Color Correction

Dan7312 · April 3, 2010

I'm setting up my system so I can try to understand and actually do color correction. I'm really just leaning this stuff so I'd like to know if I am moving in the right direction.

I've got a new monitor and a Spyder 3 Elite, but I haven't done my monitor profile yet.

I downloaded the BayPhoto color profile. That's the one I use to do soft proofing for prints I have made by BayPhoto, right?

I've ordered some of the SmugMug BayPhoto test prints, the one with the color chart, the one with the balls and the B/W castle.

There are no test prints for metal prints. Does it make any sense to have a test print like this, or are these good enough to get things calibrated?

Once I get my monitor calibrated I'm going to download the SmugMug test images and compare them to what test prints I get from BayPhoto. If the colors look the same then I've calibrated my monitor reasonably well, right?

Once I get everthing set up and try my hand at color correction on a few prints, my plan is to test myself by ordering 2 prints for of each of the images, one with BayPhoto color correction and one without. If the colors are the same then it means I'm getting the hang of doing correction. Does that may sense as a simple self test?

TIA

adbsgicom · April 6, 2010

I have found that some printers have variance even with calibration. This drove me nuts when I was seeing it. I had the same image sent to a calibrated Costco printer, Mpix, and my own Epson and my printer was the best match to the screen, and the Mpix and Costco (Norjitsu printer w/ profile from DryCreek) were pretty far off. I also tried Mpix with and without correction, and also using their profile instead of the default sRGB. I haven't proofed BayPhoto yet.

Overall, though, your flow and validation process feels right. I used the mPix testprint in my sanity flow.

Dan7312 · April 6, 2010

Thanks for the feedback and info.

arodney · April 6, 2010

Getting the display calibrated and profile is the first step and necessary. The target calibration aim points are based on the viewing conditions of the print next to the display you wish to match. Now for the print, that’s based on the output profile. Is it a good one? Does the lab use it? Do they allow YOU to use it and select the rendering intent? There are lame lab designed “workflows” where you are told to use a profile for soft proofing only and not allowed to use it to convert to the output color space for the printer. So the questions above in such workflows make it iffy if the process will work correctly or not.

Dan7312 · April 6, 2010

I'm planning using SmugMug's Bay Photo to do the processing. They do provide a profile for their printer but I don't see a way to specify rending intent when I disable Bay Photo color correction.

I'll have to see what happens once I round trip the whole process.

Does anyone know the rendering intent BayPhoto uses when you turn off color correction?

arodney wrote:

Getting the display calibrated and profile is the first step and necessary. The target calibration aim points are based on the viewing conditions of the print next to the display you wish to match. Now for the print, that’s based on the output profile. Is it a good one? Does the lab use it? Do they allow YOU to use it and select the rendering intent? There are lame lab designed “workflows” where you are told to use a profile for soft proofing only and not allowed to use it to convert to the output color space for the printer. So the questions above in such workflows make it iffy if the process will work correctly or not.

Dan7312 · April 6, 2010

Your book is available on Kindle which is really handy for me. But I've found that Kindle books with full page pictures or diagrams don't work well on an iPod. Alos if it has a lot of color important diagrams I don't think that would work well on a Kindle either. Does yours have some... I trying to decide on paper or Kindle edition.

Thanks,

arodney wrote:

Getting the display calibrated and profile is the first step and necessary. The target calibration aim points are based on the viewing conditions of the print next to the display you wish to match. Now for the print, that’s based on the output profile. Is it a good one? Does the lab use it? Do they allow YOU to use it and select the rendering intent? There are lame lab designed “workflows” where you are told to use a profile for soft proofing only and not allowed to use it to convert to the output color space for the printer. So the questions above in such workflows make it iffy if the process will work correctly or not.

bgarland · April 6, 2010

Dan7312 wrote:

Your book is available on Kindle which is really handy for me. But I've found that Kindle books with full page pictures or diagrams don't work well on an iPod. Alos if it has a lot of color important diagrams I don't think that would work well on a Kindle either. Does yours have some... I trying to decide on paper or Kindle edition.

Thanks,

I am on a similar learning path. I order the metal print 4X6 finish sample packs from Bayphoto recently. A couple of my landscape shots were pretty far off with the blues and purples overly saturated.

I was hoping I could just use their color correction service and let their professionals try to get it right.

vdotmatrix · April 13, 2010

adbsgicom wrote:

I have found that some printers have variance even with calibration. This drove me nuts when I was seeing it. I had the same image sent to a calibrated Costco printer, Mpix, and my own Epson and my printer was the best match to the screen, and the Mpix and Costco (Norjitsu printer w/ profile from DryCreek) were pretty far off. I also tried Mpix with and without correction, and also using their profile instead of the default sRGB. I haven't proofed BayPhoto yet.

Overall, though, your flow and validation process feels right. I used the mPix testprint in my sanity flow.

I am trying to get a handle on this as well; My friend told me to SEARCH on "ARODNEY" for color questions.
I calibrated my monitor with SPYDER2 and saved the resultant monitor calibration profile which I selected in PS-CS4, but have been unable to select in LIGHTROOM2.5.
NEXT, I acquired the Costco Norjitsu printer profile from DryCreek file, downloaded it and was able to select this file PS-CS4 along side the custom spyder profile i also created previously.

NOW WHAT? haha... When I switch from the SPYDER calibration to the DRYCREEK profile does this mean everything is in sync and now it is up to my eyes to project what the prints will look like? Am I missing any steps in this very important process? ( I will never be printing at home).

Thanks in advance!

adbsgicom · April 13, 2010

vdotmatrix wrote:

I am trying to get a handle on this as well; My friend told me to SEARCH on "ARODNEY" for color questions.
I calibrated my monitor with SPYDER2 and saved the resultant monitor calibration profile which I selected in PS-CS4, but have been unable to select in LIGHTROOM2.5.
NEXT, I acquired the Costco Norjitsu printer profile from DryCreek file, downloaded it and was able to select this file PS-CS4 along side the custom spyder profile i also created previously.

NOW WHAT? haha... When I switch from the SPYDER calibration to the DRYCREEK profile does this mean everything is in sync and now it is up to my eyes to project what the prints will look like? Am I missing any steps in this very important process? ( I will never be printing at home).

Thanks in advance!

No. Remember, the profile is for the device. So you should use the profile for your monitor as your monitor profile. I don't know about Spyder2, but Spyder3 had s/w that loaded the profile for you. Depending on the O/S doing it manually is varying degrees of annoying. In CS/PS/LR you want to use either sRGB or ProPhoto as your color space. Just leave it there. Then when you print, if you are printing to a file from LR, select the DryCreek profile for the printer and print to file. In CS/PS, you will want to covert to another profile and save that jpg in a folder for files going to Costco.

vdotmatrix · April 14, 2010

adbsgicom wrote:

No. Remember, the profile is for the device. So you should use the profile for your monitor as your monitor profile. I don't know about Spyder2, but Spyder3 had s/w that loaded the profile for you. Depending on the O/S doing it manually is varying degrees of annoying. In CS/PS/LR you want to use either sRGB or ProPhoto as your color space. Just leave it there. Then when you print, if you are printing to a file from LR, select the DryCreek profile for the printer and print to file. In CS/PS, you will want to covert to another profile and save that jpg in a folder for files going to Costco.

THANKS , this is SOOOOO helpful. I couldn't piece the entire scheme of things and you have done a great job of spoon feeding!.

Yes, SPYDER2 does automatically load profile as I boot the machine up in XP-pro.

When I bring a file over to photoshop CS4 for tweaking , a window always comes up and asks me about color space: use the embedded colorspace which is prolly prophoto ( not the device profile) or use the working space I had selected previously, which was the DRYCREEK profile.

The way I am doing it is all wrong....

I should, like you say, use the monitor profile and the prophoto colorspace to tweak, then when I save a finished product to send to the color lab , use the DRYCREEK profile and save as a JPG...

Right!!!!

thank you !!!

adbsgicom · April 14, 2010

Close. So close....

The only place the monitor profile is loaded is on your monitor. It controls the Lookup Tables (LUTs) in you graphics card to best map the color spectrum to your monitor. For example, when you calibrated a bunch of red patches went by and the Spyder read the color. So now the LUTs are loaded so 0x80 red (digital color) is mapped to whatever output value (0x00-0xff) provides the right red intensity. So, now you should be working in sRGB or proPhoto as your default color space (remember if you are working in proPhoto you'll have to save to sRGB for most digital display applications since the color space information may not be honored by all display devices, and sRGB is the defacto color space). Most pictures you import will be in AdobeRGB or sRGB (from your camera) if you are in jpg mode. If you are in RAW (and you should be), the color space is assigned when you import the RAW file into LR or CS.

So your pop-up about conflicting color space should only be about sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto, never your monitor or DryCreek.

Color Correction

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