Color Management

I attempted to get into this color management maze yesterday and today.
I went through the Adobe Gamma adjustment that is supposed to make your
monitor "correct." All right, fine - but that has nothing to do with
your printer, now does it? I tried to read up on what I am supposed to
do to make my printer agree with my monitor, and I haven't found
anything that made much sense for Elements 3. Just very little helpful
info out there for a newbie to color management.

So screw that. I got in a lot of trouble monkeying with my monitor and
printer's settings, so what I ended up doing was very simple: I import a
good image, print it, and then use the monitor's color and brightness &
contrast controls to make my monitor match the print. Do that again for
several good examples which have a lot of gray scale, flesh tone, range
of brightnesses, etc, and very soon you've got your monitor and printer
agreeing with each other.

I will continue reading up on this, but if you are like me, maybe this
simple system can help you.

Gary Eickmeier

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

I attempted to get into this color management maze yesterday and today.
I went through the Adobe Gamma adjustment that is supposed to make your
monitor "correct." All right, fine - but that has nothing to do with
your printer, now does it? I tried to read up on what I am supposed to
do to make my printer agree with my monitor, and I haven't found
anything that made much sense for Elements 3. Just very little helpful
info out there for a newbie to color management.

So screw that. I got in a lot of trouble monkeying with my monitor and
printer's settings, so what I ended up doing was very simple: I import a
good image, print it, and then use the monitor's color and brightness &
contrast controls to make my monitor match the print. Do that again for
several good examples which have a lot of gray scale, flesh tone, range
of brightnesses, etc, and very soon you've got your monitor and printer
agreeing with each other.

what you have done is create a system
where nothing is known to be correct.

if you change printers, or go to a photographic print,
you can not predict what will happen.

get one of the monitor profiling systems,
and then you know that what you see is what you want.

now the monitor is a known quantity.
the image that looks right on your monitor is correct.
it is correct no matter what oputput you plan.

next you need to correct your printer
so that an image that is correct on your screen
is correct on your printer.

if you have two printers,
each one gets its own correct profile.

check:

http://www.colorvision.com/
http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/





I will continue reading up on this, but if you are like me, maybe this
simple system can help you.

Gary Eickmeier

Gary Eickmeier wrote:

I attempted to get into this color management maze yesterday and today.
I went through the Adobe Gamma adjustment that is supposed to make your
monitor "correct." All right, fine - but that has nothing to do with
your printer, now does it? I tried to read up on what I am supposed to
do to make my printer agree with my monitor, and I haven't found
anything that made much sense for Elements 3. Just very little helpful
info out there for a newbie to color management.

So screw that. I got in a lot of trouble monkeying with my monitor and
printer's settings, so what I ended up doing was very simple: I import a
good image, print it, and then use the monitor's color and brightness &
contrast controls to make my monitor match the print. Do that again for
several good examples which have a lot of gray scale, flesh tone, range
of brightnesses, etc, and very soon you've got your monitor and printer
agreeing with each other.

what you have done is create a system
where nothing is known to be correct.

if you change printers, or go to a photographic print,
you can not predict what will happen.

get one of the monitor profiling systems,
and then you know that what you see is what you want.

now the monitor is a known quantity.
the image that looks right on your monitor is correct.
it is correct no matter what oputput you plan.

next you need to correct your printer
so that an image that is correct on your screen
is correct on your printer.

if you have two printers,
each one gets its own correct profile.

check:

http://www.colorvision.com/
http://www.gretagmacbeth.com/





I will continue reading up on this, but if you are like me, maybe this
simple system can help you.

Gary Eickmeier

You misunderstand the process, which is the fault of Adobe and printer
manufacturers because it should be more automated.
If you use the Gamma thing correctly you are creating an ICC profile for
your monitor that Elements will use to try to translate color spaces between
monitor and printer.
The Gamma applet profile is, in fact, highly inaccurate but at least it is a
starting point.
If you want to use color management you really need to get a colorimeter,
the Spyder is now about $99, to create a reasonable ICC profile for your
monitor (or Apple-compatible profile if you are naive enough to pay to use
Apple).
Beginning cookbook color managed printing:
When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.
Choose relative colorimetric and check black point compensation.
Hit print.
When the epson driver comes up choose custom, set your paper type, press
advanced
Set your dpi to at least 720 and check ICM.
Print.
The preview should be a reasonably color accurate prediction of what the
final print will look like (not exact, but reasonable). If the preview is
overly pink you screwed up somewhere and have color management applied
twice. Probably did not pick just the printer in the Adobe print with
preview window.
There is more to it but that is basic color management in Adobe and using
Epson printers.
An accurate monitor profile is vital so the software can translate monitor
color space to printer color space.
You also have to be consistent about using sRGB or AdobeRGB color spaces. A
little reading may explain the concept. For most consumers there is no clear
benefit to either color space but consistency is vital. Get used to AdobeRGB
if you want to advance in your color management techniques.
If you use Canon printers the process is less straightforward and less
accurate because the Canon drivers are poorly designed for Adobe color
management ( Canon hi-end printers good, drivers suck). I have found it
impossible to use Canon's cookbook settings in the reliable way you can use
Epson's but Canon will Email you the directions.
I have no idea how HP color management works because I think HP printers are
not good enough to worry about color management.

You misunderstand the process, which is the fault of Adobe and printer
manufacturers because it should be more automated.
If you use the Gamma thing correctly you are creating an ICC profile for
your monitor that Elements will use to try to translate color spaces between
monitor and printer.
The Gamma applet profile is, in fact, highly inaccurate but at least it is a
starting point.
If you want to use color management you really need to get a colorimeter,
the Spyder is now about $99, to create a reasonable ICC profile for your
monitor (or Apple-compatible profile if you are naive enough to pay to use
Apple).
Beginning cookbook color managed printing:
When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.
Choose relative colorimetric and check black point compensation.
Hit print.
When the epson driver comes up choose custom, set your paper type, press
advanced
Set your dpi to at least 720 and check ICM.
Print.
The preview should be a reasonably color accurate prediction of what the
final print will look like (not exact, but reasonable). If the preview is
overly pink you screwed up somewhere and have color management applied
twice. Probably did not pick just the printer in the Adobe print with
preview window.
There is more to it but that is basic color management in Adobe and using
Epson printers.
An accurate monitor profile is vital so the software can translate monitor
color space to printer color space.
You also have to be consistent about using sRGB or AdobeRGB color spaces. A
little reading may explain the concept. For most consumers there is no clear
benefit to either color space but consistency is vital. Get used to AdobeRGB
if you want to advance in your color management techniques.
If you use Canon printers the process is less straightforward and less
accurate because the Canon drivers are poorly designed for Adobe color
management ( Canon hi-end printers good, drivers suck). I have found it
impossible to use Canon's cookbook settings in the reliable way you can use
Epson's but Canon will Email you the directions.
I have no idea how HP color management works because I think HP printers are
not good enough to worry about color management.

From: "bmoag"

When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.

This works with Photoshop, but is it supported in Elements?

From: "bmoag"

When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.

This works with Photoshop, but is it supported in Elements?

Unless they've added it there is no support in Elements. The original poster
has basically selected one of the several methods around to simulate
calibration between a monitor and a printer. He will have some problems when
changing paper, but nothing that can't be handled.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
...
From: "bmoag"

When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.

This works with Photoshop, but is it supported in Elements?

Unless they've added it there is no support in Elements. The original poster
has basically selected one of the several methods around to simulate
calibration between a monitor and a printer. He will have some problems when
changing paper, but nothing that can't be handled.

--
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com
home of The Camera-ist's Manifesto
The Improved Links Pages are at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/links/mlinks00.html
A sample chapter from "Haight-Ashbury" is at
http://www.chapelhillnoir.com/writ/hait/hatitl.html

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
...
From: "bmoag"

When you print, presuming you have an Epson printer, choose print with
preview.
Then choose color management, source space set to document.
Under profile navigate the list until you find your printer (just the
printer, not the printer combined with any paper type). Check print with
preview.

This works with Photoshop, but is it supported in Elements?

Tony wrote:

Unless they've added it there is no support in Elements. The original poster
has basically selected one of the several methods around to simulate
calibration between a monitor and a printer. He will have some problems when
changing paper, but nothing that can't be handled.

Right. That was one of the blocks to being able to try any sort of color
management with Elements. I will be getting PSP in a week or so, when
Amazon gets one in.

I basically don't understand what is supposed to happen when I check
"Use ICC Profile" in my (Canon i950) drivers. I sense from reading that
what I need to do is "associate" a profile with my printer, or with my
monitor, or some damn thing.

My process isn't unreasonable. I take a known good image, like perhaps
something downloaded from the net or the printing sample from my lab
(for which they also give me the image on CD), and if, when I print it,
it looks good and looks like the sample print, then I know that whatever
settings I have done in my printer are fine. Then, I can go thru the
process I mentioned of making the screen look like that, to ensure that
whatever I see on my screen will be duplicated by my printer in its
current state.

Also, if both my printer and my screen look good compared to the sample
print or to just plain good judgement, then anything I send off to be
lab printed should also be pretty good.

But what do you folks think about taking the process from the beginning,
and shooting a gray card and a few other subjects such as flesh tones
against gray backdrops etc, and then using that image as the standard? I
would correctly white balance my image according to my camera's
directions, then correctly expose all of my samples according to the
histograms, then assume that those are good, correct images to set my
monitor and my printer to. I could even have the images printed at a lab
before sitting down to my computer. This would be all done by eye, of
course, but what's so wrong with that?

I know, I'm resisting proper science and procedure with all these ideas,
but I also plan on getting the inexpensive ($99) Spyder kit, if only for
the education of it. I assume the kit will take me thru the whole
process, even if I use a crummy Canon printer (just kidding). Obviously,
I am new to this fairly complex subject, and have to be dragged kicking
and screaming into it. But I will survive, and then become an expert...

Thanks -

Gary Eickmeier