Dummy's Guide To Color Management

Major distractions in life have prevented me from really studying

like I should above proper color configuration for my monitor,

printer, and Photoshop. Are there any quick/easy methods, good

websites for setting things up to work somewhat well as a starting

point?

I'm getting crappy results with my 1270 right now, posterizing, dark

images that do not match my monitor and I'll admit I don't have a

real good idea what is wrong. Ever since going to LCD displays I've

been unable to profile my monitor using Adobe Gamma as well as I

could with Trintron CRT's. The first step -- use contrast and

brightness to make the center square as dark as possible without

being black. Well, CRT days, no problem. LCD days, not even close.

I have no idea why the printer settings which have worked for me in

the past are making posterized looking garbage on my 1270 now. Whats

the path to enlightenment? Uninstall everything and try again?

Do I seem confused? I am.

Mike,

Have any other variables changed other than the monitor. Have you change paper types?

Sometimes if you change paper and don't change your settings for that paper it can really

screw things up. Are you using the same color profile, sRGB, Adobe RGB, ColorMatch?

When you got your new monitor did you install any new software that may have come with

it? Before you do anything drastic just backtrack and try to figure out what may have

changed. You may try resetting the preferences back to the defaults in whatever

application you are using to print from then maybe reinstalling the printer software.

The clue is in your moving from a CRT to an LCD monitor. Adobe Gamma doesn't work on LCDs. The following is a quote from the online help pages for PS6 under the "Guidelines for creating an ICC monitor profile" section.

"Make sure that you are using a standard desktop (CRT) monitor. Adobe Gamma does not work with flat-panel (LCD) monitors"

I have no experience of LCDs so I can't point to the "path to enlightenment" other than to suggest you may need to go for a hardware calibration solution. More of a toll road than a path I know.

The best way to "color management" is not to.

Messing around with profiles here and there are only going to make your life more difficult than it already is. It's like trying to hit a moving target: it's not going to happen.

When you think you've got it right, one print later and you have to start over all over again because it's not 100% right...

"The best way to "color management" is not to."

Obviously written by someone who hasn't the faintest idea about how color management works. You probably don't own a color calibration system because you don't think they work, and they're just a "waste of money." If you printed on expensive paper at large sizes, you'd find out that the calibration system pays for itself fairly rapidly.

"Messing around with profiles here and there are only going to make your life more difficult than it already is."

Actually, monitor calibration and printer profiling makes your life easier because there's never a second thought that what you see on the screen won't be reproduced the same on the printer. You know that what you see is what the print will look like.

"It's like trying to hit a moving target: it's not going to happen."

Quite the contrary. What you've really done is take an uncontrolled system and fixed it at a calibrated point that doesn't change. In reality, the uncalibrated system is a moving target, while a calibrated system represents a fixed target that never moves.

"When you think you've got it right, one print later and you have to start over all over again because it's not 100% right..."

Just the opposite. Your description is exactly correct for an uncalibrated system. For a calibrated system, you move from image to image with no thought as to whether the print will match the monitor because you know it will. Calibration and profiling ELIMINATE the variables.

I guess removing variables is a difficult concept for some people to understand.

I just switched from a CRT to an LCD (Eizo L997). I have a color test photo that I use to verify calibration and printer profiling. I had to adjust the LCD through its software program and get the LCD at 6500K prior to profiling, and set the gamma at 2.2. The software knew it was an LCD because it sensed the digital video connection and brought up the correct calibration targets. Once profiled, my calibration photo viewed on the LCD matched the master print edited with the CRT.

As stated in a previous post, the only way you can really setup an LCD is through a color calibration system. Adobe Gamma won't even get you close.

As to "why" you calibrate and profile, I have two printers, an Epson 9600 and an Epson 1280. I can make a print on either printer and it matches the monitor.

I don't have to dick around with sliders in the printer control to attempt to remove color imbalances that somehow magically occured between the image on the monitor and the print. They don't occur because the system's input, viewing, and output are calibrated, profiled, and totally controlled.

No wasted time, no wasted materials - what a concept.

My short answer to you, Mike, is that you should get a hardware calibrator.

I, too, have an LCD display. When I got my Monaco OptixXR late last fall, I really read my LCD monitor manual to understand what I am supposed to do to adjust the RGB levels. I discovered that I had been setting my LCD display to be for a colder, more blue image! The ViewSonic VG150 comes with the RGB control, which has three possible settings, preset 1 for a bluer image, preset 2 for a reddish image and user for adjusting RGB individually.

I did experience your problem using Adobe Gamma myself. The only solution is to get yourself a hardware calibrator. I am much more confident with my graphic file looking correct and was able to soft-proof the image when I sent out my digital files to an out-of-state vendor for printing. I even made a hard proof using my Alps MD100 printer in its dye-sub printing mode.

Subject: Response to Dummy's Guide To Color Management

It is difficult to know where you are starting from to give a specific response.

The following is the result of my own experience and search for a path out of the confusion of 'color management'. A couple of elementary points that I discovered on the way to my now dimly lit enlightenment.

The default setting of the Epson printer driver, in the printing preferences panel shows a panel with; color management, color control, photoenhance and standard or vivid options, with many possibilities to change brightness and color. (There are many variants of the panel it depends on your printer. These default settings produce at best a 'fair' result.

It took me ages to realize that setting up photoshop or whatever print program to use an ICC profile and turning off the Epson printer driver color management was the preferable approach. My initial prints all had double profiles one in Photoshop and one in the Epson driver at the default setting; this was a waste of time and money in expensive ink and paper.

It is also important when changing to an LCD monitor that you remove Adobe Gamma from your system to ensure the profile you set for your CRT is not still active, interfering with your current LCD monitor adjustments, another problem similar to the double profile that I experienced.

There is no single 'button' to press that gives perfect, instant results. You can get good results with very little study and setting a small number of parameters in photoshop, for free guidance you can follow the tutorials on the example sites I have given below.

For more thorough explanation I have found this book useful.

Color Confidence by Tim Grey ISBN: 0-7821-4316-4

There is more than enough information and guidance in it for me to get 'confident'. The book has already paid for itself ten times over for me. The saving in stopping the waste of time and paper trying to get things 'right' by my previous 'random' adjustment approach, justified the purchase. Be prepared to invest in the hardware mentioned in the book, and as mentioned by others answers to your question on the forum, for the very best results.

It may be that you are working with a more basic problem. As you are using Photoshop it is worth doing the basic checks, these tutorial sites may be of help:

http://www.arraich.com/ps6_tips_colormanage1.htm

http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/techsupport/photoshop6-tutorial-1.html

There are many other sites with similar tutorials, it is worth checking out a few to see which one suits your level of understanding and addresses your specific problem.

Almost all good print software systems will have similar ICC profile color management. The alternatives I use (Q-image and Nikon Capture Editor) are much simpler than Photoshop, which is by comparison is 'comprehensive' with facilities that are well beyond anything I will ever use at home.

If you feel the need to get your LCD to closely match the printout then hardware profiling is necessary, as said by other respondents.

Attempting to get a match manually by adjusting the color temperature and the RGB colors individually, in gamma, contrast and brightness, where every change interact with all the other settings is not a sensible use of anyone's time. The possible combinations are close to infinite and tiny changes in any one of the parameters can have a very noticeable effect on the overall color. This is no way for anyone to spend his or her time.

Bear in mind that even with hardware profiling the LCD or CRT will never be a perfect match to a print. The objective is to get the mismatch small enough that you do not have to guess what will happen to the next print and you can achieve a consistent predictable result that is pleasing to you. (I am assuming amateur photography for pleasure, not for commercial selling, or reproduction where the requirement for closed loop consistency and color accuracy over many years is vital).

It is possible to work at home with a monitor in an 'arbitrary' color temperature and with no specific profiling to match the printouts, provided the difference is small enough for you to live with and you understand the difference between the monitor and the prints. Once you have acceptable results living with the difference is not so hard, at least until you get your system profiled. It is perhaps better to be consistently and predictably 'wrong' than attempting to make continual random changes. It is like having a stopped watch, which is right twice a day, rather than a watch that runs a minute fast a day, which is almost never right.

POW! Knocked that one out of the park, thanks Jim B.

And thanks everyone else as well. I knew, even with my poorly phrased and liberally confused brain dump I would get useful answers from this forum.

I'm going to get that book and a hardware method of calibrating my display. Once there, I'll figure out profiles for my 1270.

Mike

OK so I'm still waiting on my color mgmt books from Amazon, but I did get it working very nice. At least my printer output. My LCD monitor is ridiculously "disprofiled" right now.

I set my Photoshop color settings to "US Prepress defaults", then I Print with Preview, select the Epson 1270 color profile, and in the printer settings select "ICM". This combination has actually given me repeatable results.

I guess I need a device like the Monaco XR or whatnot to profile my LCD monitors.

Mike