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The question title is not very representative but I couldn't think of a better one.

I have an image in JPEG format with a color profile embedded into it. If I open that image in a program that doesn't understand color profiles (say Microsoft's Paint for example) the color appear to be washed off, less vibrant.

I would like to know if it is possible to "apply" that color profile to the image so that the colors are displayed always vibrant. The resulting image would have no color profile embedded but it would look as it does when the current color profile is interpreted. So resizing it or converting it to a format which doesn't have color profile embedding capability wouldn't change the appearance of the image.

If possible, how could that be done?

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You would convert the image to the sRGB color profile. This profile is indended to match the color capabilities of a monitor.

This is commonly used for images that are used in web pages, and for example offered as an option when exporting images for web in Photoshop. By converting the image to sRGB the color profile can be omitted from the file, which reduces the file size, which saves bandwidth for the web site where the image is used and reduces load times for the visitor.

Note: Keep a copy of the original image, as converting to sRGB will likely clip the color space somewhat.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, after converting to sRGB saving without the color profile gets a very similar color composition. \$\endgroup\$
    – Richard
    Jul 9, 2014 at 16:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ The amount of "saved bandwidth" and "reduced load time" depends very much on the site complexity (a single image isn't much), the site's and user's combined bandwidth and whether either of them is fairly low - where all this ends up varies. A user still using an analog or GPRS/EDGE modem will most likely notice it - but I'd say he/she will not surf for images very long at those speeds. If you aim at letting smallish mobile devices surf your images - then you need to target your entire site at that. \$\endgroup\$
    – Hannu
    Jul 12, 2014 at 17:57

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