Color Management with Photoshop?

[SteveB]

Hi, all! Delving a bit deeper into Color Management with Photoshop 7, and I was wondering what techniques you all use for those of you that use a Photoshop flavor. Do you use the generic Gamma that comes with PS, or do you have a specific profile for your monitor? I've got a 19" Viewsonic flat screen that I can't seem to find any CM profiles for, so I was wonder how you guys do it.

Any suggestions welcome!

[Buck Forester]

Hi Steve! I use a Spyder2 Pro to calibrate my monitor.

[SierraVisions]

Hi Steve,
I've always used the Adobe Gamma and have good success with it. I will do a little tweaking with the monitor settings on the contrast and brightness in order to get things looking pleasent to my eye. As far as I know, my monitor is pretty true on the color. One hint for Adobe Gamma, when you get to the color settings, squint your eyes and you can see the colors come together better.

I shoot all of my images with the Adobe RGB color profile and then I leave them in that. I was told by a pro stock photographer to use that profile. But when I put an image on the web I have found that by switching the color profile to sRGB I get more vibrant colors. That's only for the web picture though. I still leave the original in Adobe RGB

Steven

[copeg]

Hey steve, I recently got a spyder2 to calibrate my monitor which made a world of difference - seemed so much better than the software calibration because of the human factor. In my color settings in PS, I use sRGB as the standard, always preserve the emedded profiles, and always 'ask' when there is a profile difference. When I scan film I scan using adobeRGB. If I'm gonna print, I'll use adobe RGB. If I'm going to post on the internet I'll use sRGB.
I got fooled for quite some time because I use apple's Safari browser...one of the few browsers which are color managed and use embedded profiles. So while I was seeing what I wanted, probably >90% of others were seeing awefully desaturated images. Now I don't count on embedded profiles, use "save for web" in photoshop and don't include a profile, and look at the image in firefox to be sure.

[SteveB]

Thanks for the replies, guys! For those of you using Spyder2, which one do you use? I see there are four different models (Express, Suite, Pro, and Pro Studio): does the basic express perform the same core calibration function as the higher end? I'm assuming the higher end has more bells and whistles...

Steve, right now I think I have my PS7 defaulting to the sRGB. I'll give Adobe RGB a try. I checked the ViewSonic website for my monitor and they don't have a profile for it, so I think I should keep looking around.

[Buck Forester]

Hi Steve! Sorry, I didn't see your question down here! I haven't had much time on here lately. As for which Spyder I use, I have a SpyderPro 2. It was under a couple hunnerd bucks but I forget exactly how much. Ah lawk it alawt.

[SSSdave]

The whole issue of getting the colors right is too much to dig into on this forum though I'll comment a bit. There are other more appropriate web forums like http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/adobephotoshop/.

If you are in the business of selling prints to customers, you ought to work with a calibrated monitor else your output may not be consistent causing your reputation to suffer. Our perception of color varies too much day to day and situation to situation to relie on what we see on a monitor during a given session of editing to be able to print out images with adequately consistent hue, saturation, and luminance. We all are familiar with the effect of walking out of a dim room into the bright outdoors or vice versa. It takes time for our eyes and visual system to adjust. View an overly bright monitor for hours and normal brightness images will start to appear too dim. Likewise if one views overly saturated color for hours and then readjusts for normal saturation, images will seem to appear quite flat. Then the next morning one might look at the same images and be perplexed that they again seem to look normal. Another issue is cheap consumer monitor calibration tools are not always too consistent and further have tended to vary over time. A friend of mine when starting up his landscape print business spent a few hundred dollars on one monitor calibration package that resulted in his edited images having a red cast until he brought them over to my system and we noticed how striking the difference was. The whole time his mind was compensating to normalize the red shift in hues. All due to lousy quality control where the sensors were manufactured. Any product being sold at bottom market prices ought to be doubted because businesses will sell garbage if it makes them money.

One thing I will add is that if one creates master prints representing actual print files, then one has a physical record that can be used for comparison purposes along with what is seen on a monitor to verify correct color fidelity. Thus if one matches the color, saturation, and luminance between a master print file and a new image's print file on a monitor, the likelyhood of getting that image to print out well on the first attempt will improve. Of course that is dependent on using the same printer and or inkset that remains calibrated. For those using prosumer inkjet printers, keeping the calibration consistent is not that easily managed with any available tools so one just has to hope the product being used remains consistent. For those like myself that use the highest level of commercial printing services, that consistency can be something one can depend on eliminating that facet of the CMS workflow as a source of trouble.

best of luck this first year Steve with your business,
...David

[copeg]

I use the Spyder Express...Works great. Figure the additions on the more expensive Spyders were just things I didn't need at this time.