Why are the colors and resolution on my iPhone so much better than on my laptop?

I'm a photographer (and yes, I know I should be editing on a desktop) and when I post photos it seems like the colors are much deeper and the resolution is much more clear on my iPhone than they are where I edit them… On my laptop. Which device is "off"? Will they be closer if I were to edit on a desktop (I'm in the process of saving up for one)?

The Last Anon has given you a definitive answer

One thing I will add.

When was the last time you calibrated and profiled your notebook computer?

Every display device has a color gamut and color space that support different colors. That is why you can walk into a place with a lot of Tv's and see all different color on the screens. Your monitor has its own range of possible colors it can display. Yours is different based on what mode it is in. Maybe yours has Vivid, Cinema, etc. Which one has the right color?

You could only really know if you calibrated your monitor.

When you calibrate you match your monitor to a known standard created by the International Color Consortium. This means that your monitor will display the proper:

Hue: The purity of color.
Saturation: The intensity of color.
Lightness (brightness): The luminance of color.
Gamma: "Shades in between" lol…

That way you will know you are seeing the correct color and you can know you are making the right adjustments. Without calibration a color may therefore appear darker, lighter or with a different saturation than it was intended to be seen.

Laptops tend to have strict viewing angles and don't retain accurate coloring for very long. That means that the colors can change drastically in one week if not in a few days. If you look at the monitor from one angle and shift to another the color probaby appears to change also.

Which one is off? I don't know. It depends on what ICC standard you compare them too. Invest in a large gamut monitor and calbration hardware package such as the Spyder or Xrite or some other one.

Someone can probably provide more information on the materials and display technologies of laptops vs phones than I can.

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