My head hurts.. dam color managment!

[mi75]

I've searched the web and this site and I'm after advice from the more experienced on whether my understanding of the situation is correct.

 

- My dell monitor is Wide gamut & calibrated using a Spyder3Pro (2.2 & 6500).

- In PS my color settings for working space is Adobe RGB (1998).

- I do all my Post is PS and then when a client needs an email proof or the final product I convert the working profile from Adobe RGB to 8 bit sRGB.

 

Now when I view that new sRGB image on my desktop using windows viewer the colors are wrong, not totally wrong but still very noticeable. If I re-open that sRGB image in PS where my working color space is Adobe RGB the colors still look wrong until I change my working color settings to sRGB. I assume part of that problem is due to windows not supporting color management and the Wide Gamut display. Images/icons etc.. only look correct in color managed programes.

 

Now when I send that picture to the client assuming there not using a calibrated monitor the image should look fine because there monitor profile as std will more than likely be very close sRGB and not wide gamut. But anyone viewing that image on a calibrated Wide gamut monitor system will have to re-open it in a program like PS to see the "real" image which will be probaly less than 1% of clients?

 

So to have any control over what the client see's I should save as a PDF in sRGB 8bit or just send out a sRGB image and let then decide what program to open it with?

 

Is my understanding correct.

 

 

 

Thanks in advance

I think I need a drink!

 

 

Mart

Edited April 23, 2009 by mi75

[Matt McDonald]

I don't think that you can assume anything on the end of your client. If it is really proving to be a problem you'll need to send the client a proper proof (a print).

[AJLynn]

Your Windows software might not be correctly handling the display calibration...

 

Color calibration is such a pain, just keep your monitors calibrated, print on paper you have profiles for, and it will come out right. For everything else, repeat after me, "Grant me the serenity to accept things I can not change..."

[BrianKitts]

If I'm super concerned about the color of an image, I'll print from photoshop to PDF, that way you get an embedded color profile. In the print settings for the PDF, click on edit next to "default settings" and you can set the color profile that it will use.

 

Still can't do anything about the fact that they probably don't have a calibrated monitor, but this leaves the client (or coworker) with only one option to view the image, and cuts down the number of variables that would lead to them viewing the image differently than you would expect.

[Jeff Mottle]

Martin,

 

You've doing almost everything right but here are a few tips and warnings.

 

1. As you are working on a wide gamut display and making your color decisions based on a monitor that is pretty close to the aRGB color space, you are correct in using aRGB as your working space.

 

2. When you convert to sRGB from aRGB with the intent of sending it to most clients, you are also correct. However, because you are viewing this on a wide gamut display, anytime you view that image outside of a color managed environment, the colors will not look correct and never will as long as windows remain non-color managed. What is happening is the color numbers in your file that you have converted to sRGB are now bing interpreted as through they were aRGB. When you open it back in Photoshop, if it's still not looking right, it's because you did not embed the sRGB profile when you saved the file. Photoshop will use the working space (depending on your color settings) if there is no embedded profile.

 

See this post for more explanation on this: http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/35112-color-modes-will-drive-me-crazy-some-day-3.html#post245516

 

3. You should use Acrobat when sending files to clients as it is color managed. Just be sure you open Acrobat and open the pages pane and then drag your file into the window. Don't print to a PDF as you can force another conversion if you don't set that up correctly. If you just drag and drop, Acrobat will use the embedded profile. You might want to leave the aRGB profile embedded in this case, as sRGB will likely desaturate the image, given sRGB is a smaller color space. See my note below #5 on sending the file to the client.

 

4. Wide gamut display can be problematic if you work outside of a color managed environment. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this. I have the same Dell you do, so I know what you are experiencing. It's a well documented issue within color management circles. As long as you only work in color managed environments and if you sometimes print your own images, they can be great! You do have to be aware that images will shift considerably when viewed outside of windows.

 

5. When you do send the image to the client, just convert it to sRGB and embed the sRGB profile. This is good to have in there if they send it to a professional printer or is printed by someone who understands color management. If you know they are going to send it to the printer, you could also provide them a version with the aRGB profile embedded so you keep more of the color gamut. Just send it to them and let them know that that version is for professional printers and color management savvy people. The sRGB version is for web and internal use.

 

If anything is not clear, just let me know and I will help. I've covered this workflow in a lot more detail in 3DATS new book, which should be out this August. There is 55 pages on the entire subject.

[Jeff Mottle]

Color calibration is such a pain, just keep your monitors calibrated, print on paper you have profiles for, and it will come out right.

 

If you're lucky it will. But you really need to understand color management and what is going on behind the scenes. Once you know a few core concepts, color management is really easy. It just seems hard because none of the applications that use it, make it easy to use without some background understanding. There is more to color management than just calibrating your display and using some manufacturer provided profiles. If you don't use them correctly, you'll really get yourself into trouble.

[mi75]

Thank you all for the replies and thanks Jeff for the added details.

 

It all seems pretty clear and the upcoming book sounds like a must for my collection.

 

I really like the wide gamut display (Dell 2709W) for max & photo editing but it can become a bit eye straining when you need to do some MS Office work with no color management and all the icon colors are glowing, thank god I don't have to do that very often and thank god Firefox has color management support.

 

 

Thanks again

 

Martin

Edited April 24, 2009 by mi75

[mi75]

Your Windows software might not be correctly handling the display calibration...

 

Late last year that was the case after I installed a new ATi video card and the only way to solve that problem was to disable the ATi color management from loading on start-up. After doing that the custom profile would work fine. I just bought another Ati card for another workstation and had the same issue with the Ati software. I'm sure there are people out there who think they have a calibrated monitor unbeknown that the Ati software had disabled the custom profile about 5sec after windows finished loading, if you watch closely you can even see it happen.

 

After a lot of forum searches I found it was a common problem.

[bulicn]

For fast image viewing on Windows try XnView. It has color managment so you can tell it to use your ICC profile when showing images. I think IrfanView also support this but not sure.