Understanding Color Management

All photographers are concerned with the colors of their image… and yes, even those who only shoot black & white. If the colors or shades of gray are not represented accurately, the mood of the photograph can take on a completely different meaning, or worse, just look crappy.

Color Management is the process in which all aspects of photography; the camera (including the scanner), the digital image, the editing screen (monitor and graphics card), and the final print are color matched. In other words, your print looks exactly like you intended it from the screen on which you edited the image.

For example, let’s say you take a photograph of a woman in a red dress with a digital camera. You see a perfectly red dress. If you used a colorimeter and measured the color red, you find that it reads Red=255, Green=0 and Blue=0. You bring the digital image into your computer and look at it in PhotoShop, but when you use the eye-dropper tool, you find the red is more like Red=255, Green=78, Blue=0. It’s more orange than red. Then you print the image out and find the color has changed even more drastically. Now the red dress is Red=255, Green=0, Blue=138 which is more like purple. What happened? Well, this why color management is so vitally important! Let’s break it down.

Curves are a representation of how much image information landed on the image sensor. If the curve is drastically toward one end or the other and you see a sharp falloff, then information is lost.

As the illustrations show, the image with a nice smooth ‘mountain’ curve is the best exposure. We know that all the color information is there and we have some room on both sides to play with. The other two are the extremes we work so hard to avoid. The “Perfect” curve or Bell curve rarely exists in photography unless it’s monochromatic (Black & White). More likely they will look more like a mountain range, preferably more like the Appalachian rather than the Rockies but either one is acceptable.

It is always preferable to look at the curve of the image in the camera as opposed to judging exposure with the camera’s LCD screen. The screen on the camera is not an accurate representation of color… even the high-end cameras. So be careful.

The Camera is always the first place to start. When you purchase a higher end digital camera, say, a Nikon D-200, you have the ability to shoot RAW (discussed in another article entitled, “What Is RAW”) and/or JPG images. You should always shoot RAW. Choosing the option to have an additional JPG image attached is fine, but never shoot using only JPG images. Regardless of what color space you choose, never trust your camera’s LCD viewer for color accuracy. Always check your curves!

Somewhere in the menu, you will see a setting to choose a color space. The choice is either sRGB or Adobe RGB. “What’s the difference?” First, know that this choice has nothing whatever to do with the RAW file. This choice is specifically for the JPG image. The RAW file has no color space assigned. It is a RAW image. RAW files will change in the amount of color recorded as the image sensor and sensor software technology grows.

The choice of using sRGB or Adobe RGB is personal. You have to decide how those images are going to be used. If you just want to send some images to friends and family, then I would go with sRGB, because the image is pretty much how it looks on an average monitor. If you are using the images to get an idea of how they will look on print (assuming your printer accepts the Adobe RGB color space), then this is the better choice since there are more colors represented in that space.

Here is where color accuracy begins. Make sure you have a well-made monitor and graphics card. It doesn’t matter if your monitor is LCD or CRT. Just make sure their ‘drift rate’ is slow and inherent color palettes are high. Next, you will need a colorimeter. I use the Pantone Colorvision Spyder (no longer available, but it still works). There are many excellent colorimeters out there but do the basic research and seek recommendations (I recommend the Pantone brand). Follow the manufacturer’s directions precisely! Any deviation from their instructions may affect the accuracy of the final results.

It is vitally important that the lighting in your room be the same type of lighting that the photographs will be viewed. Personally, I recommend using daylight balanced light bulbs (now available in compact fluorescents). There are some photographers who go as far as having multiple lighting sources, each with different temperature bulbs; this to match the customer’s specific lighting conditions when hanging their beloved portrait. Most of us just choose the most common lighting conditions and hope for the best. But light bulbs are relatively cheap, so purchasing a couple of each is worth the investment… at least your customer will think so.

Once your monitor is calibrated, ensure you are using that profile in your Color Management tab in the Display Settings. Even though the changes are instant, I always restart my computer. You can call it paranoia… I just call it… paranoia. Finally, make absolutely sure you don’t have Adobe Gamma (or any other program that affects color management) as a start up.

This is the most frustrating part of color management… not that it’s difficult, but it is tedious because a lot of paper can (and most likely will) be wasted ensuring output color accuracy. This is also where you want to make sure your lighting sources are consistent with the lighting near your monitor. If you’re going this far into color correction, make the investment and purchase Pantone’s i1 XTreme (around $1495 street). I’m sure there are other systems that are equally good; I just like Pantone since they are the color standard in the industry. Just follow the detailed instructions from the manufacturer and you will have perfect prints every time!

The easiest method is to work in the RAW converter. You specify the color profile output near the bottom of the dialogue box. This is actually be better in most cases because Camera RAW may be the only place you need any edits. The final output is always a separate file, so there are no worries.

For those who have scanned images or need PhotoShop edits, it’s time to get a bit dirty. If you haven’t done this already in PhotoShop, click Edit > Color Settings. This is where you choose what palette you want to view your images in; or what’s called a ‘working space’. Click on More Options to have a complete list of your color spaces. Many photographers like to have the largest available palette as their working space (either ProPhoto or LAB. This option usually works out better because the image is manipulated using the greatest number of colors. The upshot of this is that when a final ‘Convert to Profile’ is done, PhotoShop will make a concerted effort to match those colors in the smaller color space. It doesn’t always work, but the odds are in your favor.

Finally, whether you outsource your printing or print your own, you can view a ‘soft proof’ in Adobe PhotoShop. You can download color profiles for each printing methods (glossy, matte, canvas, etc) from most processing sites (call and ask if they don’t have it on their web site). Copy the profiles (profile.icm) into the folder; C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Color\Profiles.

When that’s done, start Adobe PhotoShop and click on View > Proof Setup > Custom. You can choose any of the profiles from the dropdown menu and then click OK. You will then see what your image will look like when printed on the specified printer!

http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=848&ca=2

Before you begin, you need to know whether you will be printing images in house (your own printer) or sending them out. If you are printing in house, you need to know the capabilities of your printer. How many colors can it support? Are you able to create a custom profile for your printer and is it high enough quality to make it all worth the effort?

When you open PhotoShop, the first thing you want to do is click Edit, then choose Color Settings. Ignore the first drop-down menu and click on the drop-down below it called “Working Space”.

Working Space is what all your images will be converted to and view as when you open an image (unless you choose the dialogue box that does not allow that).