Luisa Simone's piece on Gamma is great. Though using the Web-safe palette is not nearly as necessary as it used to be. Only about 20 percent of the computers on the net nowadays are still stuck at 256 colors according to a web wizard at Peach Press. So should we desaturate the web for one out of five users? I don't think so.
Although I personally already new about color compatibility issues between platforms and browsers, I found the technical issues of gamma correction very very interesting and will apply this information in my future web designs. Thanks Luisa for not going down that "Majority of Mac vs. PC designers" road again. This was an extremely informative article.
For those fellow (PC-based) Flash designers out there, you may have noticed gamma issues when exporting PNG's from Photoshop to import into Flash. If you go directly from Photoshop to Flash the images generally import darker. There are two different ways to correct this. The first solution which I found from someone else is to change your gamma setting in PS to 1.8 right before you export it. Now, the image will look washed out in PS but will import correctly in Flash.
The second (and in my opinion) better way to import PNG's into Flash is to first save your work as a PSD and then open the PSD in Fireworks (preserving Layers) and then exporting it from Fireworks as a 32bit PNG with an Alpha Channel. Using the Alpha channel will allow your PNG's to import into Flash with a transparent background layer and the correct Gamma.
Why use PNG format at all you might ask? You will be able to control the amount of compression on your images when exporting your final SWF file. JPEG's and GIF's are already compressed. And, Flash does an excellent job of compressing those PNG's without sacrificing image quality.
Thanks All
Submitted by inneraction on Tue, 08/08/2000 - 19:09.
Limited color? No way!
Luisa Simone's piece on Gamma is great. Though using the Web-safe palette is not nearly as necessary as it used to be. Only about 20 percent of the computers on the net nowadays are still stuck at 256 colors according to a web wizard at Peach Press. So should we desaturate the web for one out of five users? I don't think so.
Very Very Good
Although I personally already new about color compatibility issues between platforms and browsers, I found the technical issues of gamma correction very very interesting and will apply this information in my future web designs. Thanks Luisa for not going down that "Majority of Mac vs. PC designers" road again. This was an extremely informative article.
For those fellow (PC-based) Flash designers out there, you may have noticed gamma issues when exporting PNG's from Photoshop to import into Flash. If you go directly from Photoshop to Flash the images generally import darker. There are two different ways to correct this. The first solution which I found from someone else is to change your gamma setting in PS to 1.8 right before you export it. Now, the image will look washed out in PS but will import correctly in Flash.
The second (and in my opinion) better way to import PNG's into Flash is to first save your work as a PSD and then open the PSD in Fireworks (preserving Layers) and then exporting it from Fireworks as a 32bit PNG with an Alpha Channel. Using the Alpha channel will allow your PNG's to import into Flash with a transparent background layer and the correct Gamma.
Why use PNG format at all you might ask? You will be able to control the amount of compression on your images when exporting your final SWF file. JPEG's and GIF's are already compressed. And, Flash does an excellent job of compressing those PNG's without sacrificing image quality.
Thanks All