coriander in pho

not a food blog

ProPhoto RGB v. sRGB color space

February 11, 2021, 11:28 PM

I’m curious. I need to jot this down and maybe reroute back to this post once I have time and once I have unfortunate developer to bug on the office.

Recently, I noticed an uptick of color display questions from users that contacting us. The question always the same:

“Why do my pictures look dull on the phone?”

This is a really interesting situation. The images look good and vibrant on the desktop/laptop, but once you check the website on the phone — bam — the dullest color.

The cause is actually this:

sRGB vs Adobe RGB vs ProPhoto RGB: Color Spaces Explained

TL;DR images with ProPhoto RGB will definitely have duller look on mobile phones, especially on iPhones. To rectify it, you will need to export your images to sRGB format.

But! Please indulge me on this. But! Here’s what makes me curious: Most — if not all — of the users who ask the color display question is non-professional/they are not professional photographers/designers/illustrators.

They upload the images to their websites/blogs just like any other regular folks — Add image, or drag-and-drop, and that’s it. They didn’t do any heavyweight image editing prior uploading their images.

Then it happened to me just now. The previous post has some images with so many details, and I swear the red color on the pictures is really vivid and bold.

I opened my WP for iOS app, then uploaded the images using Image block. Finished the post, then published.

I have side by side comparison. The one on the left is the picture on my Photos app, the one on the right is the picture on my live site (Chrome mobile.)

I also able to confirm I didn’t do any adjustments on my iPhone’s settings.

I’m curious. Something must have happened; I’m thinking a change on how iOS processed the images (??? Maybe???) Also, it seems like this happens on mobile display only. The images look okay on desktop.

Tomorrow, I’m going to check the image profile and see what color space the image is.

Update:

The color space is RGB… ? (None of both possibilities LOL)

I would agree with Ditaa. Most probably iOS automatically compress picture for mobile devices and the differences just becoming more noticeable recently.
The Year of the Ox

February 11, 2021, 9:58 PM

Tomorrow is the celebration of the Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year. For this year, it’s The Year of The Ox.

Unlike its western counterparts, Chinese zodiacs are defined on year — not months. For example, folks that were born in 1984 would be under the Rat zodiac, then 1985 would be under the Ox zodiac, and so on.

The Chinese zodiacs itself has its own story of origin. The Jade King, the benevolent ruler of the Heavens — some said it was the Goddess Kwan Im or Buddha — called upon animals to give respect to him. Twelve animals came, and the zodiac positions were given to them according to the order of their arrival.

Red color is the main star on the celebrations. It signifies happiness and good luck. That’s why you can see folks wearing red during weddings and celebrations (while black and white are frowned upon during festivities as it symbolizes mourning and sadness.)

This year’s Chinese New Year was far from celebrations. Restaurants are empty, while it used to be crowded with dining guests having their reunion dinner, chatting happily and tossing yee sang.

We were on this shopping mall, having our takeout dinner — several portions of pasta from our favorite Italian restaurant.

I strolled at the mall’s plaza. Looking at the Chinese New Year ornaments and decorations.

Some visitors walked by, but it was empty. It’s unusual for Kuala Lumpur to be empty during Chinese New Year. As one of major tourists destinations, there are always folks coming from outside the town or even foreign tourists.

They have this… Wishing Tree in the middle. Mall visitors wrote down their wishes on a piece of card and hang it on the tree.

And it seems, for the first time, every wish that I saw on the tree is not for one individual’s happiness or good luck.

The wishes are selfless.

“Wish for pandemic to end. Good health for everyone.”

And the loudest whisper of one’s longing is a selfless one.

“Everyone stay healthy and be happy. Happy Chinese New Year.”

May all our prayers and wishes reaching the Heavens.

Happy Chinese New Year, all. Stay safe and stay healthy.
On WordPress and languages

February 7, 2021, 11:53 PM

Sometimes a user asked, or mentioned, that they found the translation of a string on their WordPress.com website using their preferred language is incorrect — and they want to know how to change it.

I usually use this opportunity to encourage them to contribute. One thing that I notice on how folks doing business is the minimum opportunity for consumers to contribute. Contribution usually equals with “feedback”, and public tends to see feedback as an unread letter addressed to a company which will never be read.

I really want to change that; and I guess this is something that WordPress as a community — so not WordPress.com only — wants to encourage.

So! What can you do if you see your website in your preferred language has a string/text/sentence translated incorrectly?

For WordPress.com, you can submit your translation here.

For WordPress.org — this is the core. The words and texts and sentences you see on WP Admin area — you can submit your translation here. You can also submit translations for other Automattic products such as WooCommerce and Jetpack; even third-party plugins and themes!

Every week, the translation validator will receive newsletters to nudge them to review the translations and approve/reject/edit it.

So go ahead and click the links to see any open translation projects in the language you are well-versed in and share your contributions to the community!

quick blurbs

Saw this site mentioned the other day on Slack: neocities.org.

Scroll down and you will see “Featured Sites”. Never knew it brings back early 2000s, and it makes me so, so happy.

April 23, 2026, 9:00 AM