So confused about color management Help!

Cinnygal wrote:

I know color management has probably been discussed ad nauseam but I am sooo confused. I’ve read so many webpages and I can’t seem to get a handle on it. My monitor has been calibrated but when I color-correct a pic then go to email it to someone, all the color is washed out. When I proof the pic with my monitor’s profile, it looks good to email it, but in the cs file browser, or when it’s opened, it looks way too saturated. Can someone point me to a webpage that can explain color management in clear and simple terms? Most of what I’ve read is print-oriented, but what about email? I’d appreciate any help!

web browsers and email programs don’t use color management. when you prepare images for viewing with web browsers or email use web-safe colors. that may help.

neon wrote:

Cinnygal wrote:

I know color management has probably been discussed ad nauseam but I am sooo confused. I’ve read so many webpages and I can’t seem to get a handle on it. My monitor has been calibrated but when I color-correct a pic then go to email it to someone, all the color is washed out. When I proof the pic with my monitor’s profile, it looks good to email it, but in the cs file browser, or when it’s opened, it looks way too saturated. Can someone point me to a webpage that can explain color management in clear and simple terms? Most of what I’ve read is print-oriented, but what about email? I’d appreciate any help!

web browsers and email programs don’t use color management. when you prepare images for viewing with web browsers or email use web-safe colors. that may help.

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 13:26:19 +0100, (Johan W.
Elzenga) wrote:

neon wrote:

Cinnygal wrote:

I know color management has probably been discussed ad nauseam but I am sooo confused. I’ve read so many webpages and I can’t seem to get a handle on it. My monitor has been calibrated but when I color-correct a pic then go to email it to someone, all the color is washed out. When I proof the pic with my monitor’s profile, it looks good to email it, but in the cs file browser, or when it’s opened, it looks way too saturated. Can someone point me to a webpage that can explain color management in clear and simple terms? Most of what I’ve read is print-oriented, but what about email? I’d appreciate any help!

web browsers and email programs don’t use color management. when you prepare images for viewing with web browsers or email use web-safe colors. that may help.

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

howldog wrote:

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

This is not enough to get it to work. Your color setup only determines the DEFAULT color space, i.e. the color space of a NEW document. How existing documents are opened depends on how your ‘Color Management Policies’ are set. ‘Preserve embedded profiles’ will keep them in the original color space, for example. Your suggestion will only work if you also set the Color Management Policies to ‘Convert to working RGB’.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:25:39 +0100, (Johan W.
Elzenga) wrote:

howldog wrote:

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

This is not enough to get it to work. Your color setup only determines the DEFAULT color space, i.e. the color space of a NEW document. How existing documents are opened depends on how your ‘Color Management Policies’ are set. ‘Preserve embedded profiles’ will keep them in the original color space, for example. Your suggestion will only work if you also set the Color Management Policies to ‘Convert to working RGB’.

???? the previous poster already mentioned that.

howldog wrote:

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

This is not enough to get it to work. Your color setup only determines the DEFAULT color space, i.e. the color space of a NEW document. How existing documents are opened depends on how your ‘Color Management Policies’ are set. ‘Preserve embedded profiles’ will keep them in the original color space, for example. Your suggestion will only work if you also set the Color Management Policies to ‘Convert to working RGB’.

???? the previous poster already mentioned that.

Read his/her post again. Did he say anything about setting the Color Management Policies? No, he/she didn’t. He only mentioned setting your RGB setup to sRGB, but that’s not enough if your Color Management Policies aren’t also set to convert everthing to your working space.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

howldog wrote:

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is in AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

This is not enough to get it to work. Your color setup only determines the DEFAULT color space, i.e. the color space of a NEW document. How existing documents are opened depends on how your ‘Color Management Policies’ are set. ‘Preserve embedded profiles’ will keep them in the original color space, for example. Your suggestion will only work if you also set the Color Management Policies to ‘Convert to working RGB’.

???? the previous poster already mentioned that.

Read his/her post again. Did he say anything about setting the Color Management Policies? No, he/she didn’t. He only mentioned setting your RGB setup to sRGB, but that’s not enough if your Color Management Policies aren’t also set to convert everthing to your working space.

there is actually no need to change anything, if sys is calibrated. just convert pic to srgb, save it without profile, open, chose: View/Proof/Custom – Srgb or View/Proof Setup/Windows Monitor and that is how pic will look on average windoze uncalibrated monitor (more or less 🙂 )

regards,

vladimir

Thank you all! Sometimes it seems color management is a black art …..whether to convert, or just assign….soft proofing, yada yada. I’m still not clear about when and which situations to convert or just assign. 🙁

Thanks
Cinnygal

"Vladimir Misev" wrote in message

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

howldog wrote:

Using ‘web safe’ colors is probably not the answer. The problem of ‘washed out’ colors usually has another reason: the original image is

in

AdobeRGB, but because web browsers do not see color profiles, it’s displayed in sRGB. Convert your image (using ‘convert to profile’) to sRGB.

good idea. the other trick i’ve found very helpful when working with images that will ultimately be displayed onscreen, is under Color settings, change the RGB setup to sRGB. This will hopefully make the images in Photoshop more closely resemble wat they will look like viewed thru Windows graphic displays.

Remember to switch back to whatever other RGB setup you were using, when finished.

This is not enough to get it to work. Your color setup only determines the DEFAULT color space, i.e. the color space of a NEW document. How existing documents are opened depends on how your ‘Color Management Policies’ are set. ‘Preserve embedded profiles’ will keep them in the original color space, for example. Your suggestion will only work if

you

also set the Color Management Policies to ‘Convert to working RGB’.

???? the previous poster already mentioned that.

Read his/her post again. Did he say anything about setting the Color Management Policies? No, he/she didn’t. He only mentioned setting your RGB setup to sRGB, but that’s not enough if your Color Management Policies aren’t also set to convert everthing to your working space.

there is actually no need to change anything, if sys is calibrated. just convert pic to srgb, save it without profile, open, chose: View/Proof/Custom – Srgb or View/Proof Setup/Windows Monitor and that is how pic will look on average windoze uncalibrated monitor (more or less 🙂 )

regards,

vladimir

On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 04:05:07 GMT, "Cinnygal" wrote:

Thank you all! Sometimes it seems color management is a black art ….whether to convert, or just assign….soft proofing, yada yada. I’m still not clear about when and which situations to convert or just assign. 🙁

Thanks
Cinnygal

You really need to get a good back about colour management if you want to take it seriously. And it will involve a lot of work because it’s not easy. If you’re interested enough you can buy Real World Colour Management, but I’d suggest you buy something like Photoshop Artistry first which will teach you the basics.

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui

Cinnygal wrote:

Thank you all! Sometimes it seems color management is a black art ….whether to convert, or just assign….soft proofing, yada yada. I’m still not clear about when and which situations to convert or just assign. 🙁

Don’t assign, convert. Unless you know it was created in an unassigned space that would just misinterpret. If you assign incorrectly you can see it change incorrectly.

I’ve got questions though… I set my camera to shoot adobeRGB because it should be covering a larger gamut so more to work with when doing adjustments and curves. I shoot in RAW & conver 16 bit, do my adjustments then convert to sRGB 8 bit to have reasonable file sizes and because currently I only have a cheap epson printer. I’d like to get a better 11×17 $500 printer soon though & maybe those adobeRGB RAW files will actually help me get better results. Does this all sound like a good approach? Just use the extra gamut for adjustments then dump it down to a simpler format.

Question: When converting aRGB to sRGB, I guess it compresses the CMYK to fit inside the smaller gamut rather than simply clipping it? I certainly can’t see any difference on screen. Would it be better for printing to go to CMYK? Will a $500 11×17 printer have the drivers to understand any of this or it only matters if I’m sending out for a super trick dye sub or something like that?

The majority of my product now is going to web pages but I want to have the best RAW files for printing some day for the extra special shots. Should I just keep my RAWs & batch them to sRGB 8-bit JPEGs now & not even worry about the miniscule improvements?

Here’s an example of what I think is a very picky difficult to print image that benefits from adjusting RAW:
< http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=California/Bay- Area/Santa-Cruz&PG=3&PIC=16>
or even something like this where I really had to push a hazy telephoto image to get some depth:
< http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=California/Bay- Area/San-Francisco/2005-01-24-mission-theaters&PG=3>

xposted to alt.graphics.photoshop and rec.photo.digital

paul wrote:

<snip>

The majority of my product now is going to web pages but I want to have the best RAW files for printing some day for the extra special shots. Should I just keep my RAWs & batch them to sRGB 8-bit JPEGs now & not even worry about the miniscule improvements?

Hi Paul…

I’d strongly urge you to keep a copy of everything, right as it comes out of the camera. Given the cost of storage media these days there’s really no valid reason not to.

Two reasons: The first, who knows what software will do over the coming years. Could well turn out that there’s so much improvement that any work you do now could be counter-productive. So keep the originals!

The second reason, coming from an old guy. A real old guy 🙂 Today, you have NO way of knowing what pictures are valuable. Honestly. You can’t possibly predict what pictures you have now that will trigger emotional responses in you or your family 40 years down the road. Honestly, I’m living proof.

So not only do I suggest that you keep a copy just as it comes out of the camera, but keep ALL of them.

Take care.

Ken

<snip>

paul wrote:

I’ve got questions though… I set my camera to shoot adobeRGB because it should be covering a larger gamut so more to work with when doing adjustments and curves. I shoot in RAW & conver 16 bit, do my adjustments then convert to sRGB 8 bit to have reasonable file sizes and because currently I only have a cheap epson printer. I’d like to get a better 11×17 $500 printer soon though & maybe those adobeRGB RAW files will actually help me get better results. Does this all sound like a good approach? Just use the extra gamut for adjustments then dump it down to a simpler format.

Leave it in AdobeRGB. Only if you use an image for the web, you should convert a copy to sRGB before you ‘save for the web’. But do keep the originals in AdobeRGB.

Question: When converting aRGB to sRGB, I guess it compresses the CMYK to fit inside the smaller gamut rather than simply clipping it? I certainly can’t see any difference on screen.

It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.

Would it be better for printing to go to CMYK? Will a $500 11×17 printer have the drivers to understand any of this or it only matters if I’m sending out for a super trick dye sub or something like that?

No, do not convert to CMYK for printing. The printer driver expects RGB data, and does its own conversion to the printer ink colors. If you feed it CMYK data, it will convert those back yo RGB en then convert to the printer data, meaning you’ve got two unnecessary convertions.

The majority of my product now is going to web pages but I want to have the best RAW files for printing some day for the extra special shots. Should I just keep my RAWs & batch them to sRGB 8-bit JPEGs now & not even worry about the miniscule improvements?

Why don’t you convert them to AdobeRGB TIFF’s? That’s the best format for printing, and if you need a web image you just convert the TIFF to sRGB and save for the web. The original stays in AdobeRGB TIFF.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

paul wrote:

I’ve got questions though… I set my camera to shoot adobeRGB because it should be covering a larger gamut so more to work with when doing adjustments and curves. I shoot in RAW & conver 16 bit, do my adjustments then convert to sRGB 8 bit to have reasonable file sizes and because currently I only have a cheap epson printer. I’d like to get a better 11×17 $500 printer soon though & maybe those adobeRGB RAW files will actually help me get better results. Does this all sound like a good approach? Just use the extra gamut for adjustments then dump it down to a simpler format.

Leave it in AdobeRGB. Only if you use an image for the web, you should convert a copy to sRGB before you ‘save for the web’. But do keep the originals in AdobeRGB.

Hmm so ‘save for web’ isn’t smart enough to convert to sRGB?

I was concerned that my cheap printer doesn’t understand adobeRGB so thought sRGB would be safer.

Question: When converting aRGB to sRGB, I guess it compresses the CMYK to fit inside the smaller gamut rather than simply clipping it? I certainly can’t see any difference on screen.

It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.

But there might be some subtle improvement in prints? Strange concept to not be able to see the bonus colors, what if I don’t like them? <grin> I figure the aRGB just buys me more capture gamut to stretch into the final visible spectrum then it can be dumped. But, as long as it’s not going to be misinterpreted by the printer I guess there is no harm and it doesn’t seem to have an impact on file size. 16 vs 8-bit does have a huge impact on file size.

The majority of my product now is going to web pages but I want to have the best RAW files for printing some day for the extra special shots. Should I just keep my RAWs & batch them to sRGB 8-bit JPEGs now & not even worry about the miniscule improvements?

Why don’t you convert them to AdobeRGB TIFF’s? That’s the best format for printing, and if you need a web image you just convert the TIFF to sRGB and save for the web. The original stays in AdobeRGB TIFF.

My current workflow is to save RAW and open as adobeRGB 16-bit then when adjusted I cram it down to 8-bit PNG’s to minimize file size. If I get a better printer or somebody wants to pay $300 for a big print I’ll recreate it from the RAW. I could even (maybe) forget the PNG and use JPG extra high quality & not notice anything except with huge prints.

A JPG converted from RAW is much better than an in-camera converted JPG in terms of sharpness and being able to adjust but once adjusted there seems little difference. I’m not that picky, I can’t tell the difference but maybe there is a difference printing on a decent printer for certain types of images, I don’t know.

PS here’s an interesting gamut explaining thing:
< http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photograph y/CurvemeisterLabMeter> I did the comparison using:
http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/LabMeter/index.htm Showing sRGB, adobeRGB, cmyk(SWOP) and my little cheapo Epson C80 which actually has a huge gamut comparable to adobeRGB. I guess cmyk(SWOP) is like news print or some such mediocre printing standard? I still don’t really get all this but the differences seem quite significant!

paul wrote:

Hmm so ‘save for web’ isn’t smart enough to convert to sRGB?

No, it isn’t that smart.

I was concerned that my cheap printer doesn’t understand adobeRGB so thought sRGB would be safer.

Color management doesn’t work that way at all. Your image is converted from its source space (AdobeRGB or sRGB) to the printer space. That data is sent to the printer. If you print from Photoshop, you’d normally let Photoshop do that conversion. Your printer does not have to ‘understand AdobeRGB’ because it never gets that.

It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.

But there might be some subtle improvement in prints? Strange concept to not be able to see the bonus colors, what if I don’t like them? <grin> I figure the aRGB just buys me more capture gamut to stretch into the final visible spectrum then it can be dumped. But, as long as it’s not going to be misinterpreted by the printer I guess there is no harm and it doesn’t seem to have an impact on file size. 16 vs 8-bit does have a huge impact on file size.

Yes, there might be subtle improvement. If AdobeRGB contains colors that sRGB does not but your printer space does, then printing from AdobeRGB does print those colors. Converting to sRGB first makes you loose those colors and you don’t get any advantage in return.

My current workflow is to save RAW and open as adobeRGB 16-bit then when adjusted I cram it down to 8-bit PNG’s to minimize file size. If I get a better printer or somebody wants to pay $300 for a big print I’ll recreate it from the RAW. I could even (maybe) forget the PNG and use JPG extra high quality & not notice anything except with huge prints.

TIFF (with LZW compression) is better than PNG, because it’s completely lossless. Compressed TIFF files are not that big, and storage is dead cheap these days. That’s why I convert from RAW to TIFF and use the TIFF as my master (but I do keep the RAW as well, just in case). The more editting you do, the more sense it makes not to have to do all that work all over again if you get a better printer one day.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan W. Elzenga wrote:

paul wrote:

Hmm so ‘save for web’ isn’t smart enough to convert to sRGB?

No, it isn’t that smart.

Hmm thanks. It seems Irfanview isn’t adobeRGB aware either. Colors come out wrong and that (was) my favorite program for viewing on the computer and batch converting and printing. Hmph.

I was concerned that my cheap printer doesn’t understand adobeRGB so thought sRGB would be safer.

Color management doesn’t work that way at all. Your image is converted from its source space (AdobeRGB or sRGB) to the printer space. That data is sent to the printer. If you print from Photoshop, you’d normally let Photoshop do that conversion. Your printer does not have to ‘understand AdobeRGB’ because it never gets that.

I thought the correct color management only worked if you loaded a special driver for the printer. I usually do like to print with Irfanview as it’s easy to fit to the max available size but I guess I’ll have to print from photoshop to get the color management. It sounds like photoshop probably does the conversion and knows if the printer is adobe RGB capable?

It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.

But there might be some subtle improvement in prints? Strange concept to not be able to see the bonus colors, what if I don’t like them? <grin> I figure the aRGB just buys me more capture gamut to stretch into the final visible spectrum then it can be dumped. But, as long as it’s not going to be misinterpreted by the printer I guess there is no harm and it doesn’t seem to have an impact on file size. 16 vs 8-bit does have a huge impact on file size.

Yes, there might be subtle improvement. If AdobeRGB contains colors that sRGB does not but your printer space does, then printing from AdobeRGB does print those colors. Converting to sRGB first makes you loose those colors and you don’t get any advantage in return.

Thanks. I’m gradually understanding better as with the comparison of the gamuts between adobeRGB & my printer mentioned in my other post: < http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photograph y/CurvemeisterLabMeter> That exercise taught me to use the gamut warning (shift-ctl-Y) and I saw major holes in my pics with cmyk SWOP. Converting the profile to cmyk makes those go away and I can see the color shift where cmyk does not handle the deep blues and reds. If I were planning to print in say a magazine or something like that I guess it might be good to convert to cmyk to see the difference on screen even if just as a test preview. The adobeRGB/sRGB difference is much less.

My current workflow is to save RAW and open as adobeRGB 16-bit then when adjusted I cram it down to 8-bit PNG’s to minimize file size…

TIFF (with LZW compression) is better than PNG, because it’s completely lossless. Compressed TIFF files are not that big, and storage is dead cheap these days. That’s why I convert from RAW to TIFF and use the TIFF as my master (but I do keep the RAW as well, just in case). The more editting you do, the more sense it makes not to have to do all that work all over again if you get a better printer one day.

Yeah it’s a whole lot of work bringing 150 pictures from RAW for a big day’s shoot. I’m still not confident of my skills to bother saving huge files for all my shots though. I use a laptop as a desktop replacement so have to use an external drive for the RAW and for the number of pics I take I just don’t have room for more than 7MB/pic. 3MB JPEGs are actually overkill for most of my pics. Out of 150 pics I might put 75 on the web & maybe 1 or two would be real keepers worthy of printing. I could do this a few times a week and things really get out of control quickly. I need to learn to batch them into 1200 tall jpegs for screen viewing & save my energy and HD space for those few nice pics. 95% of the time I’d be OK shooting JPEGs but I really do want the best out of that 5% of keepers.

As I understand PNG is lossless and it’s about half the size of even compressed TIFs.

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 14:22:31 -0800, paul wrote:

Leave it in AdobeRGB. Only if you use an image for the web, you should convert a copy to sRGB before you ‘save for the web’. But do keep the originals in AdobeRGB.

Hmm so ‘save for web’ isn’t smart enough to convert to sRGB?

The web isn’t colour managed. A browser couldn’t care less what colour space you have and, indeed, "Save for Web" strips out an colour space info.

I was concerned that my cheap printer doesn’t understand adobeRGB so thought sRGB would be safer.

Your printer couldn’t care less what colour space the image is in. What you should be doing is turning off colour management in the printer and using PS colour management. Your printer will then print out using CMYLK inks and you’ll get the nearest possible repro.

It compressed the colors, yes. How that’s done depends on the intend. The reason you don’t see it is because your screen cannot display the full AdobeRGB spectrum in the first place.

But there might be some subtle improvement in prints? Strange concept to not be able to see the bonus colors, what if I don’t like them? <grin> I figure the aRGB just buys me more capture gamut to stretch into the final visible spectrum then it can be dumped. But, as long as it’s not going to be misinterpreted by the printer I guess there is no harm and it doesn’t seem to have an impact on file size. 16 vs 8-bit does have a huge impact on file size.

The reason for improvement in the prints is that the sRGB colour space maps the CMYK colour space more closely than the sRGB colour space does. Consequently you’ll get less colour clipping (Or conversion depending on your rendering intent).

Why don’t you convert them to AdobeRGB TIFF’s? That’s the best format for printing, and if you need a web image you just convert the TIFF to sRGB and save for the web. The original stays in AdobeRGB TIFF.

My current workflow is to save RAW and open as adobeRGB 16-bit then when adjusted I cram it down to 8-bit PNG’s to minimize file size. If I get a better printer or somebody wants to pay $300 for a big print I’ll recreate it from the RAW. I could even (maybe) forget the PNG and use JPG extra high quality & not notice anything except with huge prints.

For saving, do what Johann says. I leave all my "negatives" in RAW. Then I have a copy, 16 bit, with adjustment layers as my working image. All images are produced from that second image, with the RAW still there in case, but archived.

A JPG converted from RAW is much better than an in-camera converted JPG in terms of sharpness and being able to adjust but once adjusted there seems little difference.

That, I’m afraid depends on how good you are at making adjustments <g>

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui

You can also view gamuts in 3D at
http://www.iccview.de/index_eng.htm
…. and, if they don’t have the profile(s) you want to view you can upload your own (including paper profiles).

paul wrote:

PS here’s an interesting gamut explaining thing:
< http://www.edgehill.net/1/?SC=go.php&DIR=Misc/photograph y/CurvemeisterLabMeter>
I did the comparison using:
http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/LabMeter/index.htm Showing sRGB, adobeRGB, cmyk(SWOP) and my little cheapo Epson C80 which actually has a huge gamut comparable to adobeRGB. I guess cmyk(SWOP) is like news print or some such mediocre printing standard? I still don’t really get all this but the differences seem quite significant!

Hmmm another question. I have a digital projector for giving slide shows but the contrast is extreme and pretty awful looking. I suppose I could find out the gamut for this thing & batch out versions of my pics suited for this device that would look much better if converted to the specific capabilities. It’s a Dell 2300MP projector. Not much info in the manual, I might just tinker with reducing contrast of the images somehow.