Why are my photos washed out on flickr?

A lot of people have asked me why their photos appear washed out or dull or flat or lacking color, colorless, dim, etc. on the photosharing website flickr. Photos uploaded to flickr can sometimes just not look as colorful as they do on your computer at home or when printed.

I am not going to get into a technical description of color spaces, color profiles, colorsynching, sRGB, etc, etc. Most people just glaze over. Instead, here is what works for me.

I use Photoshop on the Mac (CS1). Before I upload my photo I save it to the Generic RGB profile. To do this I go to Image, Mode, Convert to Profile...then select Generic RGB in the destination Space drop-down menu. Save your image. Upload it.

Remember, this is for the web, not for printing.

I have an example. On my flick stream I have two photos that illustrate the difference between the original sRGB image and the Generic RGB image. Open both in tabs and click back and forth. You will be able to exactly compare them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/220730258/ - sRGB
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/220789200/ - generic RGB

The proof is in the viewing. The technical details don't really matter.

Have fun!