Behaviour sRGB embedded pictures in Lightroom versus IE

Question

hello,
I have a calibrated monitor (6500K and a gamma of 2,2). I'm working with Windows Vista. When I view a picture with embedded sRGB profile in InternetExplorer (uses no colormanagement) and Adobe Lightroom (uses colormanagement), there is a very little difference in color between Internet Explorer and Lightroom or Windows photo gallery. IE shows the colors a little bit more saturated. The grays look the same.
I know that when I view a picture with embedded Adobe RGB profile or Prophoto profile, It will look completely different in Lightroom versus Internet Explorer.
sRGB is the default color space for Windows IE. Is it normal, even with a calibrated monitor, that there is still a little difference visible with sRGB embedded pictures, between applications using profiles (like Lightroom) and applications not using profiles (like Internet Explorer)

Answer 1

>s it normal, even with a calibrated monitor, that there is still a little difference visible with sRGB embedded pictures, between applications using profiles (like Lightroom) and applications not using profiles (like Internet Explorer)
Yes. You will only see the correct color in managed apps even on calibrated monitors. This includes Safari and Firefox
with the secret setting, but excludes Internet explorer and very surprisingly Google's Chrome (Boooo Google!!!). The reason for this is that the color primaries (i.e. the actual colors of your monitor's red, green, and blue emitters) are never exactly the same as sRGB's.
There is also a small knee in the shadow portion of sRGB. Most calibration software will calibrate not to this tone curve, but to simple gamma 2.2, so you will always see a small difference in the shadow portion between managed apps and unmanaged apps.
Now as Sean notes, you cannot really predict what your image will look like on other people's monitors. In general it will hover around to the look of sRGB on your calibrated monitor in managed apps, which is why everybody will recommend sRGB. But individually, you can get quite large deviations. Especially because of the current prevalence of laptops, which without fail almost always have terrible screens. They usually give rise to very strong shifts of the blue component (which some people erroneously interpret as a problem with sRGB). Unfortunately there is really nothing you can do about it.