Posted by Kevin Trinkner on September 18, 2008 at 8:59 PM
So I followed the instructions for my i1 monitor calibration, it assigned a monitor profile, so what do I do now?
Do I need to assign this profile to images in photoshop, or does it just mean my monitor is where it should be.
I'm sure this question really shows my inexperience in this world of digital photography, but I want to do this right...
Thanks for any suggestions.
Posted by Phillip Noll on September 18, 2008 at 9:26 PM
If you assigned the profile the i1 generated at the end of the measuring process, then it means that your monitor is now displaying accurate colors. The i1 measures the colors your monitor produces and relates them to a standard and then, through the ICC profile the i1 generated, adjusts your monitor output to display accurate color (within the monitor's gamut [color range]).
You do not need to assign the monitor profile to images in Photoshop. Instead, in Photoshop you need to establish a "Working Color Space". Many people use Adobe RGB and many use ProPhoto RGB--the latter being a much larger color space (and there are many others). Which one you use is a personal choice. When I "develop" my raw images I convert the image to the ProPhoto color space. Because ProPhoto is so large (gamut), I generally do not lose any colors through this conversion. If I converted to Adobe RGB (and especially sRGB) I will lose some colors. Maybe not enough to really see the difference but they are gone nonetheless and you cannot get them back.
The color gamut of a digital camera image is a bit larger than Adobe RGB (for certain colors) whereas the ProPhoto RGB gamut can generally encompass all colors within a digital image. Some people prefer ProPhoto for the extra "headroom". It is quite possible that future printers will have larger color gamuts and thus if your working space is ProPhoto, you might be able to take advantage of those colors in the future. Currently however, most printers reproduce much less than Adobe RGB. Some monitors/displays can reproduce nearly all of Adobe RGB.
So which color space you pick for your working space depends on several things: the gamut of your printer/paper/ink combination, whether or not you're OK with losing a few colors, and whether or not you will be printing these images in the future with much better printer/paper/ink combinations than we have now.
I'm sure others will chime in and I hope they correct anything I may have misstated.
Posted by John Mumaw on September 18, 2008 at 9:47 PM
When you send your images to El-Co for enlargements or post them to the Web,
just tag them with sRGB color space (Edit->Convert to Profile->sRGB) .
Posted by Kevin Trinkner on September 19, 2008 at 8:19 AM
Thanks guys, sure is a lot to learn here.
When it comes to printing do you guys recommend printing as jpeg, tiff, psd? Is there an advantage of printing one file format over the other?
One thing I really struggle with is my prints from my Canon Pro 9000 compared to the colors I see on my monitor...
Posted by Phillip Noll on September 19, 2008 at 9:09 AM
Personally, the only thing I use jpg for is web display or slide shows. Most of my files are tiff. When I work in Photoshop I may save a file as a layered psd but when I print it I flatten and convert to tiff. However, I'm thinking of making use of the DNG format for my images because it is an open standard and has some benefits over tiff.
Back to printing.....to get prints off of your printer that match what you see on your monitor requires a couple things:
First, and you have already taken care of this, is that you must have a calibrated (a better word is probably "profiled") monitor. Make sure your monitor luminance is 120-140 cd/m2. I've had some problems with this lately because I couldn't dim my LCD screen enough until I found a 3rd-party app to take care of the problem.
Second, you need good ICC profiles for your printer/paper/ink combination. Most printer manufacturers provide some profiles and they are usually very good. You can create them yourself if your i1 is set up for measuring printer-generated color swatches.
Third, you need to soft-proof in Photoshop. First, get your image exactly the way you want it in Photoshop and save it. To soft proof I usually make two identical copies of the image and open them both in Photoshop. I then click Window>Arrange>Vertical so I can see them side by side. I select one of the images and then I click on View>Proof Setup>Custom and select the ICC (sometimes called ICM) profile for my printer/ink/paper or canvas combination. When you do this Photoshop tries to approximate what the image will look like when printed. It usually looks a little different than the original. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes there are obvious differences--depends on the ink/paper part of the ICC profile mainly. Then I tweak the image with the ICC profile applied to make it look just like the original (as much as possible) and save it (I usually put "proof" in the file name). Do not convert the image to the printer/paper/ink profile-leave the image profile as is. Send this modified file to your printer.
A note about rendering intents:
The most confusing aspect of color management, in my opinion, is rendering intents. I've read many articles and books on the subject and it doesn't ever seem to get much clearer! ;-) Basically, for photographs either from a digital camera or a scanner, you would only use one of two rendering intents: Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric. The Saturation rendering intent is pretty much useless and Absolute Colorimetric is only used as a color simulator. So which one do I use for photos? I almost always use Perceptual rendering because in general the color gamut of the print is much smaller than that of the color space I use in Photoshop (I use ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB). So when I print my digital photograph the software has to deal with a lot of out-of-gamut colors. With Perceptual rendering, all the colors in the image are adjusted until the image's color gamut fits within the printer's color gamut. You may loose a tiny amount of saturation or luminance but it is the best in preserving the relationships of the colors to each other. Relative Colorimetric can produce a good result but if your image has lots of colors that fall outside the gamut of the printer, you can get banding and posterization--not good! This is because Relative Colorimetric moves all the out-of-gamut colors to the nearest in gamut color (sometimes converting many different colors to one single color) while the in gamut colors do not change. Relative colorimetric is usually used for vector graphics such as Illustrator files or for photographs where most of the colors are within the gamut of the printer (which isn't very often: some pastel images or low saturation images may work well with Relative Colorimetric). So in general, for digital photographs use Perceptual Rendering.
Yes, there is a lot to learn! There is tons of info on the web and a good book would be worth the investment if color accurate prints are important to you. Hope this helps!
Posted by Arlen Fletcher on September 19, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Phillip,
My Canon 5D let's me select sRGB or Adobe RGB for it's color space. I've selected Adobe RGB of course. However, I can't imagine that I would gain anything by converting my Adobe RGB RAW images to ProPhoto RGB after I import the image into PS because the color gamut has already been limited by the camera. What are your thoughts on this?
Posted by Phillip Noll on September 19, 2008 at 9:24 AM
I believe that the color space setting in your camera only applies to jpgs. If you shoot raw, you chose the color space when developing your raw files in your raw converter (Adobe Camera Raw, Capture One, etc.). It's usually one of the "output" settings. When I convert my raw images I convert to tiff or dng and select ProPhoto as the color space. This gives me a lossless format and preserves all the colors my camera sensor recorded. I always shoot raw because it gives me the most control over how my final images look. It also take the most time!
If your image is already in AdobeRGB or sRGB, you would gain nothing by converting it to a larger color space such as ProPhoto. The conversion process does not create new colors, it merely maps the existing colors to the new space. It would be like putting a tennis ball in a 5 gallon bucket! Going the other way, from ProPhoto or Adobe RGB to sRGB (for web output) the conversion causes loss of some colors in your image. Here you are putting a tennis ball into a 12oz. soda can! You've gotta trim it down to get it to fit so some of the colors are lost.
Keep in mind that many of these color changes are quite subtle. I often notice it the most in the reds, pinks, and magentas.
Posted by John Mumaw on September 19, 2008 at 9:36 AM
If you want to start soft proofing your images, the El-Co Color Labs page that I referred you to earlier has a downloadable profile with simple instructions on how to install/use it for soft proofing only in the 'Color Management' link.
I don't know of any lab that will accept PSD files, and no printer that I'm aware of can work with 16 bit files. For a 20x30 enlargement, I would stick with 8 bit flattened TIFF files. Also, make sure that your image can fit the 20"x30" (or 24"x30") aspect ratio before you send them the files.
Posted by PHEROLD on September 19, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Kevin,
If you are trying to get your monitor to match your Canon printer, here is an article that should help. It is written without a lot of technical language. It explains all the puzzle pieces that need to be in place for these two to match. You've got many of the pieces already it sounds like.
Discussion
9 repliesSo I followed the instructions for my i1 monitor calibration, it assigned a monitor profile, so what do I do now?
Do I need to assign this profile to images in photoshop, or does it just mean my monitor is where it should be.
I'm sure this question really shows my inexperience in this world of digital photography, but I want to do this right...
Thanks for any suggestions.
You do not need to assign the monitor profile to images in Photoshop. Instead, in Photoshop you need to establish a "Working Color Space". Many people use Adobe RGB and many use ProPhoto RGB--the latter being a much larger color space (and there are many others). Which one you use is a personal choice. When I "develop" my raw images I convert the image to the ProPhoto color space. Because ProPhoto is so large (gamut), I generally do not lose any colors through this conversion. If I converted to Adobe RGB (and especially sRGB) I will lose some colors. Maybe not enough to really see the difference but they are gone nonetheless and you cannot get them back.
The color gamut of a digital camera image is a bit larger than Adobe RGB (for certain colors) whereas the ProPhoto RGB gamut can generally encompass all colors within a digital image. Some people prefer ProPhoto for the extra "headroom". It is quite possible that future printers will have larger color gamuts and thus if your working space is ProPhoto, you might be able to take advantage of those colors in the future. Currently however, most printers reproduce much less than Adobe RGB. Some monitors/displays can reproduce nearly all of Adobe RGB.
So which color space you pick for your working space depends on several things: the gamut of your printer/paper/ink combination, whether or not you're OK with losing a few colors, and whether or not you will be printing these images in the future with much better printer/paper/ink combinations than we have now.
I'm sure others will chime in and I hope they correct anything I may have misstated.
Color management can get confusing so I recommend a good book such as "Real World Color Management".
Norman Koren has a website with extensive information about color management though it can get a bit technical: http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html
Soft Proofing
Printer Color Management
DSLR Workflow
just tag them with sRGB color space (Edit->Convert to Profile->sRGB) .
When it comes to printing do you guys recommend printing as jpeg, tiff, psd? Is there an advantage of printing one file format over the other?
One thing I really struggle with is my prints from my Canon Pro 9000 compared to the colors I see on my monitor...
Back to printing.....to get prints off of your printer that match what you see on your monitor requires a couple things:
First, and you have already taken care of this, is that you must have a calibrated (a better word is probably "profiled") monitor. Make sure your monitor luminance is 120-140 cd/m2. I've had some problems with this lately because I couldn't dim my LCD screen enough until I found a 3rd-party app to take care of the problem.
Second, you need good ICC profiles for your printer/paper/ink combination. Most printer manufacturers provide some profiles and they are usually very good. You can create them yourself if your i1 is set up for measuring printer-generated color swatches.
Third, you need to soft-proof in Photoshop. First, get your image exactly the way you want it in Photoshop and save it. To soft proof I usually make two identical copies of the image and open them both in Photoshop. I then click Window>Arrange>Vertical so I can see them side by side. I select one of the images and then I click on View>Proof Setup>Custom and select the ICC (sometimes called ICM) profile for my printer/ink/paper or canvas combination. When you do this Photoshop tries to approximate what the image will look like when printed. It usually looks a little different than the original. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes there are obvious differences--depends on the ink/paper part of the ICC profile mainly. Then I tweak the image with the ICC profile applied to make it look just like the original (as much as possible) and save it (I usually put "proof" in the file name). Do not convert the image to the printer/paper/ink profile-leave the image profile as is. Send this modified file to your printer.
A note about rendering intents:
The most confusing aspect of color management, in my opinion, is rendering intents. I've read many articles and books on the subject and it doesn't ever seem to get much clearer! ;-) Basically, for photographs either from a digital camera or a scanner, you would only use one of two rendering intents: Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric. The Saturation rendering intent is pretty much useless and Absolute Colorimetric is only used as a color simulator. So which one do I use for photos? I almost always use Perceptual rendering because in general the color gamut of the print is much smaller than that of the color space I use in Photoshop (I use ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB). So when I print my digital photograph the software has to deal with a lot of out-of-gamut colors. With Perceptual rendering, all the colors in the image are adjusted until the image's color gamut fits within the printer's color gamut. You may loose a tiny amount of saturation or luminance but it is the best in preserving the relationships of the colors to each other. Relative Colorimetric can produce a good result but if your image has lots of colors that fall outside the gamut of the printer, you can get banding and posterization--not good! This is because Relative Colorimetric moves all the out-of-gamut colors to the nearest in gamut color (sometimes converting many different colors to one single color) while the in gamut colors do not change. Relative colorimetric is usually used for vector graphics such as Illustrator files or for photographs where most of the colors are within the gamut of the printer (which isn't very often: some pastel images or low saturation images may work well with Relative Colorimetric). So in general, for digital photographs use Perceptual Rendering.
Yes, there is a lot to learn! There is tons of info on the web and a good book would be worth the investment if color accurate prints are important to you. Hope this helps!
My Canon 5D let's me select sRGB or Adobe RGB for it's color space. I've selected Adobe RGB of course. However, I can't imagine that I would gain anything by converting my Adobe RGB RAW images to ProPhoto RGB after I import the image into PS because the color gamut has already been limited by the camera. What are your thoughts on this?
If your image is already in AdobeRGB or sRGB, you would gain nothing by converting it to a larger color space such as ProPhoto. The conversion process does not create new colors, it merely maps the existing colors to the new space. It would be like putting a tennis ball in a 5 gallon bucket! Going the other way, from ProPhoto or Adobe RGB to sRGB (for web output) the conversion causes loss of some colors in your image. Here you are putting a tennis ball into a 12oz. soda can! You've gotta trim it down to get it to fit so some of the colors are lost.
Keep in mind that many of these color changes are quite subtle. I often notice it the most in the reds, pinks, and magentas.
I don't know of any lab that will accept PSD files, and no printer that I'm aware of can work with 16 bit files. For a 20x30 enlargement, I would stick with 8 bit flattened TIFF files. Also, make sure that your image can fit the 20"x30" (or 24"x30") aspect ratio before you send them the files.
If you are trying to get your monitor to match your Canon printer, here is an article that should help. It is written without a lot of technical language. It explains all the puzzle pieces that need to be in place for these two to match. You've got many of the pieces already it sounds like.
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Printer_to_Match_my_Screen