Why does the color of a website look different on different computers?

wheeler08

I am building a website and for some reason the colours of the site are different on other computers.

The design is in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. Nothing fancy. The colours are actual images in Photoshop, tiled backgrounds, etc...

This one is new for me. I assumed everyone saw the same thing when viewing a website.

chinni_77

On different computers???R u sure?Never had come across such a problem particulary with colours.
You can notice some differences in Netscape and Internet explorer.

wheeler08

Same OS, same version of explorer, etc...

BuzzLY

Monitors can really make a difference. It's probably just because of the brightness/contrast/tint controls, and the gamma. Some monitors, like Sony and Viewsonic, come with utilities that help you correct your monitor color.

wheeler08

So which monitor is messed up? The one where the site is being designed or the other one.

This is the first time it has looked different... is it possible that Photoshop has a colour setting that makes it look different?

DeltaRho2K

I have seen this (and By the way, the colors are almost ALWAYS hosed when looking at a web page through AOL) LOL!

Anyhow, there are more factors than just a monitor.

1) RGB color methods are not precise (which is the default color method used in Photoshop when dealing with jpeg images) or 256 indexed colors when dealing with gif files.
There are a bunch of reasons for the non-preciseness of things, but it's mainly because of the variances in hue and saturation. 250, 0, 0 would be a bright red (theoretically), but once you adjust the hue or saturation, it could cause variances in the tint or shade of the color even though the base color is still red.

Also, a browser may not interpret the color values properly, and might round the 250, 0, 0 to 255, 0, 0 since 250 is not a web safe color, but 255 is. Now, your browser may render the 250, but might might not, and wham... The red looks more pure on yours than mine. (thus the color variances)

2) Video cards (and the method a video card uses) to interpret color models could cause variances.

3) Monitors (Already discussed in a previous post here)

When dealing with web pages, you are better off using 256 indexed gif files (for simple clip-art style graphics. (or PNG formats work great too but aren't 100% supported on all browsers like gif files are) Stick with a web color safe pallette. (Photoshop color pallette lets you switch to a web safe pallette)

If you are displaying an image in jpg format with 16 million colors, store them in jpg format, but be aware there may be slight color differences for the reasons mentioned above.

I know this is overshare, but this is a DEEEEEEP topic. You can go to www.adobexchange.com and check out their user forums. This is discussed there all of the time.

To answer your Q about who's monitor is hosed... You would have to see where the image is the least consistent with the rest. That is probably the problem child. In other words, if it looks the same on 5 computers, but looks different on one, then I would focus on that one as being the problem child.

superwormy

Originally posted by BuzzLY
Monitors can really make a difference. It's probably just because of the brightness/contrast/tint controls, and the gamma. Some monitors, like Sony and Viewsonic, come with utilities that help you correct your monitor color.

He's correct, theres no standard for colors matching across monitors, even two monitors that are the same make, model, version number, etc. can have different tints to them / show colors a little differently.