# Windows Photo Viewer not displaying right colors for image - please help **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665 "2011-02-17T03:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665/21 "2011-02-21T13:59:14Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Well, each device and software has a box of crayons to render pictures, trouble is they have a different numbers of crayons. Trying to render a 64 crayon file on an 8 crayon display will end poorly, or vise versa. Third color from the left means two different things in two color spaces. You need a profile in between them to correct that. Some programs do this internally, some don’t. > > Why isn’t the whole digital industry on the same color page? Color wasn’t important until well into the digital age, and lots of variation already existed. Maybe in our lifetime. It’s getting better, though. LCD is a lot better than CRT ever was. The exact same model of CRT could have widely different color settings. That’s why CRT TVs had so many picture controls. I saw my Photoshop lab at school have the monitors replaced with LCDs, and, for once, no individual calibration was necessary. They all displayed exactly the same. The variation now seems to be down to differing methods of manufacturing. The same make and model seems to be much more compatible. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665/22 "2011-02-22T08:15:53Z")
Thanks **pulykamell** ; I learned a bunch more about jpegs. (I used the imagemagick “identify” tool to check the colour profiles out). FYI, I also tried IE 8, and it didn’t render with the colour changes. It looks like FF is the only ones that does so. (Go [libpr0n](http://www.libpr0n.com/faq.html)! :D) ---
**Author:** ![n1068](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/0ea827/32.png) [@n1068](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/n1068)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665/23 "2011-02-22T09:03:02Z")
comming to see. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665/24 "2011-02-22T17:24:32Z")
> [@Nanoda](#): > > Thanks **pulykamell** ; I learned a bunch more about jpegs. (I used the imagemagick “identify” tool to check the colour profiles out). > > FYI, I also tried IE 8, and it didn’t render with the colour changes. It looks like FF is the only ones that does so. (Go [libpr0n](http://www.libpr0n.com/faq.html)! :D) Safari does as well. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2011, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665/25 "2011-02-24T10:47:26Z")
For more information: There was a thread a little while ago about an image that checked to see if your web browser could see color profiles. It can be seen on [this page](http://littlecms2.blogspot.com/2010/05/web-color-management.html). The thread itself is [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13420334), where I do my best to explain in layman’s term why color profiles exist. Though I was bit overly optimistic on how well things are going. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-photo-viewer-not-displaying-right-colors-for-image-please-help/571665.md?page=1)