I happened to load a new web browser today. I’ve got three different gmail accounts I use for different things (mine, Kelli’s, and the Seasonal Delights account), and so I need three browsers in order to have them all logged in at once. Switching all of the Seasonal Delights pages from Safari to Camino made me realize something awful: if you’re not using Safari on a Mac, most of the images on this site look dreadful.

I mean, really bad. Washed-out, colorless, awful. It makes me want to cry to think of how beautiful these images are, and how awful they look to most of you. Please, do yourself a favor: visit an Apple store to see how they should look! (Log out before you leave the store, please!)

The geek explanation is that most web browsers, even the current version of Firefox, don’t honor embedded ICC profiles. Only Safari does, though the next version of Firefox should. The sad part is that the difference is blindingly obvious, and yet I can’t even demonstrate it to you unless you’re on a Mac! There are pages on the web that attempt to demonstrate the issue, but most demonstrations are still somewhat subject to your computer’s settings. (If you’re not using Safari, you might actually prefer the image on the left, but, again, visit an Apple store and try it.)

I’m not sure what to do. I don’t think there’s anything I can do. My camera has been set correctly all along (sRGB, not Adobe RGB), and my Mac is set to the Windows-compatible 2.2 gamma setting with a D65 white point, but the problem is beyond that. The problem apparently affects PDF readers as well, so if you’re using Windows, you probably aren’t seeing the images properly, either.

I’m sorry. Firefox 3 ought to do things properly, and Safari for Windows does things properly already, but I know it’s hard to switch web browsers for just one site (though photos on other sites will also probably look better). Perhaps you could try Safari on Windows just once, to see what the pictures for the Recipe of the Week should look like?