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Which browser should I use with PhotoAIA, and why?
Use a Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc). We validated the colour pipeline end to end in the Chromium engine those browsers share — we did not separately run Chrome or Edge builds themselves, and we did not run Safari or Firefox. Safari is expected to behave equivalently. Firefox works, with one caveat worth knowing: it does not colour-manage untagged canvas content by default, so on a wide-gamut display colours can appear oversaturated until you change one setting.
What "validated" means here
PhotoAIA's colour pipeline runs in WebAssembly and is therefore engine-independent: the arithmetic cannot change between browsers. What does change between browsers is what happens after we hand finished sRGB pixels to the canvas — and that is where the differences below live.
We validated the full chain (file import, ICC detection and validation, profile assignment, display-transform rebuild, HiDPI rendering, WebGL2) by running it in a Chromium 148 engine. We did not run any browser BUILD as such — not Chrome, not Edge, not Safari, not Firefox — only the Chromium engine that Chrome and Edge are built on. Rather than describe untested browsers as "verified", this page states what is documented engine behaviour and what was actually executed.
Browser by browser
| Browser | Status | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Chromium engine (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc) | Recommended — engine validated | The pipeline was run end to end in the Chromium engine itself, not in individual Chrome/Edge builds. The canvas is colour-managed as sRGB, which matches how PhotoAIA delivers pixels. |
| Safari | Supported | WebKit colour-manages the canvas and honours embedded profiles. Expected to behave equivalently; not validated by us. |
| Firefox | Supported, one caveat | Firefox colour-manages tagged images but not untagged canvas content by default. On a wide-gamut display, colours may look oversaturated. See the workaround below. |
| Mobile browsers | Not supported | PhotoAIA is a desktop-class editor; small screens see a desktop-required notice. |
The Firefox setting, if you need it
- Open a new tab and go to about:config.
- Accept the warning, then search for gfx.color_management.mode.
- Change the value from 2 to 1 — this enables full colour management, including untagged content.
- Restart Firefox. Colours on wide-gamut displays should now match a Chromium browser.
Things no browser can do today
- Read your monitor's ICC profile. No engine exposes it to a web page — it is a fingerprinting surface. This is the hard boundary between a browser editor and a desktop one.
- Full ICC handling with LUT-based profiles. Every engine implements matrix/TRC only, which is why PhotoAIA carries its own colour engine.
- Embed an ICC profile in a PNG, JPEG or WebP exported from a canvas — the browser encoder provides no hook. Use TIFF, PSD or print PDF for colour-critical delivery.
- HDR in a 2D canvas: HDR content is tone-mapped to standard range by an unspecified curve that differs between engines.
Privacy and anti-fingerprinting modes
Safari's Private Browsing and some privacy-focused browsers deliberately add noise to canvas readback. Editing is unaffected — PhotoAIA keeps your pixels in its own buffers — but exports pass through the browser's encoder. PhotoAIA checks for this at startup so it can tell you rather than quietly writing a file with altered colour.
Questions
- Will PhotoAIA break in Firefox?
- No. Everything works; the caveat is display appearance on wide-gamut monitors, with a documented one-setting fix.
- Why recommend Chromium if the pipeline is engine-independent?
- Because it is the engine whose full chain we actually ran. The recommendation reflects the evidence we have, not a judgement that other engines are worse.
- Does the browser affect exported files?
- Pixel data and embedded profiles come from PhotoAIA, not the browser — except for PNG/JPEG/WebP, which browsers encode without an ICC hook. Use TIFF, PSD or PDF when the profile must travel.
- Do I need a calibrated monitor?
- For colour-critical judgement, yes — and that applies to any application. PhotoAIA converts colour correctly up to the canvas; your display and its profile handle the last step.