Nikon LS Scanner Color Profile / Photoshop Working Space

[Jonathan]

I use a Nikon LS-2000 and have installed Nikon Scan 3.1 and Photoshop
7 in Windows XP.

I scan with Nikon Color Management On, but choose the Scanner RBG
color space. I believe this is as good as color management off and
the output file is not tagged with any profile and the image is saved
with 2.2 Gamma.

So now when I open the image in Photoshop, Photoshop tells me that the
image is not tagged and asks me what to do. I choose to assign a
profile selected from the pull down list. I believe because I
installed Nikon Scan, I can find a profile called NKLS2000LS30 and I
select that (the NKLS4000LS40 and NKLS8000 are available too, but I
have no reason to use them because my scanner is LS-2000). The image
is opened fine in Photoshop. The color of the image as appeared in
Photoshop is consistent with if I had scanned the image in, says, sRGB
or Adobe RGB profile.

Now I save the image with the NKLS2000LS30 profile. No problem. The
next time when I open it, Photoshop will say the embedded profile is
different from the working space. No problem either. I just select
to use the embedded profile instead of the working space.

I thought maybe I could save a step of telling Photoshop to use the
embedded profile everytime when I open a file. I try to change the
working space in Photoshop's color setting, but I couldn't find the
same NKLS2000LS30 color space. I try to use the "Load RGB..." option
to load the NKLS2000LS30.icm file, but Photoshop complains that it is
not a valid color space.

Why so? Photoshop allows me to assign the NKLS2000LS30 color space
during file open. It also allows me to use the embedded NKLS2000LS30.
But I could not set my working space to this same profile.

Any help?

Jonathan

 

[Flycaster]

I use a Nikon LS-2000 and have installed Nikon Scan 3.1 and Photoshop
7 in Windows XP.

I scan with Nikon Color Management On, but choose the Scanner RBG
color space. I believe this is as good as color management off and
the output file is not tagged with any profile and the image is saved
with 2.2 Gamma.

So now when I open the image in Photoshop, Photoshop tells me that the
image is not tagged and asks me what to do. I choose to assign a
profile selected from the pull down list. I believe because I
installed Nikon Scan, I can find a profile called NKLS2000LS30 and I
select that (the NKLS4000LS40 and NKLS8000 are available too, but I
have no reason to use them because my scanner is LS-2000). The image
is opened fine in Photoshop. The color of the image as appeared in
Photoshop is consistent with if I had scanned the image in, says, sRGB
or Adobe RGB profile.

Now I save the image with the NKLS2000LS30 profile. No problem. The
next time when I open it, Photoshop will say the embedded profile is
different from the working space. No problem either. I just select
to use the embedded profile instead of the working space.

I thought maybe I could save a step of telling Photoshop to use the
embedded profile everytime when I open a file. I try to change the
working space in Photoshop's color setting, but I couldn't find the
same NKLS2000LS30 color space. I try to use the "Load RGB..." option
to load the NKLS2000LS30.icm file, but Photoshop complains that it is
not a valid color space.

Why so? Photoshop allows me to assign the NKLS2000LS30 color space
during file open. It also allows me to use the embedded NKLS2000LS30.
But I could not set my working space to this same profile.

You don't want to work in your profile space because it is not
grey-balanced. That is why we have working spaces such as ARGB98 and sRGB,
etc., which are perceptually uniform and grey-balanced. Your profile space
is neither.

The best thing to do is open and tag, just as you have been doing, and then
CONVERT to ARGB98 (if your intended output is print) or sRGB (if you output
exclusively for the web).

 

[Greg]

You don't want to work in your profile space because it is not
grey-balanced.

Are you absolutely sure of this? Just curious. I agree that if it's not grey
balanced, it won't
make a good general purpose working space, but this is the first time I've
seen anyone
state that it's not. I have the LS40, and raw scans do come out very
neutral. It's
conceivable that the raw profile really is grey balanced, and Nikon ensure
that the
scanner & driver produce grey balanced scans, even in raw mode.

Greg.

 

[Mike Russell]

Are you absolutely sure of this? Just curious. I agree that if it's
not grey balanced, it won't
make a good general purpose working space, but this is the first time
I've seen anyone
state that it's not. I have the LS40, and raw scans do come out very
neutral. It's
conceivable that the raw profile really is grey balanced, and Nikon
ensure that the
scanner & driver produce grey balanced scans, even in raw mode.

You're right that the auto-calibration feature of most scanners will ensure
a close approximation to a balanced gray.

But in general, scanner and other device profiles are not guaranteed to be
"well-behaved". This means there is no guarantee the color space will be
gray balanced, the black and white points may not coincide with the origin
and max points, and there may be other interesting bends in the curve
associated with the profile.

You may look at all of these features using curvemeister's free profile
plotter, which shows the neutral response curve for a profile.
http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/downloads/profileplotter/index.htm

For these reasons and more, the accepted procedure is to use a profile
designed to be a working space, for example Adobe RGB or sRGB.

 

[Greg]

Thanks Mike.

Actually, the Nikon scanner profile is an *input* profile, anyway! Doh!
(it simply cannot be selected as a working space in the RGB colour settings,
for example)

Greg.

 

[Flycaster]

Are you absolutely sure of this? Just curious. I agree that if it's not grey
balanced, it won't
make a good general purpose working space, but this is the first time I've
seen anyone
state that it's not. I have the LS40, and raw scans do come out very
neutral. It's
conceivable that the raw profile really is grey balanced, and Nikon ensure
that the
scanner & driver produce grey balanced scans, even in raw mode.

Yeah, 100% sure. That your scans come to the monitor looking pretty
"neutral" only means that the you have a good profile (which is a good
thing, I might add). What is more important, however, is that the profile
will help make sure that what you saw in the scanner is what you get in PS.

The grey balanced working RGB spaces are where you want to do your work and
archiving. Profiles are used coming in, and on the way out. The working
spaces are perfect, mathematical constructs. A device profile, otoh,
describes the color space of a specific device under certain conditions, at
a specific point in time.

 

[Greg]

Yeah, 100% sure. That your scans come to the monitor looking pretty
"neutral" only means that the you have a good profile (which is a good
thing, I might add). What is more important, however, is that the profile
will help make sure that what you saw in the scanner is what you get in

PS.

But you made the assumption that I had not viewed the scans after simply
*tagging* with a grey balanced "normal" working space. I have, and they look
neutral. So, if you are 100% sure - how is it that you are so sure? Again -
just
asking - I will not be surprised if you are correct. Note that even when
"scanner
RGB" is selected, there are still ICC profiles that are used. (they're in a
Nikon
system folder somewhere - one for each film type & resolution). Thus, it's
not
actually possible to use Nikon Scan to get a *really* raw scan from the
hardware,
I don't think.

Using Viewscan, on the other hand, it's a completely different situation.
Vuescan
really *does* return a very raw scan, and it is most definitely not grey
balanced.

 

[professor]

I don't know that but I happened to find a great tutorial cd that will
help you in this matter. http://www.siliconlogics.com/photoshop.htm

 

[Gene Palmiter]

yep...up in the corner of the page it we can all become professionals in
just 10 hours. kewl!