Most people who have designed websites or apps in Photoshop will, at one point or another, have had issues trying to match colors in images to colors generated by HTML, CSS or code. This article aims to solve those problems once and for all.
Color Management to Match Colors
Across Multiple Devices In the print world, color management typically involves calibrating your entire workflow, from scanner or digital camera to computer display to hard proofs to the final press output. This can be quite a tall order, especially when the devices use different color spaces – matching RGB and CMYK devices is notoriously hard.
The goal
When designing websites or app interfaces, we want to perfectly match the colors that are displayed on screen in Photoshop and that are saved in files with what’s displayed in other applications, including Firefox, Safari and the iPhone Simulator. Not only do we want the colors to look the same, but we want the actual values saved in the files to perfectly match the colors we have defined in Photoshop. Colors should not shift or appear to shift in any way, under any circumstance
How Does Photoshop Differ from OS X and Windows?
OS X’s color management is applied to the entire display at the very end of the processing chain, after the main buffer in video ram. This means that although color management is applied, the software utilities that measure color on screen (like /Utilities/Digital Color Meter) will report the same values that you have saved in the file or entered as your code. I believe the color management in Windows Vista and Windows 7 (Windows Color System) works in a similar fashion.
Conclusion
Now, you’re able to move bitmap and vector images between Photoshop and Illustrator without any color shifts at all, and using any method. You’re also able to grab a color using the color picker in Photoshop, and then use the same HEX color value in your CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Flash or ObjectiveC code, and it will match your images perfectly.