Request Color Awareness in Next Version of Opera

Request Color Awareness in Next Version of Opera

As more early adopters and just average users buy new LCD monitors, many of the new models are wide gamut. By default wide gamut monitors used on a Windows system will not display colors correctly for Opera, Firefox (current build) or IE. Safari and Firefox 3 beta are both color aware and solve this problem. Both are aware of color profiles and will display content beyond sRGB correctly but more importantly will display all none tagged images (most of the web) in sRGB thus ensuring that wide gamut monitors will display colors correctly in a web browser.

This is a really important feature fo folks getting new LCDs and I would hate to see IE get it first. At this rate, Opera could be last in line of the major alt browsers.

Link for explanation of how color aware broswers work.

Everyone who would like Opera to support ICC color profiles should vote for the question here:
http://my.opera.com/chooseopera/forums/topic.dml?id=274347&t=1240819330

That way we might at least get an official answer.

+1

My 24" HP with wide gamut is coming this week and I'm upset that Opera doesn't support color spaces properly. I'm not sure if it will cause me to ditch Opera for Firefox 3.5, but I know it will cause me to use Firefox a lot more than I care to.

Add me to the list of people who wish to see this implemented in Opera.

+1

+1

Does anybody know if Opera 10.50 will support color profiles?
I'm thinking since it has a new graphics rendering system...

No, Opera 10.5 pre-Alpha still not support color profiles. Test
Best support in WebKit based browsers: Safari and Chrome -- they support ICC version 2 and 4. Firefox supports only version 2.
IE and Opera have no support at all.

I wonder if there are plans to support it in a more mature build/version of 10.50?

A question only an Opera dev could answer, so please fell free to do so
(there's no public roadmap for Opera desktop versions anywhere, is there?)

With my luck this probably won't be implemented before 2012+. Even Firefox broke their CMS when switching from 3.0->3.5, so I'm stuck with FF 3.0. Darn.

Originally posted by FataL:

No, Opera 10.5 pre-Alpha still not support color profiles. Test
Best support in WebKit based browsers: Safari and Chrome -- they support ICC version 2 and 4. Firefox supports only version 2.
IE and Opera have no support at all.

FF 3.0 builds still have support for ICCv2 & ICCv4 and 3.0 builds still get regular security updates. They dropped v4 support from 3.5 onwards (go figure).

Originally posted by FataL:

Best support in WebKit based browsers: Safari and Chrome -- they support ICC version 2 and 4.

From what I know, Safari only applies color corrections to images with an embedded color profile. Firefox can also color correct images without embedded profile and deals with them as if they were sRGB-tagged images, which obviously makes a lot of sense, since most photographs are being taken in sRGB mode. Also, and I might be wrong about this one, but I think Firefox also color corrects all colors defined on a website, like font or background colors.

Originally posted by ihmemies:

They dropped v4 support from 3.5 onwards (go figure).

Is it known why they did that? I wasn't aware of that fact, so now I'm considering to switch back to 3.0.

Originally posted by MetalRaise:

Firefox can also color correct images without embedded profile and deals with them as if they were sRGB-tagged images, which obviously makes a lot of sense, since most photographs are being taken in sRGB mode. Also, and I might be wrong about this one, but I think Firefox also color corrects all colors defined on a website, like font or background colors.

It does. Flash doesn't support color management though, but that's not something a browser can help with I think.

Originally posted by MetalRaise:

Is it known why they did that? I wasn't aware of that fact, so now I'm considering to switch back to 3.0.

The CMS library used in 3.0 was too slow for someone's taste, and since they decided in 3.5 color management will be ON by default they created a new, faster system with some of the features from old one. There is a ticket in bugzilla to re-implement features (like iccv4) with the new system, but I don't think anyone has been working on it for ages

Sorry about the offtopic...

Thanks for clarifying.
And by the way, Flash does support color management since version 10, but it has to be enabled in the SWF file using ActionScript 3.0.

+1

I am a heavy user of Deviant Art and various other online communities for posting my photography. I did not realize until recently that Opera did not support ICM. I have been wondering why my images seem to loose saturation and contrast when I upload them, and I finally understand why now. This is a CRITICAL feature, and really needs to be supported. I primarily use my browser at home to view art, mostly photography, and the lack of ICM on my fully color corrected 30" Apple CinemaDisplay is very frustrating.

+1 on this as well.

The lack of color awareness is the only thing that stops me from switching from Firefox to Opera as my default browser.
I really hope we'll see this in the next version, as wide gamuts are pretty common now.

At least Opera should respect the assigned monitor ICC profile and embedded ICC profiles in images.
I don't think Opera should assume untagged images to be sRGB though unless also the CSS is color managed - web pages might start looking really strange otherwise.

Actually there are two topics in this forum to request the same thing - one is that one we write and other is here.
It seems that not many people understand what is all about, so just do the following test:
1.Download Firefox 3.x - you may use the portable version, so you can easily delete it after the test;
2. Open this site in both, Opera and Firefox;
3. Point mouse over every image on the site in both Opera and Firefox
3. I think the deference is quite obvious, but if you still NOT understand, you may want to actually read whole test site. It's not so big, but well explained and informative.

Thank you for your time, and hope it's finally clear what we want and what is all about!

P.S. Both topics are requesting the same thing, so forum moderators may wish to merge them into one!

+1 on this as well.

The lack of color awareness will be the reason for switching to Firefox as my default browser.
I also really hope we'll see this in the next version, as wide gamuts are pretty common now.

if i had a 1000 pluses, i'd give all of them to this request.. what's to passing ACID test with %100 if all colors are rendered off anyway?
(makes me think ACID tests should include color rendition!)

http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter

That pages shows Version 4 in Safari 4.0.4 on my mac, Opera 10.1 does not show profile 4

Hi.
I raised the same problem a year ago, and I'm here today because of the new Opera version. I was checking if it's time to change back to Opera again. Sadly it is not, so I'll continue with FF.

Opera is a BROWSER, so browsing colors correct should be a core feature. This missing color awareness impacts all colors in a HTML page, not only pictures.

Just to explain the matter even more:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaappearance/thread/e59e4056-c328-45b3-9a2f-263b5ae698d8/

To illustrate:
http://www.ilsoee.dk/monitorkal/Med.jpg

Thank You
Ove

i am still not getting how this thing will influence the browsing - i mean - will my black-text-on white-background turn to green on yellow or so?

Hi bleicher.

With all colors, I meant not only colors in a ICC tagged picture, but also the page colors in general.
In FF you can chose only to color manage tagged pictures, or the whole browser page. The penalty is speed.
But this means never the less, that Windows (also Windows 7) shows all colors distorted on a wide gamut monitor. I think this might be a wake up call for most people, it indeed was for me.
In this respect black and white are not colors.
The quick answer to your question is to look here:
http://www.ilsoee.dk/monitorkal/Med.jpg

BR
Ove

Originally posted by bleicher:

i am still not getting how this thing will influence the browsing

You will be able to see the colors in the way they are meant to be seen if ICC awareness gets added.

I guess that's enough to support this wish

Years have passed since the first time this feature request has been made, yet we are still waiting for a single reaction from an Opera employee. Disappointing. At least there's other browser developers who care about proper color reproduction, so it could be worse.

The problem is monitors are being sold without an OS solution. In other words each will simply display the default color space of the monitor (92-117%) vs the correct 72% of NTSC rather than the actual HDTV color space or any other defined color space. This would be fine if either drivers for these monitors or windows was using the HDTV color but they're not. The result is everything looks oversaturated because each RGB value is not mapping to the correct shade of each color.
----------------------------------------------------------
chicago limo
used car

i will not be sarcastic for the next 2 days.. maybe
i do not know what colors "have" to be, so whats the point?
90% is "On facebook" anyway (as i can deduct from all the "fb not working" screams)- and facebook=2mp photos made in dark using mobeilephone+unbelievable poorly photshopped

i can not think of any situtation on the net, where color-precision is important - its not photoshop after all
it just doesn't make a difference to me - slightly lighter/darker - whats the difference?

most of screens are connected via vga-cable anyway and are not calibrated - whats the point feeding precise colors on the one side if this is immediately falsified on the other?

i doubt more than 5% of monitors are calibrated - so color profiles are kind of fun idea - like like using laser to cut pizza.

So it seems that the issue is "what is the point, of using color management or color awareness while browsing the web?". Well, Opera had always given it's users the option to tweak it, the way one wants. In most cases they were the first to implement certain features.

@bleicher: With all my respect, I'll ask you the same: What is the point of NOT having the option? Ok, you don't see any deference, but your not the only one who uses Opera! There will be many people who don't need it, as there are many people who are wanting to use it. Let Opera give us color awareness and let users decide if they'll use it.
Your point is that in most cases the monitor is not calibrated. Win 7 gives the option to calibrate it! It's not as good as would be calibrating it with any of the calibration hardware(eye one or spider) but it is an option!
And one other thing - you don't know what the color "have" to be and you'll never know, as we are using color blinded software(current version of Opera). If there were color awareness you would be sure that given picture is as it was in the authors eyes!
And this is the fun part:
You also say that the photos, you were looking, are very poorly "photoshoped" - I guess you are using Fx(Firefox) with its color awareness turned on? It's just you sound very sure about poor Photoshoping! Because if there were photoshop playing around a picture(photo etc.), then there is implemented ICC profile in it!!! :-D Viewing it with color blinded software gives you what you saw!!!
You may not think of situation where color precision is important, but you surely proved one!
So even, at first, negative opinion - we can count your post as +1 to the feature we want! :-D
Best wishes and thank you for your support!

for gods sake i am not using furrfox! i am Operafan since 8.5, and i really see no point in using the most insecure browser (ie6 not counting)

Originally posted by puzzle111:

You also say that the photos, you were looking, are very poorly "photoshoped"

nope, i didnt, reread my post. what i mean is "Opera is not photoshop" - you do not need the full control of colors.

poorly photoshopped are many facebookfotos, pls read the posts you are replying

i saw the example from ovils - yes, there is a slight difference - but it just doesn't make any difference at what will happen after. it does not affect anything except some "digital penis measurements" - how do you know color profile is right? you assume it is, right?
so basically if you have to believe what you see is right, it is always right or wrong depending on your believing in "oxigen-free-cables"

color awareness isnt minor change - its huge change in the engine, and i really do not think it is even in the top 100 of pririties.

the only case where prcise colors are important is printing-synchronisation/printing wysiwyg, in all other cases - you wouldnt know if the picture you see is correct or not, so whats the point?

let opera inc fix the bugs, improve compatibility and some existing features. as buggy as mailclient and thing as torrent clients are - its really not the time for "yeahm my colors are better then yours" requests.
buy iPhone if you want to feel better then everyone else.

sorry for my english,but there will be no excuses for what i said.i mean it.

Originally posted by bleicher:

color awareness isnt minor change - its huge change in the engine

Maybe not a minor change, but not a major one either. Actually re-calculating color values from one color space to the other one really is a quite simple thing.

And if you really believe there's no difference between viewing images in a color managed application vs. a non-color managed one, then you never have been working with a wide color gamut screen, which become more and more popular especially among photographers, since today most of them almost completely cover the Adobe RGB color space.

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand that most people don't care about these things, because color management is quite difficult to understand at first, and many people also seem to be ignorant towards many things when it comes to quality and accuracy, that really isn't a new fact at all. I'm just disappointed about Opera, since for me they always were the only browser developer for the enthusiasts who cared about more advanced features.

Originally posted by MetalRaise:

And if you really believe there's no difference between viewing images in a color managed application vs. a non-color managed one, then you never have been working with a wide color gamut screen, which become more and more popular especially among photographers, since today most of them almost completely cover the Adobe RGB color space.

how many professional photgraphers are there? more thn color-blinds? much more?
i do realize - there is difference, but can you look at any picture and say if its correct or not?
if not - why bother?

Originally posted by bleicher:

but can you look at any picture and say if its correct or not?

No, absolutely not. Because that's not a question of skill or experience or anything else, it's simply impossible to know if a picture's colors are correct without color management. You see, that's exactly the whole point of color management. With color management there is no question whether it's correct or not, because the way it's being displayed is how the photographer/designer/whoever intended it.
You know, I put a lot of effort into post-processing my photographs, I want them to be as good as possible, especially when it comes to skin tones and naturally looking colors. And I want other people, who care to view my images in the best possible way, to be able to do exactly that, see them the same way I did when I put a lot of work into the post-processing.

Originally posted by bleicher:

if not - why bother?

Well, we could say that about many things in life, right? You see, some people care about quality, some don't. It all comes down to exactly that thing -- quality, and being as close to the original as possible. If all these things wouldn't count, what would be the need for applications like Photoshop anyway? If color accuracy is irrelevant, why even post-process photographs? I know lots of people in fact do exactly that, they take the JPEGs from their camera and upload them straight to MySpace, Facebook and whatnot. Well, it's their business, because they obviously don't give a shit about quality.
I, however, do give a shit about quality, and gladly I'm not the only one.

Originally posted by MetalRaise:

Well, we could say that about many things in life, right? You see, some people care about quality, some don't.

quality makes difference - shitty made chair will break under my ass and i will fall down experiencing pain, thus causing change in my perception and behavior.
color profiles are only "Noticeble" for the one who created the picture, 99% of other will neither notice nor be interested in details - sRGB monitors are rare, i do not know anyone who would posses one.
i have alse never heard of anyone knowing somebody using it.

what concern HQ pictures - the true works of art are worth it to be saved locally and viewed using advanced programs.

browser is for browsing - pictureviewers are for viewing, you are not asking Opera to support pdf native, do you?

my point is - if you care that much, you can view the few pictures good enough to be bothered about in some extern program, average user will not encounter situation where its necessary.

opera is not that "good on market" to afford itself to implement rarely used features.
they have less than 10% of world share - so convert some of your friends to opera, make opera at least 3d popular browser (together we can!), thn you sure can ask for rare specs. having more users will probably make more then 50 there are now who care about colorprofiles

or you can ask for adopted color profile handling for color-blinds, there surely are some under opera users.
why dont you?

@bleicher: I've red your post before I wrote - quote: "90% is "On facebook" anyway (as i can deduct from all the "fb not working" screams)- and facebook=2mp photos made in dark using mobeilephone+unbelievable poorly photshopped"
(I think I've understood what you meant) - it's just my English that is not best, and you may not understood me. I meant that without color awareness in Opera you couldn't be sure if the photos were indeed poorly edited!!

And I don't want to argue if it's a big deal or not. Maybe the only ones who would benefit from that kind of feature are indeed Photographers or something - but why not? There are so many photographers out there - they just have better things to do, than explaining their needs in a browser - switching to Firefox is, for many, as easy as 1,2,3 - as done by many of my friends and colleagues!

From your writings I kind of understand that you don't really know what is all about, what is ICC profile, and how the colors are interpreted if the media is not capable of showing them in full spectrum of the profile. There's plenty information about it in the net, if you want to look at. I suggest to find one of my previous post and try the example I describe - the difference is BIG!
But you're still proofing the need of color awareness in our favorite browser(if you wonder how and what you are proofing, ask, I'll try to explain it more-it's in my previous and in this post though)! Especially for a user who couldn't even imagine on using it!!!

So there is your proof, Opera developers, we - photo enthusiast - are not the ones who would benefit color awareness!!!!!

You don't assume the ICC profile is accurate - it is, always!!! And that is the problem:-D - Why? - Well, there are many ICC profiles and mixing them gives you one very big piece of sh*t - not bigger nor smaller digital penis, as you call it! That is why we need a browser which can read the embedded profile and render the image accordingly! That's why you declare the images had been badly edited. Color awareness actually makes difference in ICC profiles much smaller - ICC profile "ProPhoto", according to "sRGB", has so many colors in it that there are imaginary(they just don't exist) and no digital device could show them! Color awareness cuts them and shows you gradations of known colors for you to see them. I hope I explained it so you, and others, to understand - there is so much more in this to explain but it would be a color profile lecture, not explanation. Color awareness is exactly the way for you to be sure that what you see is 1000% what the author wanted to show you in terms of colors! It's not us who decide if user sees or his hardware shows(actually old CRT shows it all) any deference - one has an option at least.

In my opinion Opera is now on third place-if it hasn't lost some more users in the past year. There were times Opera had been in second place, right after IE(but not because it was better, it's just it was on every Windows machine and free of charge-Opera was shareware in those days) . There is one site I really like - it's about Firefox myths:-D from there one could understand that Opera is just the best balance between browsing and security. It's very, also, obvious that Firefox has very, very good marketing and advertising - but all that is a bit off topic!

Our request is no different than many others that I could not even understand nor imagine on using, but they are done! Why we, users who care about accurate colors, can't have this feature??? There are so many people who switched to Firefox about it! I tried too, but I'm using Opera for sooo long(since 1998- v.5.6 or something), you can call me "Opera addict", and I could not stand the scam called "firefox".
I'm not a programmer, I don't know how much work is on this issue - I'm sure it's plenty - but for almost 2 or 3 years, since color awareness has been at first mentioned, there is no response from Opera developers - to explain why it's so hard to do it! No wonder users switch to other browsers!

Bottom line - it is not a question if Opera would be color awakened! The question is: When???? I say, as soon as possible! They can actually make PR campaign out of it and be the best as aways!

Excuse my long post and thank you for your time reading it!!!

Dam it! Even IE9 has ICC v2 and v3 color profiles http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/ReleaseNotes/Default.html

+1 – I support this wish.

Originally posted by Hades32:

Dam it! Even IE9 has ICC v2 and v3 color profiles http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/ReleaseNotes/Default.html

I always thought about Opera being ahead of its time, always being the number one choice for the power user, but that... that is just a fucking shame for Opera...

Hi there,
sorry about the lack of response in this thread, but when you look at for example the list of new stuff in 10.50 you'll know that we were pretty busy during the years this thread was open . Please don't expect that Opera developers have time for both hanging out in he fora and discuss feature requests AND implement them at the same time. Due to how time itself works, there may be some inverse correlation between how much time developers spend surfing My Opera and how many new features you get to play with .

Now, on the request itself: it will happen. Just so happened that people who wanted e.g. rounded corners and multiple background images were screaming more loudly I will not reply the next big question (the when? that's at the tip of your tongues) because I honestly don't know how long it will take the developers to do it and how much other work will sneak into the queue.

Thanks hallvors, thank you very much for responding and providing a clear statement!
I understand that it's difficult to say when it will happen, and now knowing that it is planned is all I was hoping for.

Thanks hallvors, good to know.

Originally posted by hallvors:

Just so happened that people who wanted e.g. rounded corners and multiple background images were screaming more loudly

Multiple backgrounds are a nice CSS feature, but I always thought the Web designers screaming for rounded corners missed the boat (it is not that important). There are more important features to implement.

Originally posted by hallvors:

Now, on the request itself: it will happen.

Thanks!
And - please Opera, buy different wide gamut monitors and DSLRs and one color calibrator for your dev team and this will happen very soon

Originally posted by hallvors:

Now, on the request itself: it will happen.

Thanks very much for the info! It happens far to seldom that we get a definitely YES or NO about wished features...

Originally posted by Hades32:

Originally posted by hallvors:

Now, on the request itself: it will happen.

Thanks very much for the info! It happens far to seldom that we get a definitely YES or NO about wished features...

Absolutely, thanks a lot!

Originally posted by hallvors:

Now, on the request itself: it will happen.

Brilliant, good news indeed and thanks for the heads up.

Cheers!

So alpha 11 is out.. is it in yet... will it be before beta? Or maybe it will come in some future release of Opera, not in 11 :I

+1
I am using Firefox4 beta7, was a Opera user since they had ads in the browser... (many many years ago)
I would love to have that feature, then i would have a reason to go back to Opera, but with my newly calibrated Monitors, its useless...

It won't be in 11, sorry.

Originally posted by hallvors:

It won't be in 11, sorry.

That's unfortunate, I was really hoping that Opera would catch up with the competition with 11.
Oh well Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome have all implemented this now, so plenty of other of browsers to pick from when you are interested in also seeing images on the web.

Originally posted by hallvors:

It won't be in 11, sorry.

Thank you for letting us know

This is getting ridiculous, even the new Internet Explorer can handle different color profiles.

Just take a look at this picture:

http://foto.beitinger.de/browser_farbmanagement/bilder/farbmanagement_test.jpg


Is there any chance for a addon?

Or do we have to wait forever :-(