2d ago

JPG files over saturated after saving

Edit: this is not gimp related at all but probably just the issue of my screen calibration. I'll pluck away at it until its right, thanks for all the help.

Edit 2: installing an ICC profile has made a significant difference and the mushroom are a bit over saturated but not exactly glowing anymore.

I know both of these photos are oversaturated, I am working on a laptop with a pretty shit screen so all of my photos look awful. I am trying to fix it but I'd like to fix this first.

Gimp 3.0.4 This is the exact same file, the left is displayed on gimp and the right is the saved .jpg in the linux mint photo viewer. The right side photo is so much more saturated than the left. The mushrooms look like they're glowing. Boxes ticked on save: progressive (in options), optimized (advance options) save colour profile (in metadata) - I have saved without colour profile and same effect.

This seems to be an issue with GIMP but I don't use any other editing software on my laptop so who knows. When I post these photos online the effect is the same as on the right. When viewing online, sometimes the photo will be normal but when you click through to the full image it loads as oversaturated. I'm sure there is something so simple I am overlooking but I just can't think of what.

Please let me know if you need more info!

8 comments

Not a gimp expert or dev here, just a long time Linux user: presumably you're editing an existing original image in gimp, right? What does the original image look like compared to the saved gimp image when viewed with mint's photo viewer? Do they both have the same level of saturation? Just trying to rule out Mint's photo viewer unintentionally adding the saturation, or gimp removing the saturation when viewing in gimps editor, etc.
Also what happens when you open the already saved gimp image, in gimp again? Does it look just as saturated as viewing in mint's photo viewer, or does it look like the left side of your picture here?
- This is the original photo, no editing open in gimp and photo viewer:
  I've opened the edited photo and the original in krita and I could see the same effect when viewing saved jpg, so not exclusive to gimp. I've installed a different image viewer and it does seem to be the stock image viewer adding saturation. I am a bit confused as to why the same effect would happen when uploading these online.
I could be wrong but I suspect the problem is with exporting as .jpg, although GIMP might be able to prevent the problem with the right export settings. I've experienced similar in the past, with .png too iirc.
You could try reopening the exported jpg in GIMP, lowering the saturation (merge to layer, rather than as an fx layer of course), and then choosing overwrite instead of save or export. A bit cumbersome but may get the job done.
A good person to ask could be @CmykStudent@fosstodon.org on Mastodon. I think he's one of the GIMP developers who works on colour.
The ai slop machine says you should disable the color management, assign a color profile to the image, then uncheck the save color profile should do it. Says GIMP will tune an image for display that won't necessarily reflect how other viewers will interpret the data.

Anyhow just some ideas to try. The slop seems reasonable when I looked GIMP
- I had the same thought as the AI.
  Also could be HDR related.
- I will give this a try, thank you.
I'm new to gimp 3 but have played with jpgs since the format was invented. Jpgs have problems with red quantitization that can cause a red shift. Check the jpeg save options. Try saving to another format like PNG and see if it persists.
- Thank you, I will do some testing, I am leaning toward it being a jpg issue after some experimentation.

8 comments