Even experts get colour spaces wrong!
An official photograph of Barack Obama, by Pete Souza, has been released. It is the first time that an official presidential portrait was taken with a digital camera.
It is a JPEG with an embedded colour profile - good. For Adobe RGB - aaaaarrrggh!
In a colour-managed application it will look right. All Adobe applications are colour-managed.
In a non-managed application, it will look relatively subdued / desaturated. Most browsers, and many other (cheaper) applications, including Pictures-to-EXE, are not colour managed. Have a look at the full-size version of the image: on the left is what it looks like in a non-managed application, while on the right is what is should look like.
In order to confirm this for the sake of members, I am requesting that NCPS arranges and pays for a trip by me to meet Barack Obama. (I am a fan!) I also suggest that we invite Pete Souza to our Digital Workshops - I am willing to repeat my talk on colour spaces. Perhaps he should use my "Colour Management suggestions" from our Download Area.
Thanks to John Nack of Adobe for revealing this problem.
Technical information: Canon EOS 5D Mark II on January 13th, 2009 at 5:38 pm with no flash, using a 105mm lens stopped to f/10 at a 1/125 exposure, with an ISO of 100.
(I believe that because this is an official photograph it is OK to use it here).