diff --git a/Tests/helper.py b/Tests/helper.py
index f42de8bb2..3cf51185b 100644
--- a/Tests/helper.py
+++ b/Tests/helper.py
@@ -92,23 +92,12 @@ class PillowTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
             a.size, b.size,
             msg or "got size %r, expected %r" % (a.size, b.size))
 
-        diff = 0
-        try:
-            ord(b'0')
-            for abyte, bbyte in zip(a.tobytes(), b.tobytes()):
-                diff += abs(ord(abyte)-ord(bbyte))
-        except:
-            for abyte, bbyte in zip(a.tobytes(), b.tobytes()):
-                diff += abs(abyte-bbyte)
-
         a, b = convert_to_comparable(a, b)
 
-        new_diff = 0
+        diff = 0
         for ach, bch in zip(a.split(), b.split()):
             chdiff = ImageMath.eval("abs(a - b)", a=ach, b=bch).convert('L')
-            new_diff += sum(i * num for i, num in enumerate(chdiff.histogram()))
-
-        self.assertEqual(diff, new_diff)
+            diff += sum(i * num for i, num in enumerate(chdiff.histogram()))
 
         ave_diff = float(diff)/(a.size[0]*a.size[1])
         self.assertGreaterEqual(
diff --git a/Tests/test_imagecms.py b/Tests/test_imagecms.py
index e1a3e0af5..136590667 100644
--- a/Tests/test_imagecms.py
+++ b/Tests/test_imagecms.py
@@ -205,7 +205,7 @@ class TestImageCms(PillowTestCase):
 
         target = Image.open('Tests/images/hopper.Lab.tif')
 
-        self.assert_image_similar(i, target, 30)
+        self.assert_image_similar(i, target, 3.5)
 
     def test_lab_srgb(self):
         psRGB = ImageCms.createProfile("sRGB")
@@ -326,12 +326,12 @@ class TestImageCms(PillowTestCase):
 
         prepatch, these would segfault, postpatch they should emit a typeerror
         """
-        
+
         with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
             ImageCms.ImageCmsProfile(0).tobytes()
         with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
             ImageCms.ImageCmsProfile(1).tobytes()
-    
+
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     unittest.main()