How Camp <hac### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Is it a browser issue, or is PNG the problem?

  The problem is not with the gamma value in a PNG. The problem is that
PNG *has* support for gamma value. Other formats don't have this problem
because they don't have gamma support at all.
  The problem is that some programs will write the gamma value to the
PNG while others, when reading the PNG, will ignore it. Another problem
is that when a PNG doesn't have gamma info, some programs (especially
some browsers) will "guess" a gamma value for it anyways, instead of
taking the pixels unmodified (as with all other image formats).

  So the problem is that a theoretically good idea has completely
backfired because of poor program support. Now the exact same PNG
*without* any gamma value might look different in different browsers,
simply because the makers of these browsers got confused and started
making some assumptions. Adding the gamma value to the PNG does not
help because it may still look different in different programs
because some programs will just ignore the gamma value.

  This gamma fiasco is one of the biggest reasons why the industry
(especially the WWW industry) as a whole hasn't switched to PNG from
other lossless formats.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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