Do you colour manage your workflow?

[Ian]

Here's a quick poll concerning colour management.

Click on whichever applies to you.

Ian

[Stephen]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

Here's a quick poll concerning colour management.

Click on whichever applies to you.

Ian

How does one profile a camera? Apart from using Adobe RGB or sRGB I have used some software that needs to know your camera, but thats about it

[JSR]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

I'm not sure I can enter this poll. I just tend to send the photo to printer and trust to luck - works close enough for me.

Do you...
Calibrate your monitor (software-only method)? No.
Calibrate your monitor (using hardware)? No.
Do you use off the shelf custom printer profiles? No.
Have you used a custom printer profiling service? No.
Do you profile your printer yourself? No.
Do you profile your scanner? No.
Do you profile your camera? No.
Do you feel you know enough about colour management? No.

That's a very poor showing from me here. (I guess the R1800 just makes it all too easy for me... ) I'm trying to read up on colour management at the moment because I use sublimation inks (with supplied profile) on one of my 1290s, and it's very difficult to figure out which bit needs tweaking where to get the right output.

Just been trying Qimage over the last couple of days, and that's certainly made things a bit easier.

JSR

[Danny Chau]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

The proper way to make camera profile is to use a test target such as the GretagMacbeth SG digital camera test target, you first use the white point on the test chart to neutralise the white balance then capture the test chart. The trick is after the image is captured (RAW) format, the profile that the camera automatically attached to the image file must be removed. Some professional digital camera capture softwares would allow no profile to be attached to the file. Then the image of the test chart is to run through a colour management program to make the camera profile.

In order to use the camera profile properly, the original file must not have any profile (ie sRGB or Adobe RGB) attached. In Photoshop the preferences must be set to ask before opening when profile mismatches or missing. Once the file is opened, another box will be displayed with three more options. Choose the last option - where it will allow one to pickup the camera profile then convert to the working colour space.

Camera profiling is to be used where colour accuracy is critical (fine art reproduction for example), for normal photography a custom white balance on white or grey card would be sufficient.

The best I have experienced is 95% accuracy to the original, with the latest SG chart, but try to print it is another story.

Danny

[spl]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

I am a complete novice in this area - I don't even own a printer - how's that for newbie status - but I have just been given a book for my birthday called "The hidden power of Photoshop Elements 4" by Richard Lynch and am trying to work through it. One of the first chapters guides you through calibrating your monitor using the Elements program facility to do it however they say you need to get manufacturer recommended values for things like phospher levels etc. and Dell will just not supply me with these so I cannot calibrate my monitor.

Next they do a section on profiling but the explanation is a bit superficial although interesting and I have been left with a lot of conceptual vacuums - but I will go back to it later I have decided just to plough through the rest of the book first.
sue

[JSR]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

"The hidden power of Photoshop Elements 4" by Richard Lynch

Richard Lynch? Isn't he that guy who used to play the baddie in 80s US action TV shows?

I can't recall too many episodes in which he stopped terrorising "The A-Team" for long enough to write a Photoshop Elements book. I must have missed that episode.

[spl]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

naw - that's a different guy (much better looking too)

[alpreston]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

Do you...
Calibrate your monitor (software-only method)? I've tried, but it doesn't work well
Calibrate your monitor (using hardware)? I've tried, but haven't had much success - it always seems to end up with a monitor that's far too bright and contrasty
Do you use off the shelf custom printer profiles? Yes
Have you used a custom printer profiling service? No.
Do you profile your printer yourself? Not yet
Do you profile your scanner? Not yet
Do you profile your camera? No.
Do you feel you know enough about colour management? No.

[Ian]

Re: Do you colour manage your workflow?

Do you...
Calibrate your monitor (software-only method)? I've tried, but it doesn't work well
Calibrate your monitor (using hardware)? I've tried, but haven't had much success - it always seems to end up with a monitor that's far too bright and contrasty
Do you use off the shelf custom printer profiles? Yes
Have you used a custom printer profiling service? No.
Do you profile your printer yourself? Not yet
Do you profile your scanner? Not yet
Do you profile your camera? No.
Do you feel you know enough about colour management? No.

Inexpensive monitors are difficult to calibrate properly and are often too bright. Some profiling procedures recommend setting brightness and contrast to maximum to start with, but you may well have to reduce brightness significantly.

Also, a screen calibrated properly may not be as vibrant as a screen fresh out of the box. Remember, the goal is to match what you see on the screen with what you get out of your printer.

Ian