Really Basic Question

[ElijahBaley]

Hi

We sometimes receive high quality CMYK .jpg files which we are unable to view in PC applications such as Internet Explorer an Windows Imaging.

However if we transfer these to a Apple Mac running Photoshop we are able to open the file.

I have a few questions, first; what is the easiest way to convirt these files into lightweight RGB .jpg's that can be viewed in IE?

Is this situation normal? - I thought that .jpg was a industry standard that should be able to be viewed/manipulated by any program claiming to deal with .jpg files ??

Is a Photoshop .jpg "different" to other .jpg's

Thanks for any help,

Regards

G:
"r tape loading error"

 

[Pixelchik]

The problem with your original JPEG file is that it has the CMYK colour palette. Web browsers can only view jpeg images in rgb.

 

[jimoblak]

I agree with Pixelchik.

This is not a Mac/PC issue. Photoshop is simply more tolerant of JPG variants than a web browser. JPGs are not 'standard' in that they come in all types. Does anyone remember when progressive JPGs were introduced? I partied til dawn and woke up two days later with a mysterious tatoo.

The only reason a JPG is used is to keep file size down. CMYK JPGs are a contradiction since CMYK files are larger than RGB (in any format). You may think you are preserving color as a CMYK file but the resolution and clarity are diminished with JPG compression.

Encourage those that send you images to do so as RGB JPGs (or as TIF with LZW compression if they are worried about compression quality loss).

You can always convert the image back to CMYK in Photoshop.