how come my image looks different opened in GIMP than it does on my desktop?

[anonn]

beginner question here.

how come when i simply open an image in GIMP it seems a very tiny bit lighter and less saturated than if i just view it on my desktop with a simple program like Preview?

here's a screenshot i took for proof. the same exact file opened in GIMP with nothing done to it and in Preview. the one in GIMP looks very slightly lighter.

http://i39.tinypic.com/95yq.png

thx!

[ofnuts]

(Jan 31, 2012 23:52)anonn Wrote:  beginner question here.

how come when i simply open an image in GIMP it seems a very tiny bit lighter and less saturated than if i just view it on my desktop with a simple program like Preview?

here's a screenshot i took for proof. the same exact file opened in GIMP with nothing done to it and in Preview. the one in GIMP looks very slightly lighter.

http://i39.tinypic.com/95yq.png

thx!

Because it has an associated color profile (the RGB value aren't absolute). and one of the two pieces of software ignores it while the other uses it. Maybe it's Gimp. If so you can enable "color management" in your Gimp preferences. But since you are on OSX you open a rather large can of worms...