Question regarding color spaces and proofing

WC
Posted By
Will_Campbell
Nov 11, 2005
Views
282
Replies
1
Status
Closed
I’m confused and I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure this out. See if any of you can explain this to me. Here goes….

I converted a color image to black and white in photoshop. I embedded the Dot Gain 20% profile into the file. After all the editing, I decided I wanted to make it my Desktop wallpaper. The profile I have associated with my monitor is sRBG (In Photoshop, my color settings are set to Adobe RGB and Dot Gain 20% for the RGB and Gray work spaces). Suffice to say that the wallpaper image is darker than the image I see in Photoshop. I wanted the wallpaper image to appear as it does in Photoshop. I tried to solve this by using the "Proof Setup" option under the View menu. I went to "Custom" and in the "Device to Simulate" box I found that Apple RGB simulated Dot Gain 20% pretty closely (I kept "Preserve RGB Numbers" checked). I then went to the Color Management settings for Windows and made Apple RGB the default profile. This did not work. The wallpaper image stayed the exact same plus when I opened the image in Photoshop, it was darker (it looked like the wallpaper image). I guess I’m missing something.

Also… when the monitor profile is back to sRGB, I can bring up the image in Photoshop with the embedded Dot Gain 20% profile and go to "View" – "Proof Setup"- "Monitor RGB" and the image looks like the wallpaper image.

Can anybody make sense of this. I have to missing something, but my logic tells me that what I tried should have worked. Thankyou and sorry it is so long and probably confusing.

Thankyou- Will

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m.golner
Nov 15, 2005
wrote:
I’m confused and I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure this out. See if any of you can explain this to me. Here goes….

I converted a color image to black and white in photoshop. I embedded the Dot Gain 20% profile into the file. After all the editing, I decided I wanted to make it my Desktop wallpaper. The profile I have associated with my monitor is sRBG (In Photoshop, my color settings are set to Adobe RGB and Dot Gain 20% for the RGB and Gray work spaces). Suffice to say that the wallpaper image is darker than the image I see in Photoshop. I wanted the wallpaper image to appear as it does in Photoshop. I tried to solve this by using the "Proof Setup" option under the View menu. I went to "Custom" and in the "Device to Simulate" box I found that Apple RGB simulated Dot Gain 20% pretty closely (I kept "Preserve RGB Numbers" checked). I then went to the Color Management settings for Windows and made Apple RGB the default profile. This did not work. The wallpaper image stayed the exact same plus when I opened the image in Photoshop, it was darker (it looked like the wallpaper image). I gues
s I’m missing something.
Also… when the monitor profile is back to sRGB, I can bring up the image in Photoshop with the embedded Dot Gain 20% profile and go to "View" – "Proof Setup"- "Monitor RGB" and the image looks like the wallpaper image.

Can anybody make sense of this. I have to missing something, but my logic tells me that what I tried should have worked. Thankyou and sorry it is so long and probably confusing.

Thankyou- Will

Hi Will,

First off, I have no experience in B&W space, and was hoping someone with some of that experience would reply, so maybe I could learn something about this.

Since no one has, I don’t have all of your answers, but can point out a couple of things that might help.

First, you have sRGB associated with your monitor. Be aware that there are device profiles and editing space profiles. sRGB is an editing profile (color space), and is not intended to be associated with a monitor. You should have a monitor (device) profile associated. Perhaps a generic one came with your monitor. If it’s a crt, you could use Adobe Gamma to create one (often done in conjunction with a calibration procedure). If it’s an lcd, Gamma isn’t recommended. Try Googling ‘monitor calibration software’. There are a lot of free applets out there. Not as effective as a full blown hardware based system (Monaco, GretagMacBeth, ColorVision, etc), but a lot cheaper.

Next point has to do with your proofing method. I think you are close here, but by checking ‘Preserve Color Numbers’, you are not actually proofing the file as though you are converting to that space. Rather, you are showing what a 20% dot gain profile shot will look like viewed in an Apple RGB space *without converting it*. Since it seemed to look OK, this might indicate that the Apple RGB space by coincidence has similar Black and White points to 20% dot gain. To see what it would look like if converted, you need to uncheck ‘Preserve Color Numbers’.

Next point, in your "View" – "Proof Setup"- "Monitor RGB" proof with sRGB set as the monitor profile, what this does is to show you what the shot would look like if you didn’t have a monitor profile. It just does what you did above, using the monitor profile set in the system, and with ‘Preserve Color Numbers’ checked. Since you did this with a color space, not a valid device profile, I’m not sure what it means.

Here’s what you might try. If you have a profile that came with your monitor, try it. Also, do the Google thing and find some of the calibration applets, or use Adobe Gamma. For the calibration, you should set gamma to 2.2, white point (personal preference) at 6500K, and try to get brightness and contrast adjusted so you have good white point and black point definition. This should give you the best chance of seeing the total tonal range of a B&W shot. You could also try working without any monitor profile, but still do the calibration part. It’s my guess that the calibration part (primarily contrast and brightness settings) is at the heart of your display problem.

If all of that fails, though this might be off the wall, try converting your shot to RGB and assign sRGB as the profile. Edit it to the gray tones you like, in sRGB working space, not Adobe RGB 1998, and try displaying it as wallpaper in RGB mode. Alternately, edit it in Adobe RGB 1998 space, then convert the profile to sRGB. The point is that since wallpaper is not displayed in a color managed manner, you need it in sRGB space since that space most accurately matches the average monitor.

Sorry I couldn’t follow your scenario more precisely, but hope this helps to some degree. It’s an inherently confusing subject.

Mike

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