Topic: The Mystery of Color Management

[original_ann]

I have no solutions here.  Only a need to vent a MAJOR frustration about the hybrid workflow:  Getting the photographs I print off of my printer to match the colors that I see on my monitor.  I've got the Spyder 3 Elite to try to keep me whipped into shape.   And yet, everything still feels SO UNRELIABLE!

Decide to submit a particular print to a local camera club contest but the one I printed 4 months ago has a tiny scratch.  No big deal, here's the file with all my minor adjustments.  I print again and huh?  cyans become purple/magenta? Since when?

Perhaps the colors are outside of the gamut for my printer?  No, because  I have the good print sitting right next to me as proof that everything did and can work.   How did the colors change from what I'm seeing on my monitor?  Wow, my calibration must be off.  I run a calibration check on my monitor - nope.  It says absolutely nothing has changed with my measurements.

I use a lifeline and call a friend.  Said friend has me go into my customized proof setup and read it to her.  (I never use proof  - I don't get that concept either, I'm afraid).  So under the Photoshop menu (View/Proof Setup/ Custom...)  I select my profile and then start playing with the rendering intents to see which one looks the way I want it to look when I print.  Great.  yes, this is the combo I want.  Make those changes to my Printing settings.  Queue the womp-womp sound:  What I see on the screen is not what prints.  I ask my friend how this can be.  She does not know either.

Mulling it over the next day at work, I decide if I'm to enter (tonight's) contest, I'm going to have to just figure it out the true source later.  But for now, I'm going to have to manually make color adjustments, print, adjust again, print, adjust again, print... until I get the colors that I desire from my printer. 

Another evening/night lost adjusting, printing, shaking head, adjusting, printing, shaking head, adjusting, printing... well you get the idea.   

Exhausting.  I have an advanced education.  I'm adept at picking up new concepts.  And yet.... Why, oh why oh why can I not comprehend and make sense of the whole color management realm so that I can help myself?  If I could just understand it, I probably could identify WHERE the source of my error lies instead of blindly making color adjustments!  It utterly confuses me.  It's as if it's a different language.   Now, despite the numerous hours spent, I won't be able to submit my image [which clearly was the winner, right??]. 

And on top of that, the time I thought I had to get other things done, will now have to stop so that I can try to feebly re-educate myself with calibration concepts so that I don't lose every ounce of free time spinning my wheels.  Gahhhh!   (And guess what - I don't feel better after having vented).   ;-))

[Late Developer]

A HUGE cyber-hug coming at you, Ann, because I have never understood the first thing about colour calibration when it comes to printing and I have experienced the absolute desolation of following the instructions and guide books - to the letter - only for the end result to look like some ghastly mess.

I sold my printer and I no longer own one.

I have a Spyder (just for my PC screen) which worked perfectly when I had my previous PC. Then I replaced my PC with my current one and the software became incompatible. No rhyme or reason to any of it as far as I can see - other than to force me to buy more / newer kit.

We've put men on the moon, eradicated killer diseases and invented ball point pens that will write upside down. Surely, therefore, it cannot be outside the wit of man (or woman) to be able to build interfaces into d*****l cameras, PCs / Macs and printers to get them all talking to one another so they use the same colour space.....

Aside from loving black and white, the ceaseless and almost suicide-inducing frustration that is colour management is the main reason why you will seldom see me using colour film. On the occasions when I want a print, I take a CD to my friend (a pro photographer who has a camera shop / print facility) and he does the business for me. It's a bit expensive but my blood pressure and mental health thank me for it.

If anyone knows of a simple, idiot-proof guide on this subject (or some gizmo that does the job for you) I would welcome a pointer in its general direction.

[Paul Mitchell]

Life's too short Ann to become embroiled in and solve the mysteries of colour management. I have a rather thick book sitting on my shelf devoted to said subject... have I ever opened it?... no! (your quite welcome to have it if you PM me BTW). The only information I can share with you that enables me to achieve consistent results is, I always use an Epson printer with Epson inks, I only use Permajet papers and use their profiles. And most importantly I always remember to turn off the printers colour management before pressing the button... I'm not suggesting this is your problem but you'd be surprised how many people forget.

Hope you manage to solve the problem and don't end up with self inflicted alopecia!

Paul

[sapata]

Sorry if my thoughts to this sounds a bit dumb but printing at home it's something I haven't had much experience.

Can it be by any chance that the problem lies on the paper itself? Could a diferent paper/brand be the cause?

Now, If you're using the same box... you've mentioned you printed the same image 4 months ago, I was wondering if during this period of time the paper has lost some of the "magic" if it's been poorly stored...

[Alan]

are you using original inks?

i assume its INKjet.

from what i understand the best results can be had from using
branded original products . . . matching canon inks to canon paper etc.

[Alan]

oh and have you changed the colour mode on the image from something like
RGB to CMYK?

printer settings from vivid, photo, magazine etc.

sorry just going through some obvious settings that may have changed.

[Francois]

I know my printer has some settings for auto-enhencing that I turn off.

Also, you might find it handy to print some test strips.
I use a venerable version of Vivid Detail's Test strip.

But for free, I found this action set for Photoshop which looks mighty good.
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRTestStrips.htm

[original_ann]

Thank you EVERYONE for the validation!  I ended up with a workable print but shockingly did not place (hint:  many HDR images placed...). 

When I have sufficient time, I'll contact Datacolor's guy and ask him what I'm doing wrong.  Every document I've read on the subject makes me feel like I"m missing the course that would enable me to understand what the heck I"m reading!! (why can't they speak in ultra-laymen's terms is beyond me). 

I am definitely using the right paper profile and my paper's a-okay. That is what's so mysterious.  All the same, I'm hoping what seems so obscure will be blaringly obvious to Datacolor's top guy.  I will share once that happens in the hopes it helps others.  Sheeshy.

By the way, Francois that test strip is absolutely nifty!  I wonder if they have one for CS5.  Would be interesting to try out. 

[Francois]

Thanks Ann, I'm pretty sure it can be edited to work on it.

Actually, I don't believe the problem is with the Spyder. When you follow the on-screen instructions, your screen should be good.

The problem is always with the printer. Just changing paper or the ink cartridge can throw the profile completely off. That's why they make a special calibrated test strip scanner... that costs an arm and a leg.

For a printer, I use a very cheap HP Deskjet. While its color space is not all that great, it does give me the sRGB range of colors. And when I work on an image, I always tell Photoshop to convert to sRGB before printing. While I do lose a lot of colors in the blues, I feel I'd rather live with that than a totally off print.

[Diane Peterson]

So GLAD to hear I am not alone is this dilemma..I consider myself to be at least of adequate intelligence concerning these things but when I try to resolve issues like this I am lost!
maybe we should be forming a group??    Inkwasters?

[Francois]

Actually, I try to show my home made prints only to colorblind people

[original_ann]

Inkwasters is quite the appropriate 'title', Diane!!

[Photo_Utopia]

Hi Ann
Colour management is a bit of a dark art, one that takes a little time to get used to. I have been using it since PS5 (the first version with a CMM).
I will try to simplify it, hopefully not overly.
It sounds like you have your monitor calibrated which is a good start. Next set your workspace, which Adobe will use to map your monitor profile to.
If you are using a good paper you will need a profile for it, these can be downloaded from the paper brands website normally for ballpark accuracy.
In PSCS what you will need to do is go to View>Proof Setup> Custom
Set the device to simulate as your paper profile ICC and rendering intent to Perceptual, black point compensation should be on and I tick black ink simulate too.
This mean you can soft proof in PS rather than print to see approx output.
To do this go View>Proof colours.
This is by no means an exhaustive list but will help.
here is a web page with it explained
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/soft-proofing.shtml

Hope this helps
Mark

[Terry]

I've never seen two computer monitors that matched colors perfectly....

[original_ann]

Photo_Utopia!  Thank you!  I have a question... when I go into the Custom Proof Setup, what exactly is that doing? I don't comprehend its purpose / what it does vs. what it doesn't do.  This is all so foreign to me.   OK, that is my first start - I will set those up some time this week!

[Photo_Utopia]

Photo_Utopia!  Thank you!  I have a question... when I go into the Custom Proof Setup, what exactly is that doing? I don't comprehend its purpose / what it does vs. what it doesn't do.  This is all so foreign to me.   OK, that is my first start - I will set those up some time this week!

Put simply it converts the colours you see on your monitor into that of the destination space-that is the colour conversion engine tries to map the red you see on the screen to the nearest red your printer/paper is capable of.

Colour management can be thought of as three boxes, each one can hold a limited range of colours
Device space (camera, scanner)
Work space (what you see on the screen-adjusted for/mapped to monitor calibration)
Destination space (either monitor or paper)

Here is a device an Epson V500  (in grey) compared to the destination which is my inkjet printer with Fotospeed paper.


Most final destination spaces are much smaller that the originating device, colour management and proofing helps us to see what gets chopped off. It also attempts to pick colours that a perceptually similar.

Hope I haven't confused you... 

[original_ann]

OK, THIS is starting to make sense.  I can't say that I won't have to read and re-read this many times, but I get this!  I'm in the middle of scanning, so I'll try it out this weekend and see what's what!  Exciting!

[Francois]

If you're still using XP (like me), you can get the color control panel powertoy which is very visual. It makes understanding color profiles so easy.