Do you take photos with the intention of uploading them to the web? If you own a computer and a camera, the answer is probably yes. Amateur photography seems to be one of the top hobbies found in online culture, and there are many services to support this hobby, from photo sharing sites like flickr, to micro-stock photo sites such as istock. However, with the countless number of amateur photographers submitting their photos online, there are bound to be some issues.

Recently, in our own stock photo resource, stockedphotos.com, we reviewed a photo set where the photos looked one way when viewed on our desktops (using Microsoft Picture Viewer), but did not retain their vivid, bright colors and effects when viewed online or in a web browser.

Below is an example of this discrepancy:

As you can clearly see, the image on top is much more colorful than the image on the bottom, and the image on the bottom is very muted and dull by comparison. However, if you were to save these files to your computer and view them side by side in a picture viewer, you would see that the images actually appear identical, and there is no variance in hue, luminance, or saturation.

Keep in mind, that in this instance, the above image was not produced as a result of an amateur photo shoot. This series was shot by a seasoned professional photographer, recognized by name, and with years of experience in the industry. So what issue could be having such a large impact, destroying the luster of images found across the web, shot by amateur and professional photographer alike, and if the photos look identical offline, what is making the photos look different from when viewed in a web browser?

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