COLOUR SETTING suggestions... Epson 4870 - Photoshop 7

[JWSM]

Have toyed with these still unsure of the best selection choices.

Any photographs printed, will be via commercial setup/lab, from a CD.

However, there are several RGB choices in both Photoshop and the Epson
scanner to choose from. I opted for ColourMatch RGB in both (with the
monitor compensation box ticked), but am unsure if on printing the colours
will change.

ColourMatch is more saturated compared to Adobe RGB (1998) and Adobe RGB.

Whilst I understand colour calibration can be a daunting subject, and
output quality is often down to the technician operating photographic
printer, I don't want to imbed colours that will require correction.

Regards,
J

 

[bmoag]

If you are not controlling the color management chain, particularly
printing, and if you do not know the exact work flow that whoever is doing
your printing uses, then aethetic issues like color saturation are
completely out of your control anyway. If you want to try to match what you
see on your monitor to what you see in the print, which is not possible for
most images because of the differing gamuts between CRTs and printing
processes, you have to control or understand the color workflow.

You may not be aware than none of the color systems you mention correlate to
the gamut of any printing process, all of which have a more limited gamut.
Even AdobeRGB and sRGB do not coincide with inkjet gamuts and there is an
argument for not using color profiles with an even larger gamut as out of
range colors will be more difficult for the printer driver to translate
(actually truncate) into the color gamut the printer can output. This is why
the use of 16 bit color may actually cause more printing problems than 8 bit
color because the range of color that 16 bits covers is so far beyond that
of any printing process. This is not an arcane secret. Epson, maker of the
high end printers used by most professionals, discusses this issue in their
educational materials.

Printer drivers use a digital sledge hammer on your image file to translate
it into their particular color range: even in a tightly controlled color
managed system the first print, however good, is rarely the best possible
print. So unless you control the process yourself or are completely familiar
with the process your print service uses the thngs you are concerned about
are out of your control and you are best to stick with the profile your
printing service recommends.

 

[JWSM]

Thank you for the info...

Am not about to buy a printer... just not enough bench space. In the past
when using Corel, I took some HP scanned pics to an Image Fair in Brisbane
(c.1995), and had a few photos printed on a Fuji digital colour photo
printer. The pics were all in a coffee coloured sepia tone, and printed
exactly to the shade set (I think the tech guy only lowered the gamma a
bit).

The Fuji was a top end machine at the time. However, I also had an image
printed on a colour inkjet (HP possibly), and it came out greenish. The
sales guy blamed my file and promptly hurried me off.

Home printing has come a long way since 1995. I will probably have to test
a batch of prints with my local photo outlet (possibly Kmart). I have asked
about what settings they prefer, but I just get a puzzled response. Most
printing colour errors from negs appears to be too much magenta (I've never
seen an excess of the other colours). Skins tones take on a fake orange tan
look when the magenta is too high.

J

 

[nikita]

Colormanagment is about understanding of the basics before you try to
make a decission.

Set up a Workingspace in Photoshop. Chose a decent big one. Adobe RGB
is a very good allrounder as an archivespace as well as editingspace.
Calibrate the Monitor. From the Adobe RGB an automatically made
conversion is mapping the Workingspace colors into the correct view at
the monitor. That's what you see when editing. If the monitor isn't
calibrated, you're editing the colors to hell.

Let the scanner capture the colors of the original. Use a
scannerprofile that describes the way the scanner sees colors. That
profile is a sourceprofile. Then you need a destination profile; Adobe
RGB. The colors are translated into that space. You can chose to
squeeze in all the colors with Perceptual rendering – or clip out of
gamut colors by using Relative Colormetric as rendering. You do have a
choice. Usually we do use Perceptual from the scanner to the
Workingspace.

Going from the Workingspace out to any printsituation, the same
concept is used.

16 bit (highbit) doesn't create problems as in "to much colors for the
printer". The gamut isn't any larger than the 8 bit. It gives more
headroom for editing and moving colors around within a space. 65536
tonelvels from black to white instead of 256 steps is kind of
difference when editing. A larger space will be less problematic when
it comes to banding using this. A highbitfile will always be
downsapled to 8 bit before printing to the devices we have today.
Manually or automatically in the printout under the hood in any of the
latest Photoshops.

An extremely large workingspace like ProPhoto RGB or EctaSpace RGB can
be problematic for edting as it isn't showing up all the colors on a
monitor and your editing colors that you can't see on screen. It also
DEMANDS highbit environment. But those spaces are good capturespaces
for extrem scanningtechnics. As they're extremely big in gamut. But
making the differences between Adobe RGB / Colormatch RGB / s-RGB to a
problem is rediculus. The problem is to learn when, where and why to
convert between them.

You will see little if any differences in everyday printing from any
of these spaces IF you do have an accurat destinationprofile for the
printer. The diffs will more be in diffrent choices of rendering
settings in the conversion. The smaller s-RGB can be a bit small for
highclass printing and even for less quality output. But it's a hell
of a good choice for web and general noncalibrated environments which
99% of the digital consumermarket holds. However.....that doesn't mean
that YOU need to limit yourself to that when outputting a file from
the scanner in the beginning of the chain.........

Colormatch isn't more saturated than Adobe RGB. It's depending on how
you are viewing that Colormatch and how you brought it into that
place. Build a better scannerprofile and set up the flow accurately.
********Make a diffrence between ASSIGNING a profile that describes a
space and CONVERTING from a sourcespace that is true profiled and to
the same space as above.******* The more saturated colors you're
talking about is because you didn't made that distinction and
difference.

You never know what tomorrow will bring in the regard of printers. A
simple flatbed for almost no money at all will well profiled output
much larger things than s-RGB. So, put those colors in a decent space
for the Archive files from the scannerprofile> Workingspace. From that
convert to smaller spaces on duplicates for each use and output. Why
making a decission about a specific output need here and now? If
you're going to use the modern ICC flow colormanagment, then use it as
intended.

If you're going to a lab from a CD to make prints, ask them what they
want from you. What space do they want them to be delivered in? Do
they have their own profile for their machine, do they want you to
convert to that before sending to them or do they want your pictures
to sit an a normal workingspace when they arrive? As long as you set
up a correct flow from the input to that it will work. The correct
flow will do the "corrections" for you from any input as long as you
know how to set it up. You simply need to know what is coming in as
true colors and where it's going. True profiles will tell both these
things. Generic/ canned profiles will not. The only profile which is
standard in the flow is the Workingspace. All the rest is
customdescriptions of individuals=devices. That's the concept of the
ICC flow.

nikita

 

[JWSM]

I can't recall exactly now... but was sure with earlier Photoshop you could
calibrate the way the Photoshop work space appeared (colour and gamma)
without altering the monitor's appearance totally. I find the current Adobe
calibration from Control Panel makes the monitor too bright (hurts eyes in
fact). I have always found reducing the brightness is better than placing a
filter screen over the monitor.

 

[nikita]

I can't recall exactly now... but was sure with earlier Photoshop you could

calibrate the way the Photoshop work space appeared (colour and gamma)
without altering the monitor's appearance totally. I find the current Adobe
calibration from Control Panel makes the monitor too bright (hurts eyes in
fact). I have always found reducing the brightness is better than placing a
filter screen over the monitor.

Well, you can build your own "workingspace" even in a Photoshop today.
But I'm sure that you don't mean the same thing as I do, when you call
it Work Space. The colorgamut in which the pictures own colors rest is
what I'm talking about. Not the surface of Photoshop work-area

Anyway, you're pulling my leg and it was pretty fun.....

Or....if not so, choose a readymade Workingspace like Adobe RGB and
read up on the basics. And if the brightness of the monitor is a
problem, buy a hardware profiling package in which you can specify the
luminancevalue in candelas and you will always have it targetting to
whatever you like.

nikita

 

[JWSM]

Thanks Nikita for the info... I may pull your leg again in the future, but
never your finger ;-)

snip

Anyway, you're pulling my leg and it was pretty fun.....

snip