DarrenS
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Oct 9, 2006, 7:56 AM
Post #4 of 7
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Re: [Postal Boy] PS color management
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Here's some tips:
Set your photoshop working profile to whatever your camera shoots in. If camera shoots in aRGB work in that. aRGB is short for 'Adobe RGB 1998'. If it shoots in sRBG like most cameras use that one. Some experts recommend working in huge color space (neither aRGB or sRGB are 'huge'), but I don't. Posterisation can occour too easily that way. If you shoot raw then save your output in aRGB because it allows for a wider amount of colors (bigger gamut) than sRGB and most labs will accept aRGB jpgs. If you're saving a picture for display on the Internet then convert (not 'apply', convert) the color profile of that image to sRGB because that's what most monitors are set at and that's also what most web browsers assume the image is. I don't think IE can even handle color profiles actually, and that's the only browser you care about. It just assumes it's sRBG, which sucks. RAW files don't use color profiles because, well, it's just raw data. They contain a color profile 'flag' with the meta data sometimes, but it doesn't matter. Then go download the proper icc profile for your printer AND paper and use the soft proofing function in photoshop to see what it will look like printed on that particular printer with that particular paper loaded. Don't buy paper from a manufacturer that doesn't supply proper profiles. All of this is useless if you do. Like the cheap stuff from Costco under the name 'Kirkland'. At first it seems liek a good deal but trying finding profiles for it. You won't. In fact the paper in the box could be from any number of different manufacturers. It's inconstent (like buying Lacie products...it's a bloody crap shoot what you're goign to get inside the box). Click View > Proof Setup > Custom and select your printer/paper profile and UNcheck 'retain RGB colors'. Leaving it checked will show you what it would look like without mapping the working profile to the second one (ie. usually pretty sad). Rendering Intent is beyond what I can describe here but for most cases use Perceptual or Relative. Then you can toggle back and forth from printer profile to working profile by clicking View > Proof Colors to see the difference. I'm no expert, I'm just learning all this crap myself so don't shoot me if I'm not totally clear :) I'm fairly certain it's accurate however, as it works well for me. My prints look as they do on-screen with the exception of the limitations of the printer. Few printers, if any, can reproduce the colors a computer monitor can. It's never goign to look as good on paper as it does on your monitor. At least not with today's printers.
All this is assuming your have calibrated your display with a colorimeter and generated an accurate profile for it. If you haven't then color management is all a waste of time. If you have, make sure you disable adobe gamma, which gets installed automatically by photoshop...or else your pc might get confused. I use a gretag-macbeth solution. It has more sensitivity to contrast than the spyder ones, important for wedding gown details.
Hope it helps,
Darren
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Each printer driver works differently so you have to figure out how to disable color management on your own. With the Epson 300 you click 'ICM' under 'Color Management' then check the box that says 'No Color Adjustment'. The other selections are 'Color Controls' and 'PhotoEnhance' and both will screw your colors up. If you do all this and the prints still look bad, perhaps the printer profile wasn't designed to be used outside of the printer driver. In that case you'll have to tell photoshop to 'shut up and listen to your printer driver' (in Print > Preview dialog box) then tell the printer driver to use the profile for your printer and paper (and sometimes even ink). It can be a trial-and-error thing. 