Color managment color settings ??????

[aussichef]

hi all
Now i hope some can explain to me like i'm an idiot because i probably am lol
I want to set up my Adobe CS3 so i can edit photos from a wedding i took a few weeks ago for a friend
Now i am not printing there exposures i am just putting them on Cd for the bride & groom to have printed
now having read in past posts that color managment is important
Can it please be explained to me step by step or pointed to a site that can help me set in camera on CS3 to cd what color management issues i need to address so the shots can be printed either on a home printer or a color lab
thanks in advance as always
warren a lower aka aussichef

[barry]

I would be interested in knowing about this too!!!

[johnd]

Warren, this is the big one. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet when it comes to management of print colours.

There are so many variables:

1. Your screen: This uses transmitted light to produce colour, wheras a print uses refelected light. Two diferent processes. The colour on your screen depends on whether the screen is colour calibrated or not and how recently. It depends also on the amount of light actually hitting the screen as well. Ideally work in a dark environmet, but hardly practical. There are devices to colour calibarate you're screen. If you're serious about colour printing, you should be using one of these. I use the Spyder calibaration system.

2. Colour mode: Most low end printers and low end labs expect sRGB. AdobeRGB can display a larger gamut of colours and is probably the default on your images, but if you print AdobeRGB when the printer is setup for sRGB, the prints will look flat and dull.

3. Home printer Vs Lab: Two entirely different animals here. To get the best result you really need to have the profile of the printer loaded into Photoshop. By using the profile of the printer you can see exacly how the colours will look when printed on THAT printer ONLY. Your lab should clean and calibrate their printer daily. I take a CD to the place I go to and ask them to wait until they've recalibrated their printer, then come back a couple days later for my prints.

4. Paper type and ink type: This affects how the colours turn out when printed. A printer profile will be set up for a particular paper and ink type on a particular printer. Vary any of these and your results will vary.

5. Get all these right and you're half way there.

As you can see, printing colours accurately is no easy matter. What works best for me is that I have found a lab that uses a Fuji Frontier (can't remember model number) and uses the same paper each time. I have the profile for this set up in photoshop and I get good results. Dropping jpgs onto a CD and hoping they will print well regardless of printer type is going to lead to tears. You may be lucky, but I doubt it.

You really need to know the details of how they will be printed. Another option is for you to print for them. That way you have a better chance of controlling the process.

One last thing, don't let the lab adjust your prints. They'll just do an auto levels on them and will likely screw up all your colours. Most booths at photo labs do adjustments and there's nothing you can do to stop this apart from asking the lab to load your images directly and bypass the booths. Many operators won't have a clue what you're asking though.

IMHO, colour printing is the Holy Grail of photography. There aren't many shortcuts, just a lot of reading, learning and practice.


Sorry to sound so negative, but this has been my experience.

Cheers
John

[PiroStitch]

This is going to sound really really bad, but I've found the less pedantic I was, the closer the results became from screen to print. It wasn't completely the same, but close enough (yellow was still yellow, green was still green, etc).

My personal rule of thumb, this is only for me so follow it if you wish to, is to capture the images I'm going to spend time in PP in aRGB mode. The rest can go in as sRGB. However, there is an option on most monitors nowadays to display sRGB colour mode so if you shoot in aRGB, on screen it will look flat as well.

Labs usually print out in sRGB rather than aRGB, so best bet is to do everything in sRGB.

As a suggestion, if you're going to be handing over the prints on a CD, do a couple of tests at the usual commercial printing places and see which ones print out best. Then recommend that place to your friends as well.