What am I doing wrong?

[Pamie]

I'm so frustrated!!! I made a new siggy and I love it. It looks so bright on my monitor in PSE! But when I save it, the colors get all dull and muddy. I've saved for web, saved as a JPEG, and as a PNG but nothing is working. What am I missing?

[cardinalskate]

Hmmm. Post it so we can see?

[Pamie]

Duh. Good idea.

Here's the kit preview - look at those gorgeous oranges and yellows!



Here's my siggy. Blah.


I checked the LO I did with the kit and somehow my saved JPG kept the pretty colors. Why can't I get it to work now?

[Danyale]

Hmmm, I have no clue, but I LURVE it!

[juliesouthern]

Try duplicating the image and save the new one. I've had issues with a single file - in my case my drop shadows STOPPED WORKING. Everything was fine in the new duplicated image. Other than that, I would check to see if it's changing the color profile somehow? The fact that your layout saved fine sort of indicates that it's a file problem and not a kit problem IMO.

[wishingwellcreations]

The fact that your layout saved fine sort of indicates that it's a file problem and not a kit problem IMO.

Kit problem? KIT PROBLEM??!?! Oh, my heart... my heart... (hahahahaha JK!).

OK, here's the thing -- I looked really close at it just now, and it looks to me like it saved as a .GIF. I can see (by right-clicking and doing "view image info") that it's a PNG... but when PSE changes the image type from JPEG to something like, say, GIF -- it changes colors, and pixels, and everything. Look really closely at the darker orange flower at the upper right. See the pixelation at the top of that flower? That's what a photo looks like when it's saved as a GIF. GIFs are intended more for flat colors/line art/etc. -- they don't render images the same way a JPEG does (that's why JPEG/TIFF/etc. are the standards for photos).

OK, that said -- I still know it's a PNG. I can see that. But check the PNG type / color profile. Is it a PNG 8? PNG 24? Or, at some point was it converted to a GIF *before* you converted it to a PNG? That could be it -- if it was first saved as a GIF, accidentally (since it's the first/default option that PSE uses for web saving, often) -- and THEN if you saved that GIF as a PNG, instead of saving the original JPEG as a PNG -- that could be it.

It's that pixelation on that orange flower that's screaming GIF to me. That's what my previews look like when I first do "save for web" in PS/PSE, before I change the default to JPEG instead of GIF.

[Pamie]

I tried everything, including saving as a JPEG and saying screw the transparency, and trying every kind of PNG PSE would allow. It does scream GIF at me too but I absolutely positively know I never saved it in that format. I even redid the whole stinking thing in a brand new PSD file and it still saved everything all muddy.

Laura you were my last best hope. I'm going to go cry now.

[Danyale]

There is no crying in scrapbooking. uh uh...nope

[juliesouthern]

Oh, double check how many colors are assigned to the document - maybe it's less then 16 million or whatever the high choice would be...

[cardinalskate]

Did you do the "save for web" in PSE? B/c the default for that is .gif. Maybe you didn't realize you didn't change it?

That's all I've got. I think it looks pretty.

[Little Pixie]

A lot more experience people than I have weighed in on this... sorry I don't have any ideas to add. I think it looks pretty, even if the orange flower is noticeably darker.

[geniabeana]

What about the color space. Is it being saved to the wrong color space by chance?