Color Management is a topic I get asked about a lot here at DPS so when I saw this video – an introduction to color management – I was over the moon – at last a tutorial to point readers to!
Episode 28, Intro to Color Management from Jim Talkington on Vimeo.
There are lots of approaches to the topic of color management – I’d love to hear how you go about it in comments below.
Thanks to Jim from ProPhotoLife for another great video tutorial.
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15 Responses to “Color Management 101” - Add Yours
September 20th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Color management can def. be a frustrating area to dive into. As a newbie I find things can get very overwhleming. Thank for this info, I usually keep a very neutral color for my monitor.
September 20th, 2008 at 4:28 am
He should have done a white balance on his video camera, kinda ironic, that a video talking about ICC shows an iMac as beige… Good simple video describing ICC profiles and monitor calibration.
September 20th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Thanks for the great intro to color management. I just logged on to DPS to research just this topic!
The issue I am having is keeping my colors consistent amongst my images, not necessarily between the monitor and printer. I usually just adjust the white balance for each photo individually (in RAW) and stop when it looks best for that particular photo. However, sometimes the colors are not consistent, even in a series of images. How do you keep your colors consistent? For instance, if I am shooting portraits indoors and there is a blue overcast from the color of the wall, how do I correct for this consistently in a series of photos? Is it always just a guessing game? I have tried using the Auto White Balance in PP in RAW, and that is even less consistent than my hit or miss method… Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks!
Maria
September 20th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I edit all my photos on a CRT. I just can’t get the colors to be true on my LCD, and that’s true for all but expensive LCDs. Get a dual-head video card and a bulky old CRT, calibrate it by eye or with a CRT colorimeter (cheap on eBay), and you’ll have truer colors than an LCD monitor five times as expensive.
Color spaces, printing, and gamuts are a whole ‘nother issue. You get a feel for which colors won’t print well after a while (saturated yellows, reds, purples, browns).
September 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Hey Maria,
If you want to have an accurate and consistant white balance across a series of images, you should take a picture of a grey card (a card that is 18% grey [I just started using one called a whibal card that works well])
What you do is take a picture of that card, then using whatever RAW editor you use, use the grey of the card to set the white balance. This should give you the proper color temperature/tint which then you can use on all of the images in the series taken under the same lighting.
It works really well and is invaluable in getting accurate colors on your images.
Hope that helps you!
Dave
September 20th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
@ Maria Sabala:
I believe your problem lies with white-balance correction, and not color management between screens and prints.
Would you want to correct the blue overcast section only, or would you want to correct the entire shot over a series of images?
If you want to correct it over a series of images, find out what temperature setting you set your first white-balance-corrected picture to. Lets say, the image is too cool, so you set the first image to 5800K (in Lightroom2, DPP, Aperture etc etc). You like that shot and the white balance, so the rest of the images in the series with that white balance should be 5800K.
I’d like a little help with my problem though. I use Spyder2Pro for my display, and what’s on the screen looks just like what’s on my LCD (which is good, because my 400D’s LCD is quite correct). I’ve compared it to a professional printer’s screen, and it looks good as well. However, whenever I print, I seem to have a slight yellow-cast. I’m thinking that the problem lies with the printer, and possibly the printer is profiling it wrongly.
I use a Canon 400D and print on a Canon IP4500.
Cheers
Zexun
September 21st, 2008 at 2:27 am
That was a good intro. but what “puck” and software did Jim use? I have been driving myself crazy trying to get my printed pictures to look the same as on Lightroom2. I have done the manual monitor calibration, created an ICC file, uploaded the ICC file to my printer, then tell LR2 to let printer do the color profile, but with no success. Always darker than LR2. Maybe my printer sucks! It is a Canon Selphy photo printer.
Does anyone think that what Jim suggests will help? Obviously there is more to this tutorial so when will the next sessions be offered?
September 21st, 2008 at 10:09 am
@ Maria Sabala:
This may not be the best way of doing it but it is very basic and I find it works perfectly well.
I use Photoshop and when you process a RAW file it creates a separate file with the same image name and a .XMP extension. This file contains all the information on the change you made in the PS RAW editor.
I duplicate this file and rename it for the desired image and that image will have exactly the same RAW processing applied to it.
For example:
I have an image called IMG_2008.CR2
I open it in Photoshop and using the RAW editor, process the image until it appears as I want.
I then close this file and go back to the folder where the image is located.
There should now be a file called IMG_2008.XMP.
I copy and paste this file and rename it IMG_2009.XMP.
Now the image IMG_2009.CR2 will have exactly the same settings applied as IMG_2008.CR2.
Hope that helps :D
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thanks for leading us to this. I use an eyeone with the puck on an lcd monitor which works good.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
[Edit to my previous comment]
When I said to take a picture of the gray card, I forgot to mention that you should take it’s picture under the same lighting as the rest of the images in the set. And whenever your lighting changes, you should take another picture of the gray card for the images under those conditions etc.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm
@Dan
Thanks for your post. I guess if I want my prints to match the quality off my monitor I will have to buy one of these.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
@Dirk The “puck” being used in the video is the X-rite i1 family
http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=812. Part of the problem you may be having with your home prints that profiling your monitor is only one part of the solution. The “puck” will create an ICC profile for your monitor, but most will not create a printer profile. So in effect you have a profiled monitor that should now match the image your camera created, but your printing to that has not been calibrated. This one step solution works better if you are sending your prints out, but there are still additional steps that should be taken. These are the steps I take….
1) Ensure the ICC profile for your printer has been installed. If you are not sure, reinstall it.
2) Open your image in Lightroom2 and make what adjustments you feel necessary.
3) When you go to the Print tab to Print go down to Print Job. Under Color Management choose “other” and select the profile for your printer and paper type. I am afraid I am not familiar with Canon profile names. But for the sake of example Epson will have your printer name followed by something like PLPP for Luster (Premium Luster Photo Paper). (steps are a little different for CS3).
Specifying the printer and papery type generally gives me results which are much more consistent between what i see on the monitor and what prints.
September 24th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Thanks DaveJ, Tan Zexun and Ieuan Jenkins for the very helpful suggestions. I’m going to try them all out. Appreciate it!
Maria
September 24th, 2008 at 8:31 am
@Cuchulainn,
Thank you for your help. I discovered part of my problem thanks to you. I do not have a printer ICC file. My printer is a Canon Selphy and there are no ICC files. Canon does not make them for this printer. I guess it is supposed to be a real “cheap-o” printer and so they calibrate at the home office and let ‘er rip! Its ok as I am not printing many pics. My wife likes me get her Scrapbook pics. I am going to compare what I get back from SNAPFISH to see if they color match my screen photo.
I do appreciate your help.
October 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 am
I have to recommend the book Understanding Color Management by Abhay Sharma, one of the original gurus of color management. It’s a very comprehensive book that is easy to understand and covers the principles, not software specifics and starts with basics and ends with more detailed applications. If anything, it will help make the whole idea a little more familiar. I’m also a fan because Abhay was an awesome professor of mine and when he wrote this, it was one of the only comprehensive books on the subject. I’ve graduated now and he’s moved on to another University where he chairs their color management program, but the last I heard, he was working on profiling for NASA, so I think he’s got a good handle on the subject :)
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