Hi All,
I"ve been lurking here for a while, getting to know the company. I’m a long time photographer, film and digital and found myself dissatisfied with the color prints I was getting. This all leads into color management, which is not simple. There is one book that one should at least attempt to read and that is "Real World Color Management" by Bruce Fraser et all. If this book doesn’t confuse you, you are already an expert.
I read above various comments about color space and color profiles that appear confused, if not confusing. Briefly, a color space defines the limited colors that can be seen or reproduced by a particular system, i.e., camera, monitor, printer, scanner compared to the human eye. If the color you want to see is not in the defined color space, then there is <no> possibility of ever seeing it on a monitor or reproducing it on paper.
The <accuracy> of the color that is generated by a monitor, for example, is determined by the (icc) color profile of the monitor. If you cannot calibrate your monitor, at least try to use the icc profile supplied by the monitor manufacturer unless there is a glaring issue ( have had this problem.) sRGB is poor compromise developed years ago in the time of poor quality; it is a least common denominator for displays and excludes many colors. Compare it to the even more limited "color space" of safe HTML colors. Using even an inexpensive monitor calibrator like the Huey will bring you miles ahead.
How do you share these pictures? If you use the web, change the profile to sRGB, the least common denominator. Use perceptual rendering or relative colorimetric representation. This way you will not display a color to someone else’s monitor that they will see inappropriately. You have shrunk the color space and have fewer colors than originally. Hope they also have a calibrated monitor, using a correct icc profile.
Printing? A whole new can of worms. What color on the print corresponds to what color on the monitor? First, printers and their papers/inks have their own color space, that is, the range of colors that they can reproduce. But first you have to generate a color profile, an icc profile, that attempts in the best possible way to have colors on the monitor correspond to the best representation on the print.
To go from the general to the specific, if one is using camera raw data, there is no color space for the camera. One can be generated for a camera but it is not for the faint of heart.
Now, one picks a color space to work in. Use the widest you can, like ProPhoto. Your raw data is now presented on the monitor using the ProPhoto color space with the monitor profile you have chosen, hopefully one you have generated yourself. If you use sRGB, you will have thrown away all colors outside of the sRGB color space but are in the standard IEC color space representation.
Now save the image from camera raw to PSD, jpeg, tiff or whatever. What color space will you use? sRGB for monitors, the least common denominator. For printing, the widest gamut possible, ProPhoto.
To make a print, it’s color space is determined by the printer, it’s inks, and the paper. Now you need a color profile <in that color space.>.If you can calibrate the printer to match the colors printed with IEC color using for example, a ColorMunki, all better. If not, use the printer manufacturer’s recommendations and the associated icc profile. If you use a different manufacturer’s inks or others’ paper, you are on your own unless they supply you with icc profiles for your printer, their ink and that specific paper.
My hope here is not to generate heat but light. No flames. I have never done this before but the itch got to me. I’m open to correction, criticism, etc, but please no name calling.
Paul Simon
"Evan" wrote in message
My workign method is to set my camera to the largest colour space possible, edit it with the largest colour space, and as long as my monitor is calibrated as best as possible, I will let my printer handle the colour at its best setting, just the same as the fact that I work at a higher resolution than the final output size.