Does your mail program viewer degrade images?

[brusby]

After working on an image tonight and producing an acceptable jpg, I was going to email it to a friend. But when I dragged it into my mail program, which is the current version of Mail for a Macbook Pro, it just looked bad - a bit washed out and low in contrast.

Thinking that maybe it was just a bad re-sizing algorithm in Mail, I tried re-sizing it myself so Mail wouldn't have to. But that didn't resolve the problem.

I'm sure I could send the file another way, one that would insure a bit perfect transmission, but it's discouraging not to be able to use the mail because mail would be the quickest and easiest way to send such small files.

Anybody else notice this? Any solutions?

ps, I'm guessing the transmission would be fine, but it's the viewer in mail that sucks.

 

[a9tm]

Why not zip it and send as attachment? Though you and recipients can't preview the photos, but it's sure the quality will not be downgraded to fit email quality.

 

[brusby]

That's the perfect solution to any transmission errors, but zipping and unzipping can be a real pain. I was hoping for a more convenient way to distribute photos to people who aren't necessarily very computer savy, and still have the pictures look the way they are supposed to when the recipient first views them.

Thanks, though. Good solution, just not the one I was hoping for.

 

[Sparrow]

... is it possible to host the photo online and just put a link it in the email?

 

[brusby]

Yep, may have to do that.

One or even a few images would be no problem, but I'd like to avoid a lifetime spent explaining to my computer illiterate friends and relatives how to download images. 8)

Thanks!

 

[michal@hanu.la]

I'm pretty sure the problem is with Mail displaying the image, the attachment should go out unchanged or not at all.
(I haven't tested this, but I do carry e-mail for a living)

 

[willie_901]

Perhaps the color space is not optimal. I wold expect sRGB JPGs to display correctly.

 

[Jack Conrad]

I had the same problem, but after updating to a newer OSX, the problem was resolved.

 

[Hsg]

When you saved the jpg, did you make sure that its color profile was srgb?

 

[brusby]

Hmmm, I didn't think to check srgb. Good idea. Will do.

 

[nikkor-watching]

I find photobucket dims my resized photos in the gallery as well... but clicking on the original size I uploaded displays them correctly. I don't think it's the operating system. Let us know if you found a fix.

 

[De_Corday]

FWIW I use WeTransfer.com to move photos en masse... dunno if that would help for smaller transfers.

 

[bobbyrab]

Sounds like you're in Adobe RGB or pro RGB colour space, when you drop it into email it's showing an sRGB version which will look colourless and washed out. Not sure if the file viewed at the other end will arrive as sRGB, or keep the Adobe/pro rgb space, I suspect it will.

 

[bobbyrab]

Actually I just tried to replicate that and it looks the same regardless of which colour space i use. Running latest Maveric OS

 

[brusby]

I checked and it's sRGB. So that's not it. Still not sure what's causing it.