<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "> <br><div><html>On Apr 7, 2008, at 3:50 PM, Olivier BERTEN wrote:</html><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">It IS the case for all web development since (simple) RGB values are transmitted over the web to people who, for most of them, use no calibrated screen or printer. So colors look different in most of the cases. It would be unfair to make people believe that since the colors are defined in a color space that they will look the same on other people's screens. It will be approximately the same, not exactly as the presence of an icc profile could make people believe. As far as I know, web color 'lightslategray' will be #778899 even on a AdobeRGB calibrated screen.<br><br>By the way, most of the users of Inkscape or Gimp aren't professional and don't have (again) a calibrated screen and/or printer so the colors won't be the same anyway even if there's a icc profile attached.<br></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>In general the W3C disagrees with most of that, and says that the "sRGB" colorspace should be assumed as a best compromise.</div><div><br></div><div>In fact, sRGB is called "A Standard Default Color Space for the Internet"</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><a href="http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB">http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"...HP and Microsoft propose an additional means of managing color that is optimized to meet the needs of most users without the overhead of carrying an ICC profile with the image: the addition to the OS and the Internet of support for a Standard Color Space. Since the image is in a known color space and the profile for that color space would ship with the OS and browser, this enables the end users to enjoy the benefits of color management without the overhead of larger files. While it may be argued that profiles could buy slightly higher color accuracy, we believe that the benefits of using a standard color space far out-weigh the drawbacks for a wide range of users. The migration of devices to natively support the standard color space will further enhance the speed and quality of the user experience..."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and Microsoft says</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; "><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/icmwp.mspx">http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/icmwp.mspx</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"...In addition, both companies have worked with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure that sRGB is available to all vendors. sRGB has been the standard color space since HTML 3.2 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 1.0, and it is freely available to any software or hardware vendor...."</div><div><br></div><div>They've also made sRGB the centerpiece of their OS and color support since Windows 98 and Windows 2000.</div><div><br></div></div></div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">Color spaces are needed only for the printing industry, not for web and not for "normal" people. So the software should show a "print quality label" for swatches (or colors) that have a profile attached but it shouldn't be mandatory in the specification.</span></blockquote></div><br><div><br></div><div>This I know from personal experience is untrue. Getting consistent color is very important for professional web people (designers, graphics creators, etc.) for video, for multimedia and for many other things. Even a good Adobe-only web workflow involves the use of various color profiles.</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">NEC also has info on this point:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><a href="http://www.nec-display-solutions.com/c/g/uk/en/Monitorizing/BGArticle/Details/dp/Internet/Shared/Content/SeeMore/BGArticle/sRGBBackgroundBasic/index,solutionId=.html">http://www.nec-display-solutions.com/c/g/uk/en/Monitorizing/BGArticle/Details/dp/Internet/Shared/Content/SeeMore/BGArticle/sRGBBackgroundBasic/index,solutionId=.html</a></font></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"...In the future, sRGB can make a decisive improvement in the possibilities for E-business and above all in the web auctions that are becoming ever more popular. This is where the biggest advantage of the new colour space lies. Even today, colour pictures on the web are just as important, if not more important, as the reproductions in printed catalogues...."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"...It is impossible to completely iron out all the colour differences between the various colour devices on the way from the supplier to the customer´s monitor at home. But they can be significantly reduced and thus displayed very realistically through the definition of an optimum colour space specific to these applications such as sRGB, which can also "understand" the different devices and process them uniformly."</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">There is a lot more information out there, from many different sources. However I figured info from the group in charge of web standards, the company making the vast majority of end-users' OS, and a company that is big in display hardware make up a good sampling to get an idea of the state of the market.</div></div></body></html>