Comments on: Color Management 101

By: Rory

Rory — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:31:16 +0000

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 :)

By: Dirk

Dirk — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:31:13 +0000

@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.

By: Maria Sabala

Maria Sabala — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:02:18 +0000

Thanks DaveJ, Tan Zexun and Ieuan Jenkins for the very helpful suggestions. I’m going to try them all out. Appreciate it!

Maria

By: Cuchulainn

Cuchulainn — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:26:58 +0000

@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.

By: Dirk

Dirk — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 08:51:10 +0000

@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.

By: DaveJ

DaveJ — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:36:05 +0000

[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.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:56:32 +0000

Thanks for leading us to this. I use an eyeone with the puck on an lcd monitor which works good.

By: Ieuan Jenkins

Ieuan Jenkins — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:09:16 +0000

@ 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

By: Dirk

Dirk — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:27:08 +0000

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?

By: Tan Zexun

Tan Zexun — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 08:46:24 +0000

@ 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