colour management

[Theo Dibbits]

My New Year's resolution is to increase my understanding of colour management and "nail down" my colour workflow.
For Christmas my wife gave me the book "color mangement in the real world" which is boiling my brain in times.
I have read one of the early chapters twice and still ended up with a headache.

Then I came across the following article on photo.net which is a little more practical.
http://photo.net/learn/digital-photogra ... anagement/
For those of you (like me) trying to come to grips with this subject it may be worth keeping an eye on the articles.

It maybe interesting to see how many of us use a monitor calibrating device and what type.
I calibrate mine with an old pantone colorplus which seems to be a little rudimentary. (and it is not Vista compatible)

Happy New Year

Theo

[John]

Thursday 22nd January Gordon Jenkins, who knows all about colour, will be talking to us on the subject. Hopefully he will be able to answer any questions we may have.

[Andy C]

I use the entry level Colourvision spyder2 express.

Andy

[bert haddock]

Theo,
I don't use anything, I spent a lot of money when I started doing colour printing in my darkroom years ago on a colour analiser, even though I wasn't having any problems with my prints but thought it may make life easier, it caused me so many other problems colour shifts etc I stopped using it, it's still in the box in my darkroom, when I started with Digital I looked into buying a monitor calibrater but as I don' t have any problem matching my prints with what I see on the monitor. as my experience in the darkroom , if it ain't broke why fix it.

All the best to everyone for 2009,
Bert,

[oakeycoke]

Theo,

Oops put links to some useful colour management videos and .pdf's on the 'Pictures for the web' topic here.viewtopic.php?f=3&t=644&start=15#p3640

Phil

PS I've tried all these colour management techniques but my Epson R1800 wont print out anything like my screen (which is calibrated). Doesn't help that I'm using compatible inks or Jessops A3 and Fuji A4 papers without profiles. However though its not correct, using the printer drivers to make the colour print rather than let photoshop decide gives a better result.

[Andrew Shepherd]

Hi Phil - that's my next problem - trying to calibrate the printer to the screen! I too don't seem to be able to match the screen to the print-out, and have a pinkish cast.

I'll sort my other problem out first, then check out these guides!!

Cheers

Andrew

[Theo Dibbits]

I fought my epson printer for months.
Finally bought a pack of Permajet paper and send off for their free dedicated profile. (you can use anybody's ink)
This has improved my screen to print relationship tremendously. (unfortunately it does not improve the quality of the photographer. )
It even works on Tesco paper but not as well.

The problem is I am taking a liking to the quality of their paper so I will have to pick up some more at "Focus on Imaging"

Theo

[Andrew Shepherd]

I've finally got to the bottom of what is going on, so I thought I'd try and explain this with everyone to see if it makes sense.

If I calibrate my monitor (using Spyder Express), a colour profile (ICC file) is created which I was using instead of the standard sRGB.ICC file. However, when using Photoshop/Windows/Lightroom the sRGB.ICC profile was being used (which is what I'd chosen) and so there was no difference between the workflow from camera to photoshop - presumably this is because these programs are colour managed. When I was using the internet (which is not colour managed), windows (vista) was using my calibrated ICC profile making the image more saturated compared to the image I had edited in Lightroom/Photoshop.

I can now see the difference working - if I load the file into Photoshop and assign the Spyder Express profile, the image converts to a more saturated image.

So the bottom line - why calibrate the monitor?! I presume I should set Photoshop/Lightroom to also use my custom profile, but there will still be a problem when the original raw file (captured in camera using the sRGB profile) is converted in Lightroom.

Seems easier to have the monitor set to sRGB, so I know everything matches when displayed on the internet.

There is still the issue of calibrating the screen to the printer so I reckon this saga is to be continued!!

Hope this makes sense and I would be interested to hear views.

Cheers

Andrew

[oakeycoke]

Take a look at this http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/color-spaces-page1

In firefox at the bottom of the article the middle image is ok, but in Internet explorer its green on my computer.. Saw this link in the Canon eos forum, well worth a look for colour space etc on a monitor and also why it matters as to which browser you use on the web and which colour space your image is embedded with. Page 2 is even more enlightening.

Phil

[Theo Dibbits]

Andrew

Looks like you have found the basic source of the problem.

However

Seems easier to have the monitor set to sRGB, so I know everything matches when displayed on the internet.

this is not necessarily true. I think you are confusing color space and monitor profile.

When shooting RAW the camera captures the data and only attaches a camera profile (no color space even if you set it)
Lightroom converts the RAW data to JPEG/TIFF and tags it with the color space (sRGB in your case)
Your monitor displays the file using the monitor profile. In an ideal world you sRGB.ICC profile and the Andrews monitor.ICC profile should produce exactly the same picture. When it does not which one is right? If you correct the colours to look right on your monitor when using the sRGB.ICC profile but the Andrews monitor.ICC profile is correct it could look very flat on my monitor. That is the whole reason for calibrating the monitor in the first place.

One thing I have noticed when calibrating my monitor is that if the room is very light the calibrated colours end up more saturated. I now pull the curtains (gives the neighbours something to talk about as well. )

Hope this helps

Theo

[Andrew Shepherd]

Thanks Theo - I'll try re-calibrating either with ambiance compensation on or in the dark. However, if it varies too much from the sRGB profile I think I will just stick to the sRGB profile. At least that way I know my image will look similar to what everyone else sees on their screens via images posted on the net (assuming they are using sRGB).

Incidently, I've started printing (using a CISS system with compatible inks) and I'm really pleased with the match from Screen to Print (no pink cast), all with the sRGB profile and allowing Photoshop/Lightroom manage colours (not the printer).

So, all in all, I'm now pretty happy and understand this a little better. So thanks for everyone who've contributed and helped me with this.

Cheers

Andrew