What workflow for best retouching process?

janbak

Hello everybody,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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I'm just reading the beautiful Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop, I'm learning a lot of useful concept and techniques but ... <o:p></o:p>
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... I'm not yet capable to insert them in a standard and structured workflow to apply to all my photo that I'd like to prepare for best printing sending them to an online digital photo processing services provider or to a photographer's studio.<o:p></o:p>
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My question simply is: starting from a RAW image taken with my Nikon D80 what I've to do, step by step, to have the best file to send for print?<o:p></o:p>
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Related question are:<o:p></o:p>
1) what retouch action is better to do still in RAW format and what are better after having opened the image with Photoshop?<o:p></o:p>
2) how to choose the right color space?<o:p></o:p>
3) changing many times colorspace when I'm working with an image is it useful?<o:p></o:p>
4) why printers always ask for RGB file when all printers work using CMYK inks?<o:p></o:p>
5) what I can do to be sure that my images are printed exactly as I want?<o:p></o:p>
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Thank to all <o:p></o:p>
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Art Scott

What software do you have to use??

Also read LightRoom2 for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby......

Several of us on here do 99% of all work in LightRoom2 to LR3 (which is still in Beta).....Download a 30day trial of LR2.5 and see how you like it................LR has become very powerful over the last year or so and with the release of LR3.0 will even be more powerful I am sure.

janbak

Sorry, cause I was speaking about Dan Margulis' book I take for granted that I use Photoshop (CS3 in my case), I apologize

BinaryFx

Janback, I would post your questions to Dan's list, however I think that they may need to be re-written a little to better clarify and hone in on specifics rather than being too broad and sweeping, keeping in mind that the answers are only going to be as good as the questions (there are often no absolute, black and white answers - it is all shades of gray). What may seem like a single "simple" question may turn out to be not simple in the reply, what works for one person or image may not work for another.

It may also be best to stick with one question at a time, as one question could take many words and replies from different people, so it is probably best not to ask many questions at once.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colortheory/


Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

colourbox

janbak wrote:

4) why printers always ask for RGB file when all printers work using CMYK inks?

It helps to understand that there are two kinds of printers: Those printing from a press with CMYK inks, and everybody else. Dan Margulis comes from a long background with the first kind of printer, not the second. He thinks in terms of getting an image to the press. The press was the dominant form of color reproduction for many decades. Dan became famous because he understands that CMYK process better than anyone else.

A lot has changed. Now, much printing is done on machines that are not CMYK printing presses, but digital printers. These printers can use RGB lasers to expose photo paper (I think this is what you get if you order prints from Smugmug), or they can use more than four CMYK inks. My Epson 3800 has 8 inks, not 4, because it includes light black, light cyan, light magenta, three shades of black. Well, you aren't going to edit in CcMmYK3. Then how does the image get there? The printer driver software does it. And the printer driver is coded to take in RGB and do the conversion itself. So you prepare an RGB image, not a CMYK image. If you prepared a CMYK image, the color range would be too small and waste the capabilities of the printer. Modern inkjets are capable of reproducing much more color than a CMYK printing press.

If you were publishing a magazine or newspaper, you would not be asking "why printers always ask for RGB file." These large traditional operations, the ones Dan worked with for decades, would be asking for CMYK. All the time. Because they are going to a 4-color CMYK printing press.

janbak wrote:

5) what I can do to be sure that my images are printed exactly as I want?

You're already doing it right. Ask a lot of questions, get a lot of opinions, decide what is important to you and who to believe.

Dan is brilliant, and if you ever get a chance to see him demo, prepare to be wowed. He will be the smartest man in the room. But be aware that many have gotten into debates with him about raw editing, color management (which he hated for the longest time), RGB, etc. because he has a very strong bias toward traditional CMYK press printing and sometimes doesn't accept the new.

janbak

Thanks colourbox

Your reply confirms what I read somewhere in Dn's book: if an image arrive to you in RGB and your printing process require an RGB file ther's no reason to move in a different colorspace.

But, I noticed that I reach better results in CMYK to adjust colours and in LAB to improve saturation, I mean that I usaully jump from RGB to CYMK, then from CYMK to RGB and then to LAB and finally to RGB again, is that correct or it may cause problem that I haven't yet seen?

pathfinder

The step to CMYK should usually be your final step. If you convert from CMYK to RGB or LAB, and then back to CMYK, you may not end up with what you started with due to differences in the sizes of the color spaces for each of the colors in CMYK, RGB, and LAB.

RGB to LAB and back in 16 bit won't cause an issue, but changing to CMYK most folks think is a one way trip.

janbak

pathfinder wrote:

The step to CMYK should usually be your final step. If you convert from CMYK to RGB or LAB, and then back to CMYK, you may not end up with what you started with due to differences in the sizes of the color spaces for each of the colors in CMYK, RGB, and LAB.

RGB to LAB and back in 16 bit won't cause an issue, but changing to CMYK most folks think is a one way trip.

Thank you, but ...

... photo processing service provider usually ask for RGB file , so my latest step should be a conversion in RGB, isn't it?

ivar

janbak wrote:

Thank you, but ...

... photo processing service provider usually ask for RGB file , so my latest step should be a conversion in RGB, isn't it?

what colorspace do you start with?

janbak

ivar wrote:

what colorspace do you start with?

... I always start with file in Adobe RGB in RAW format

pathfinder

If you desire your final image to be in RGB ( especially Adobe RGB ), and you shot in aRGB, I would a avoid a processing trip through standard CMYK.

If there is a specific reason for going to CMYK, and you know and understand the reason clearly, then you know more than I do, and should not pay attention to my advise.... I believe there has been some work with 16 bit wide spectrum CMYK spaces, but these are not standard 8bit CMYK.

If your desire is to create a 2nd image from your RAW file, and take that 2nd image into CMYK to extract the black channel, or the C,Y,M channels either, for use as a mask in your first image in RGB, that will have no damaging effect on the first image if done carefully since the first image never had the clipping that occurs with passage into CMYK in some of the colors. I know Dan likes to use the black channel as a mask at times. Nothing wrong with that if taken from a copy of your image, rather than the image itself being passed into CMYK.