Confussed about Adobe color vs monitor color

[annie_nyle]

Please help me, I am now very lost, and its probably something quite easy to

understand.Maybe I'm having a blonde moment. Anyway, a recent post asked about

the difference in color when she opened the file in an Adobe program vs the

any other program other then adobe. I have the same issue, and I think I

understood. So here is my confussion: Should I work under the adobe 1998 color

(in photoshop under view, proof setup, working CMYK)or should I be working

under the Monitor one, further down the list. I question is this, the pictures

I edit through photoshop, I upload on to a slideshow, the colors will be off

(more gray and dark), but then the same pictures I send to the lab, which ones

will print, the dark version, or the version I see in an adobe program? This

is very confussing, cause when I tried to print a sample through my computer,

I had the option of choosing the color setting, and when I printed both

version you could tell the difference. So which proof setup should I work

under? I don't want to edit them all under the montior setup, and then recieve

overly bright pictures. Please help, cause now I'm holding off on all my

photoshop until I understand this.

[trenternst]

Kettle of Fish, kettle of fish. No, this is not easy to understand.

 

First, go out and buy Bruce Fraser's Real World Color Management, because he has

pictures and illustrations and a couple hundred pages to answer, but here is the short

answer:

 

Your proof setup shows you what your image will look like when outputted on a variety of

devices. It does this by looking at the gamut and guessing. Well, guessing is a bit of

overstatement, but if you are printing something on paper, the reflected image is going to

be different than the projected image from your computer screen.

 

What you see under proof set-up, working CMYK is *not* the actual colour space of the

file (unless you're working in CMYK), but the computer's best representation of how these

colours will look once printed. CMYK is what printers (as in off-set web press, not Epson

2200) use to output.

 

Your *actual* working space will most likely be an RGB space, sRGB or ( better) Adobe RGB

(1998)

 

Assuming your printer (here meaning neither of the above, but the person who is taking

your file to print) is not outputting on a web press, most likely, you want to keep the

colour space of your file as RGB.

 

SO. Having confused you, here is how I work it.

 

IMPORT PHOTO as an Adobe RGB (1998) file. This is a preference set on the camera. You

don't want to use sRGB, because it is a smaller colour space, meaning that you won't see

as many pretty colours. If you are shooting Camera RAW, I believe you can change this

preference in your RAW converter from sRGB to Adobe RGB (1998) without actually

damaging the file, but I'd need someone a bit smarter in the ways of RAW to confirm that.

 

Get the photo looking the way you like it in ADOBE RGB (1998). This, most likely, is the file

that your lab will want, but talk to them. They might have a colour profile for the output

device they are using.

 

If they do send you a colour profile for that device, here is where you use soft proofing

(View: Proof Setup:Custom:Lab Profile).

 

Some labs want you to convert the file to that working space, others just want you to send

the Adobe RGB file, and they'll handle the conversion. Again, talk to your lab.

 

So, that should handle the printing side of things. Now for display on the web. You'd think

because you're using an RGB profile, other programs would understand it, but no. When

you output the file to a slideshow or a web gallery, the profile is usually assumed to be

sRGB, which, as we've already determined, has a smaller colour space. So, it starts ditching

the colours from Adobe RGB to fit within the smaller colour space. Thus, the grey/dark

issue.

 

What you need to do is, back in photoshop, open up a COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL FILE!!!

(that's important). Then go under Image:Mode:Convert to Profile, and convert to sRGB.

Convert looks at how the colours currently display, looks at the space your putting the file

into, and does its best to preserve the colours in the destination space.

 

Save this new file as your slideshow/web version of the file. This *should* make all things

better.

 

If not, come back with more questions and the specific software you're using.

 

Just a note, Lightroom handles these conversions more or less seamlessly. Get things

looking exactly the way you want, then hit Export and select either Adobe RGB or sRGB as

your colour space. Adobe for printing, sRGB for web. If you screw up, your original file is

still safe and sound.

 

That is the short answer. Like I say, there are books and books on this topic. It is not easy

to wrap your head around, blonde, red or other, so don't think yourself stupid. At the

same time, it is very important if colour is important to you.

[sandy_labana]

Annie: yes it is confusing. Let me try to make it understable. There are three things to

keep in mind. First the colors in a photo files are set in your camera or at conversion from

Raw file. Using specified color space ( in your camera or using option in Raw converter),

the computer asigns numbers to represent various colors. When you open a file by color

managed application e.g. Photoshop, the application reads the numbers for colors and

interpreters them using translation based on the color space. After transalation, the

application then displays the colors using the monitor color profile. Now photoshop will

always use monitor display profile and you are not even aware of it. Another confusion

comes in if your working space is different than the color space specified in the camera or

Camera Raw. Since there are so many profiles, color spaces have to match, it is easy to

make mistake and get differenty cokors on various devices including printers. One

common mistake is inverdantly applying a profile twice. Since common labs will print your

photos assuming sRGB color space, you can get good results by: 1. Caliberate your

monitor, 2. Set your camera at sRGB or if shooting in Raw, open in sRGB space. 2, Set your

working space to sRGB, 3. Edit your files. 4. You want to know how your image will look

on any device, go to Edit, select assign profile and select the profile of the device, the

color you see are the color you will get on that device. If everything is not matched, then

it is anybody;s guess. If have advanced knowledge and use custom labs, then you can do

things in amny different ways, but first I will try the above scheme. Hope this helps.

Sandy

[colinsouthern]

Trent Ernst wrote: [snip] "Bruce Fraser's Real World Color Management"

 

It's a great book, although somewhat "heavy-going" in places. By the way, it's written by (the late) Bruce Fraser, Fred Bunting, and Chris Murphy.

 

http://www.amazon.com/World-Color-Management-Bruce-Fraser/dp/0201773406

[trenternst]

Sandy wrote: [snip] "Since common labs will print your photos assuming sRGB color space,

you can get good results by: 1. Caliberate your monitor, 2. Set your camera at sRGB or if

shooting in Raw, open in sRGB space. 2, Set your working space to sRGB..."

 

I would most certainly not advise doing that. While it is true that low end labs assume

sRGB, that is no reason to shoot in sRGB. sRGB encompasses 35% of visible colours

specified by CIE, while Adobe RGB encompasses about 50%, with much broader tonality in

the cyans. You're throwing away nearly half the colour information by going to sRGB.

 

While the difference may not be noticeable if you get your photos printed at wal-mart, you

will notice a difference on higher end printers. Also, as printers get better, they are able to

print a broader gamut of colours, so that Adobe RGB is starting to give way to the Pro

Photo profile.

 

Like I said, Kettle of Fish, and you'll probably get a variety of different answers. And while I

am quite vocal in my opinions, there are places where sRGB is actually a useful colour

space. It is the defacto monitor colour profile, for instance.

 

As mentioned, a program like lightroom does tend to take and cut through the confusion

an awful lot. The file is held in its original RAW form, and you can choose to output a

variety of different profiles, and create a preset "Use this when printing at Wal Mart" Use

this for Asuka Books" "Use this for Web"

 

Much of what I do is an attempt to future proof my files. While outputting something as an

sRGB file might be fine now, in three years, printing technology may have changed and the

narrow gamut it presents will seem dull. Keeping your original in a file with a larger gamut

like Adobe RGB or better yet, Pro Photo will help. If you have no desire to future-proof

your files, then by all means, find something that works and go for it.

 

...and we haven't even mentioned the importance of calibrating your monitor.

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

Lot's of long and complicated answers, if I can try and make it simple..

<p>

sRGB= Regular amount of colours<br>

Adobe '98= Lots of colours<br>

ProPhoto= Stupidly huge amount of colours<p>

 

Most photo labs use a LED system with close to the amount of colours that sRGB has. This is incidentally the colour space that your camera will use for jpg's. Therefore you should work in sRGB given that it is close to what the print will be. Some say that you should work in Adobe '98 and then convert as the last step of the workflow. I can't see what the point is unless you're doing major changes to an image and want to be able to print it out with even more colours later on using an inkjet for example.

<p>

An pro inkjet will be able to print the amount of colours which is somewhere between Adobe '98 and Prophoto. Again, to avoid disappointment and colours not looking right, work in the lower space rather than loosing half the colours when you print and endless faffing about with print proofing.

<p>

It is all rather academic, your screen can't show more than sRGB and likely or not your lab won't print better than sRGB so for the wedding photographer (landscape or art representation is a different story) there is little advantage to using other colour spaces for a day to day workflow.

[fotografz]

As I understand it, you want to avoid starting with the lowest common denominator. The

more information you start with, the better the image quality you have to "convert" in the

end.

 

Why do the camera makers provide sRGB color space, and various jpeg sizes, in camera?

Because these cameras are used by a wide variety of photographers for an array of

applications. Why would a war photographer, or sports shooter, sending images via

satellite to be shown in newsprint or on the web need ultimate quality? The stuff would

have to be crushed down, and just add an unnecessary, time consuming step.

 

Conversely, why would camera and software engineers keep pumping up the quality

options with 14 bit or 16 bit capture, RGB 1998 shooting option, or Pro RGB colorspace

from RAW conversions, etc. if it was all meaningless in the end? After all, most ink-jet

printers are 8 bit, and use sRGB color gamut.

 

Every step you take tends to reduce the original quality. The more you start with, the less

effect those steps have in the end.

[robert_martin5]

Don't confuse "Color Space" and "Color Profiles".

 

Color Space is a standard that defines how color is stored and has a defined gamut of colors that that color space can represent.

 

Color profiles are device specific profiles that are associated with a piece of hardware, like monitor, printer, scanner, etc. If you want accurate color on your monitor you need a monitor profile for you specific monitor - every monitor even though it's the same model will have different color even though it may be very close.

 

You should never assign color profiles as your working space (like your monitor or any other hardware specific profile). Photoshop automatically uses the monitor profile to modify data sent to the monitor so it displays color correctly - you do not have to select a monitor profile for Photoshop. Photoshop is color managed software, which means it will read the embedded profile (sRGB, Adobe RGB, Pro Photo RGB, Etc) for an image and display it's color correctly (assuming it has an embedded profile).

 

Most viewing software and the web is not color managed, so if you want color to appear correctly you need the image to be sRGB, Adobe RGB and others will appear flat and low contrast if viewed with non color managed software.

 

If you send an image to a photofinisher for printing you should ask what color space the image should use. Every printer has it's own profile, so the photofinisher should take care of using this profile when it is printed.

 

Be careful using the "assign profile" function. If the image does not have an embedded profile and you know what it should be, then use the "assign profile" function to embed the profile. If you assign the wrong profile, then this will cause you trouble with colors. If you want to change an image prifile, you should use the "Convert to profile" function.

[sandy_labana]

Hi everybody: When you convert from Raw to Jpeg, you still have your Raw file for any future

use in any color space available then. So going to sRGB for printing and web does no harm.

Keep the originals and edited files separately. Bob Martin has it right. If you are advanced

user, you do not advice from this forum, if not keep things simple and you will get better

results. Sandy

[annie_nyle]

Wow!!! And people think digital photography is so much easier and much more boring then film!!! I'll try to use the KISS method(keep it short and simple). I think I understood partially of what you all wrote...I'll try and use all your info and see if I understand them. Basically the pictures just need a little touch up, nothing major, just an increase in a little bit of levels. But I'm a perfectionist in many areas, so I wanted the image to be great. Again thank you for all your replies, they've been very educational!