Info and help request. Color management (Mac and Canon printer).

[big-guy]

Hi,

I have a new printer (Canon Pixma ip4500) and many questions.

I am asking you for an understanding of color management with my system. I would be grateful if you would post useful links and answers to my questions. Starting with basics is fine with me.

How many color management systems for Mac are there? Is Colorsync one? others? How do I use them?
How do I use Profiles, and where do I get them?
For inks, printer, papers. and other?
Do profiles work with Photoshop or the printer driver?

System - Mac G4 OS 10.4.11
Photoshop 8.0 for post processing and printing
Printer Canon Pixma ip4500 with 6.9.2 driver
monitor IBM P72 (Sony Trinitron)
Cameras - Konica Minolta 5D, Canon 300D, Fujifilm F20

My screen has not been calibrated (I think I know someone at work that has equipment to do this), but it is very close to the images I get back from Costco 1 hour labs (nice). The printer is new to me, and I get photo output with a noticeable Magenta hue. My screen colors are accurate looking, and doesn't have the magenta look.
The nozzle check is perfect, and this is just installed with Canon Ink.

First, I need to get an understanding of how to get accurate colors.

After I use up the ink in the Canon Set, I will be refilling with Sensient Imaging Formulabs inks. I will need to get a profile for that soon. I read here about the German refill method, and have the supplies already. I am looking forward to saving money on printing.

Please help me learn how to print accurately at home. Thanks.

big-guy

 

[Smile]

Hi,

I have a new printer (Canon Pixma ip4500) and many questions.

I am asking you for an understanding of color management with my system. I would be grateful if you would post useful links and answers to my questions. Starting with basics is fine with me.

How many color management systems for Mac are there? Is Colorsync one? others? How do I use them?
How do I use Profiles, and where do I get them?
For inks, printer, papers. and other?
Do profiles work with Photoshop or the printer driver?

System - Mac G4 OS 10.4.11
Photoshop 8.0 for post processing and printing
Printer Canon Pixma ip4500 with 6.9.2 driver
monitor IBM P72 (Sony Trinitron)
Cameras - Konica Minolta 5D, Canon 300D, Fujifilm F20

My screen has not been calibrated (I think I know someone at work that has equipment to do this), but it is very close to the images I get back from Costco 1 hour labs (nice). The printer is new to me, and I get photo output with a noticeable Magenta hue. My screen colors are accurate looking, and doesn't have the magenta look.
The nozzle check is perfect, and this is just installed with Canon Ink.

First, I need to get an understanding of how to get accurate colors.

After I use up the ink in the Canon Set, I will be refilling with Sensient Imaging Formulabs inks. I will need to get a profile for that soon. I read here about the German refill method, and have the supplies already. I am looking forward to saving money on printing.

Please help me learn how to print accurately at home. Thanks.

big-guy

You need to have color profiles for all your devices that input/output data.
You need your monitor calibrated and then profiled same is for your printer, then you can use these color profiles to reproduce accurate color on screen and on you printer.

My screen colors are accurate looking, and doesn't have the magenta look.

It does not matter how your colors look like, it must be accurate in order to match with your prints.
I'm windows user so can't tell about MAC color management system
you can read about basic stuff here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorSync

And you can read about color management in general here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

Color management can sound easy or difficult but accurate color depends on device accuracy that measures color (spectrophotometer) and operator skill. For example for some printers you must print test chart than print the same rotated 180 degrees and average the readings to get what printer really prints.

It is good that use CRT monitor as these are better than any not very expensive LCD for working with color.

How do I use Profiles, and where do I get them?

I myself have a company and make profiles I work locally now, but if you are interested contact me and I'll see what I can do.

You can search on google for other companies too, but in most the price is high or profile quality is moderate.
Best if you can find local company and get the service done on site because one thing that reduces profiles accuracy is user error in printing the test chart like: wrong printer settings, not testing do all nozzles fire before printing the test, not verifying if every color patch is printed without smearing etc.

Also a local firm could profile your cameras too, even if do not use them in the studio. Because everyone thinks that only in studio camera profiling is worth it – wrong.

For example flower macro photography is a good example. Or anything that needs the depth of field that a correctly profiled camera can record in you photos and save hours on editing them in photoshop.

For inks, printer, papers. and other?

Paper depends on your taste if you have profiles for every paper that is
For ink I recommend InkTec

Do profiles work with Photoshop or the printer driver?

Profiles work with Photoshop Hey it's the best color management application for professional editing.
I would recommend using Qimage for batch prints as quality is the same as Photoshop or in some cases better, the program price is reasonable too.

 

[Grandad35]

Big-guy,

Here is a good book on color management.
http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Co...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205282509&sr=8-1

Here are two more links to get you started:
http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/

Also a local firm could profile your cameras too, even if do not use them in the studio. Because everyone thinks that only in studio camera profiling is worth it wrong.

For example flower macro photography is a good example. Or anything that needs the depth of field that a correctly profiled camera can record in you photos and save hours on editing them in photoshop.

This is a new take on this subject that I have not seen before. Could you provide a link in support of this statement?

I shoot almost exclusively in RAW and process in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). As I understand it, ACR has canned "average profiles" for many of the more popular DSLRs for the common white balance selections (flash, daylight, tungsten, etc.). However, the first thing that I do is to adjust the sliders to get a more pleasing photo, destroying any true color rendition that may have been achieved by the camera and ACR. Here is a thread that discusses an observation that many people don't really want an accurate color rendition for their photos - they prefer a photo that shows how they chose to remember a scene rather than what was actually in front of the camera.

Secondly, once you deviate from a preset white balance or use a gray card to set the white balance, doesn't your profile go out the window?

With the example of the flower, it is true that a camera that has been profiled under the lighting conditions that exist when you take the photo gives you a good chance of capturing the real colors (assuming that your camera has a wide enough gamut), but how often will your lighting match the lighting used to generate the profile, except in a studio? Further, what are the chances that your monitor has a sufficiently large gamut to display all of the colors that the camera captured? The chances of having a printer that can then accurately print all of these colors are even less likely.

 

[Smile]

This is a new take on this subject that I have not seen before. Could you provide a link in support of this statement?

Yes it is, I can post you some sample photos not the best I agree that shows better shadow handling due to profiles applied to the photos. Because Internet Explorer is not ICC color aware it's not the best way to view the advantages of color profiling. I tried to pick up some photos. Some advantages can be seen by viewing the originals on a profiled monitor only to you can't judge the worth of camera profiling by these images alone.

Color profiling unlocks shadows in photos and they appear more in depth than non profiled ones. Profiles can be attached using Photoshop automatically or by using third party open source command line tools, it is easy and fast for processing batches of photos. Then you can select which ones you like and edit them in Photoshop like you said "they prefer a photo that shows how they chose to remember a scene rather than what was actually in front of the camera".

The effect can be called like I said “better depth of field” or “shadow unlocking” it occurs because a typical 8 or 10 Mega pixel camera can record more information if you shoot a macro subject with a macro lens that covers and area about 3 or 5 square centimeters than if you use it for wide angle. The profile unlocks the clipped shadows thus produces better color rendition and visually “better depth of field”.

Same is for printer profiling it makes the shadows “unlock” as we all know.

By making profiles for your camera you can reduce the time you edit your photos in Photoshop because you no longer need to edit color balance, saturation, shadows etc.

Like you said you can use software that is called high dynamic range but that takes time and PC processing power. If you need to process a large batch of photos it takes allot of time and in some cases makes photos oversaturated and gives a look like a poster.

Secondly, once you deviate from a preset white balance or use a gray card to set the white balance, doesn't your profile go out the window?

I always tend to shoot white balance card or a white patch on the profiling test card before I start taking photos. Even if I do not attach profiles to photos later it's because camera inbuilt AWB is wrong most of the time unless you use flash.
I shoot JPG because it's faster and I can make more photos on the same memory card. I don't need to process them later to work further etc. I plan to investigate all this RAW thing in a few months when I get my 40D issues resolved

Meanwhile I use my Canon PowerShot G7.

One profile lasts for lighting conditions that it is made for. Lighting outside does change but changes are not too drastic as one tend to believe. For example once you make a profile when the sun is highest in the sky you have about 3hours minimum time period before you would start to notice changes like when you apply the profile in Photoshop you photos get darker etc.

Profiles for outdoor photography can be used if you do not use flash because that makes things more complicated it has to be inbuilt into the profile.
Best conditions is constant lighting like the sun

You usually need 3 profiles for a separate periods of the day. Everyone’s different so I tend to make profiles according to when the person shoots and recommend if it is worth creating profiles at all etc. So a set of profiles lasts until you notice that you need a new one it can last for whole summer season for some others tend to do month by month sets.

It is worth to note that if you create a given set of profiles for a moth next year it will be still accurate the same month as they were created because the sun is in the same position etc.

It all depends how critical you are, hey some peopple do not refill because colors are better with OEM ink they say, I say make a profile and enjoy cheap printing without loosing color quality by utilizing the power of color management and profiled workflow.

Further, what are the chances that your monitor has a sufficiently large gamut to display all of the colors that the camera captured? The chances of having a printer that can then accurately print all of these colors are even less likely.

My printer can print ~90% of all colors my camera can produce and my monitor can display ~95% of them too so I see no problem here:

So color profiles can be used to reach these goals:
1.Acurate color
2.Starting point for "unlocking" your photo potential for making further adjustment in chosen editor
3.To make chosen effect faster than any other batch method possible for altering such broad array of variables (you can make a profile for an event your going to shoot or to make some effects for this event etc.)

 

[Grandad35]

Smile,

I never use the cameras AWB one big benefit of shooting RAW is that you can select/change the WB when you process the photos (impossible with a jpeg out of the camera). Since ACR has built-in profiles for each camera, you get most of the benefits of custom camera profiles with no effort. You can also easily tweak the WB if the lighting didnt exactly match the profile, even if you didnt use a gray card. Once you select the color temperature and tint for a given series of shots, it only takes a few seconds to apply those settings to an entire group of photos. It takes a little while to get used to processing RAW images, but the flexibility makes it well worth the effort. It may take a little time to fine tune each image, but this eliminates the need to later use Levels or Curves in Photoshop, so the total processing time is about a wash. If you want the best possible images of things like the flowers that you posted, you will never go back to shooting jpegs once you try RAW. One of the big advantages of RAW is in getting the best possible shadow detail, because you are working with 12/14 bit color data (depending on the camera), not the 8 bits in a jpeg. If you have to stretch out the shadows, you will see less posterization if the stretching is done with the 12/14 bit data before the image is converted to 8 bits.

The color gamut that you show for your camera is much smaller than the gamut that is available from your 40D, but I believe that you need to shoot RAW to get the full color gamut from the camera. For example, if you shoot jpegs in the aRGB color space (only sRGB and aRGB are available with jpegs from the camera), you can see how much of your cameras capability is unused. To get the absolute maximum out of your camera, you should shoot RAW and process your images in 16 bit PhotoPro RGB. I convert to 8 bit jpegs in the aRGB color space from RAW, since even aRGBs gamut is bigger than my monitors and printers gamuts, so the larger PhotoPro RGB space would be wasted for me.

If you have a VRML plugin installed, you can see this 3D gamut comparison. This link shows aRGB/Canon 20D camera/i9900 printer gamuts on the same plot (your 40D should be even better than the 20D, but the 40D isnt one of the options):
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/...odel.php?Submit=Build+Model&CS=2&CR=120&TC=20

This link shows aRGB/1DsMkII/i9900 gamuts on the same plot (my 5D isnt one of the available options, but I believe it to be close to the 1DSMkII). This gives an idea of how much better dSLRs have become in their ability to record a very wide range of colors.
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/...odel.php?Submit=Build+Model&CS=2&CR=118&TC=20

 

[Smile]

I never use the camera’s AWB – one big benefit of shooting RAW is that you can select/change the WB when you process the photos (impossible with a jpeg out of the camera). Since ACR has built-in profiles for each camera, you get most of the benefits of custom camera profiles with no effort. You can also easily tweak the WB if the lighting didn’t exactly match the profile, even if you didn’t use a gray card.

As I said I use my Canon PowerShot G7 now. It can zoom from 1cm so macro shots are very good
The camera does not support RAW because stupid canon disabled it in camera, and I know it is enabled again in G9 but is has some noise problems.

I does not know if ACR has canned profiles but if it does than it's no better than canned printer profiles. You can't get good canned profile.

Each camera like printer deviates one from other, deviation is slight or moderate depending on when it was made and in what factory. What firmware or BIOS it has etc. So canned profile made for camera like 40D is valid until you do not change your variables that make the total color workflow accuracy. As you can't measure something with rubber ruller.

IF you can tweak WB if the lighting didn’t exactly match when you took a photo in RAW without shadow loss compression etc. Than it can be possible to shoot a profiling testcard and then depending on how you took your photo adjust taget remake profile for camera and then use same adjustment in your photos and apply you adjusted profile.

I'll investigate when I get my 40D.

Once you select the color temperature and tint for a given series of shots, it only takes a few seconds to apply those settings to an entire group of photos.

I see but you do not edit your original RAW files do you? And when you begin to shoot RAW you do not want to convert to JPG you convert to TIFF file instead not to loose any information due to compression. The last time I checked conversion is not anywhere instant and TIFF files are large.

One of the big advantages of RAW is in getting the best possible shadow detail, because you are working with 12/14 bit color data (depending on the camera), not the 8 bits in a jpeg.

Thats why HDR apps convert your JPG's to 16bit and you can apply you effects then you must save as any other file format.

One of the big advantages of RAW is in getting the best possible shadow detail, because you are working with 12/14 bit color data (depending on the camera), not the 8 bits in a jpeg.

Canon G7 is marketed as sRGB camera.

One of the big advantages of RAW is in getting the best possible shadow detail, because you are working with 12/14 bit color data (depending on the camera), not the 8 bits in a jpeg.

I would if camera supported it, I tried several hacked firmware but programs like ACR does not support it so it's a pain to use.

 

[Grandad35]

I see but you do not edit your original RAW files do you? And when you begin to shoot RAW you do not want to convert to JPG you convert to TIFF file instead not to loose any information due to compression. The last time I checked conversion is not anywhere instant and TIFF files are large.

If you are a professional and want to keep as much detail as possible in case you want to re-edit an image 20 years from now, by all means it should be saved in a 16 bit layered tiff format (without the final sharpening) to preserve as much of the original data as possible. When you want to print, the usual approach is to then convert the tiff to a jpeg to get the file size down to make it easier to handle. In fact, I have some family portraits that are over 100 megs, but which pack down to a few megs in a jpeg for printing.

However, I'm just an amateur and most of my shots are just candids of our grandchildren, so they don't need this level of archiving - after the lighting, etc. is adjusted, they are converted to jpegs,and will never be edited again. 16 bit Tiffs aren't necessary in this case.

You cannot edit a raw file - adjustments are made in a "sidecar" file that tells the RAW conversion program how to modify the data in the RAW file. I have attached a sample of some of the data from one of these files:
<crs:WhiteBalance>Flash</crs:WhiteBalance>
<crs:Temperature>5500</crs:Temperature>
<crs:Tint>0</crs:Tint>
<crs:Exposure>-1.00</crs:Exposure>
<crs:Shadows>0</crs:Shadows>
<crs:Brightness>+85</crs:Brightness>
<crs:Contrast>+40</crs:Contrast>
<crs:Saturation>+5</crs:Saturation>
<crs:Sharpness>25</crs:Sharpness>
<crs:LuminanceSmoothing>9</crs:LuminanceSmoothing>
<crs:ColorNoiseReduction>25</crs:ColorNoiseReduction>
<crs:ChromaticAberrationR>0</crs:ChromaticAberrationR>
<crs:ChromaticAberrationB>0</crs:ChromaticAberrationB>
<crs:VignetteAmount>+11</crs:VignetteAmount>
<crs:VignetteMidpoint>50</crs:VignetteMidpoint>
<crs:ShadowTint>0</crs:ShadowTint>
<crs:RedHue>0</crs:RedHue>
<crs:RedSaturation>0</crs:RedSaturation>
<crs:GreenHue>0</crs:GreenHue>
<crs:GreenSaturation>0</crs:GreenSaturation>
<crs:BlueHue>0</crs:BlueHue>
<crs:BlueSaturation>0</crs:BlueSaturation>
<crs:FillLight>0</crs:FillLight>
<crs:Vibrance>0</crs:Vibrance>
<crs:HighlightRecovery>0</crs:HighlightRecovery>
<crs:ToneCurve>
<rdf:Seq>
<rdf:li>0, 0</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>32, 22</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>64, 56</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>128, 128</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>192, 196</rdf:li>
<rdf:li>255, 255</rdf:li>
</rdf:Seq>
</crs:ToneCurve>
<crs:CameraProfile>ACR 3.3</crs:CameraProfile>

Conversion isn't instant, but it runs without any attention. I just read e-mail or get a drink of water while it runs. Once you get your 40D, give RAW a try. Until you see what it can do for the quality of your images, it's hard to understand why pros usually shoot their critical images in RAW:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=400127&highlight=why+shoot+RAW
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=343960&highlight=why+shoot+RAW

 

[Smile]

Thanks for information. I see that Adobe camera raw or lightroom does not feature a softproof feature, without it how a pro can see what is going to be the end result on paper?

Furthermore calibrating ACR is not a snap, it's unautomated process involving user decisions and possibly human error in the ned result. http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cach...camera+color+profile&hl=lt&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=lt

I will try RAW like you say, isn't it useless if I have to save my images to TIFF or JPG then softproof them with my output device profiles with adobe photoshop. That is double the work. And adjustments in Lightroom or ACR without softproof are like working without a calibrated monitor imho.

 

[Grandad35]

I will try RAW like you say, isn't it useless if I have to save my images to TIFF or JPG then softproof them with my output device profiles with adobe photoshop. That is double the work. And adjustments in Lightroom or ACR without softproof are like working without a calibrated monitor imho.

The usual approach is to edit your photos without regard to where they will be printed, and to save that as the master file for the image. To print the image, start with a copy of the master and softproof it with the profile of the specific output device that will be used to make the print, adjusting the colors as required or that specific printer. It is normal practice to resize/crop the image to the desired print size and to apply the final sharpening at this time.

If you later want to print the same image on a different output device (maybe at a different size, etc.), it is best to start over with another copy of the master and repeat the softproofing process for the second output device.

 

[Smile]

The usual approach is to edit your photos without regard to where they will be printed, and to save that as the master file for the image.

Yes I agree but in RAW all adjustments are non destructive so the master file is the original RAW file. You do not need to make any copies of it.

To print the image, start with a copy of the master and softproof it with the profile of the specific output device that will be used to make the print, adjusting the colors as required or that specific printer.

I need to be able to softproof while editing RAW to see on my monitor how image changes. The profile for softproofing will be my camera profile not printer.

This is the part that is missing, in ACR or lightroom I wonder about Aperture for MAC does it support ICC profiles?

Then images can be processed to JPG, or TIFF files to edit them later in photoshop etc. Then you should softproof in photoshop with your printer profile to see how it looks before printing.

I'm going to look for other RAW software that perhaps supports ICC profiles.