to display correctly, but it also required a switch to be added to the shortcut l.e --enable-monitor-profile.

So right clicking on the Chrome shortcut and selecting properties you would need to add the highlighted following
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --enable-monitor-profile

I have to say that I would be surprised if they still required the user to employ such antiquated methods to flick the switch, but...

[Simon Garrett]

I don't normally use Chrome, but I just tried and it seems to be colour managed.  It updated itself to what I assume is the latest version: 51.0.2704.106 (64-bit).

Here's a test page to see if the monitor is correctly using embedded profiles:
http://simongarrett.co.uk/TestColours.htm

Note all the coloured blobs on that page will look the same for a normal-gamut monitor.  They'll look different only on a wide-gamut monitor.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I don't normally use Chrome, but I just tried and it seems to be colour managed.  It updated itself to what I assume is the latest version: 51.0.2704.106 (64-bit)....

+1

[David Eichler]

I don't normally use Chrome, but I just tried and it seems to be colour managed.  It updated itself to what I assume is the latest version: 51.0.2704.106 (64-bit).

Here's a test page to see if the monitor is correctly using embedded profiles:
http://simongarrett.co.uk/TestColours.htm

Note all the coloured blobs on that page will look the same for a normal-gamut monitor.  They'll look different only on a wide-gamut monitor.

I am using OS 10.11.5 and a wide gamut monitor. With the latest version of Chrome, all the colors look overly saturated.

With your test, there is a difference between the images with and without the profile. It is distinct with sRGB, less so with Adobe RGB(1998) and very slight with Prophoto.

Viewing the same test in Firefox, the saturation of the image with no profile seems to get progressively less saturated going from sRGB to Prophoto.

[Arlen]

David, you might also want to take a look at this web page, which adds some additional browser color management tests:
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html

For what it's worth, the latest version of Chrome on my PC (and wide gamut monitor) manages color in the same way that other recent versions have: it does manage tagged images properly, but not untagged images.

[Simon Garrett]

I am using OS 10.11.5 and a wide gamut monitor. With the latest version of Chrome, all the colors look overly saturated.

With your test, there is a difference between the images with and without the profile. It is distinct with sRGB, less so with Adobe RGB(1998) and very slight with Prophoto.

Viewing the same test in Firefox, the saturation of the image with no profile seems to get progressively less saturated going from sRGB to Prophoto.

If the images on the left get more saturated as you go down (at least: the second is more saturated than the first) then the browser appears to be using embedded profiles. 

If they are all over-saturated then the browser possibly isn't using the monitor profile.  This is what Internet Explorer and Edge do on Windows: they honour embedded image profiles, but bizarrely ignore the monitor profile and treat all monitors as though they were sRGB.  This means that all colours are over-saturated on wide-gamut monitors.

If the colours left and right in the first row are the same (with a wide-gamut monitor) then the browser appears to be  appears to be taking images without embedded profiles (the ones on the right) as though they had an embedded sRGB profile. 

If, on the first row, the colours on the right are more saturated than the ones on the left, then it's probably not colour-managing images without embedded profiles, and it's merely sending the data as-is to the monitor without colour management. 

That's my guess, anyway!

From that, it appears that Chrome is not colour-managed properly on a Mac, although it appears to be on a PC. 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... it appears that Chrome is not colour-managed properly on a Mac...

I am on a Mac and it looks fine:

[Arlen]

Slobodan, do you have a standard or a wide gamut monitor? If the former, you would not be expected to see much difference between the sets. Your monitor wouldn't be able to display the saturated colors, so all the sets are clipped to approximately sRGB.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Slobodan, do you have a standard or a wide gamut monitor? If the former, you would not be expected to see much difference between the sets. Your monitor wouldn't be able to display the saturated colors, so all the sets are clipped to approximately sRGB.

Standard, iMac 27

[Arlen]

With your test, there is a difference between the images with and without the profile. It is distinct with sRGB, less so with Adobe RGB(1998) and very slight with Prophoto.

Viewing the same test in Firefox, the saturation of the image with no profile seems to get progressively less saturated going from sRGB to Prophoto.

David, I've gone back and read more carefully your description of what you see, and what you are seeing in Chrome is exactly what you should expect to see with this browser. It's the same as what I'm seeing with it (on a PC, wide gamut monitor), and it has been this way for a long time, not just this latest version.

Chrome respects embedded color tags, and adjusts the colors accordingly. That's why you see a difference in the left column going down from sRGB to aRGB. You shouldn't see much further difference going down on the left to Prophoto, and it sounds like that's the case.

But Chrome does not handle untagged images the way it should; that is, what it should do is assume that any untagged image is in sRGB. (Because the vast majority of images on the web are in sRGB, even if they don't have an embedded tag.) Instead, Chrome seems to assume that untagged images are in your monitor's space, and displays them that way. That's pretty much OK for a standard monitor, because its space is very close to sRGB anyway. But it's not OK for a wide gamut monitor, because in that case an image that is really in sRGB gets displayed as if it were in approximately aRGB. And that's why you don't see much if any difference going down the right side of the sets; they are all displayed as if they are in approximately aRGB space.

Concerning Firefox, the saturation of the images on the right should look about the same going down the column, if Firefox's settings are set correctly, because it assumes that all the untagged images in the rows are in sRGB. The right side of the bottom two rows should appear less saturated than the left side. You need to change Firefox's settings from the default for it to manage untagged images the correct way. It's easy to do; check this link for instructions:  http://www.gballard.net/firefox/. Also be sure to check out the link that I included in my post above; I think it will help you figure things out.

[David Eichler]

I am confused about some comments above. It is the images on the right that are untagged and thus should exhibit some variations in some cases. Some seem to be referring to the right hand column as though it contains the tagged images.

[Arlen]

David, assuming that you are referring to what I wrote:  I'm sorry if it's not clear. On Simon's TestColours page, the images with embedded (tagged) profiles are in the left column; images without embedded profiles (tags) are in the right column. I read back through what I wrote, and the only thing I see that might not match what you're seeing concerns Firefox. The bottom two untagged images on the right might look a little different from the one above, since they are really in aRGB or Prophoto, whereas Firefox is treating them as if they are in sRGB; making them look less saturated than they should really be. If you can point to something in particular that is confusing I will try to address it.

[Simon Garrett]

Just for clarification, on the page I linked at http://simongarrett.co.uk/TestColours.htm, all the colours are 100% saturated.  That is, in terms of (R,G,B) values the red blobs are (255,0,0), the green are (0,255,0), the yellow are (255,255,0) etc.  The only difference is that left hand images have profiles embedded (sRGB for the first row, Adobe RGB for the second row, ProPhoto RGB for the third row) and the right hand images have no profile assigned. 

Effectively, all the 6 images are identical except for the embedded profile (or lack of).