Color settings for camera and Photoshop CS5

[Joeboxes]

I am confused as to what color settings I should use. I have a Nikon D7000 camera and I use Photoshop CS5. I also show my images on my web site, http://photography-Joe.com. I've read that sRGB is best for emailing and web viewing, that Adobe RGB is best for printing on inkjet printers, that my Photoshop setting should be on ProPhoto RGB. I shoot RAW exclusively. Obviously I'd like to have maximun color effect on each of the entities I use, as well as have them coordinated with each other for max. effect. I also have a Canon Pro9000 Mark ll printer. Can any help me unscramble these setting so I get the best end results. Thanks.

[revi]

We just had a related discussion here, perhaps that might help you to decide

For me, after reading about colour management, colour spaces and all that, I decided to stay (for now) with sRGB. My main reasons are, that all printing is done externally (so sRGB is required for the final files anyway), and that I'm sure my screen cannot show anything outside sRGB anyway. And as I don't see how to edit a large colour space on an sRGB monitor, I decided to keep things simple.

Remco

[Colin Southern]

Hi Joe,

sRGB is the "lowest common denominator" (and all that most monitors are capable of) - printers can generally exceed the sRGB gamut in a number of areas - so (as you've heard) Adobe RGB can give you more colours.

BUT - there are a couple of things that the theorists don't mention (or know) ...

1. The differences between the colours you can see using Adobe RGB -v- sRGB for a print, aren't great -- most wouldn't notice the difference.

2. Because monitors are essentially sRGB devices, THAT'S ALL THEY CAN DISPLAY. So if you have an Adove RGB (or worse, ProPhoto) mapped image you can potentially get yourself in a LOT of trouble because the monitor is incapable of displaying some of the colours (that may be) in the the image. So folks start adjusting the image for colours to look good (not realising that they're essentially "working blind") and then wonder why their prints are different to what's on the screen (it's called Out of Gamut).

My advice would be - if you're striving to reproduce ACCURATE colour, then use Adobe RGB as a working space (there's no advantages in working in a bigger space (that you can't see), but there are potentially disadvantages). Then - if you're doing your own printing, stick with Adobe RGB, but if you're getting your prints done elsewhere - or are displaying on the web - just be sure to CONVERT to sRGB first.

[sleist]

I recently went through this with my D90 and used the following as a guide:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps12_colour/ps12_1.htm

It worked well for me. I set my D90 in camera colorspace to sRGB.
I then set everything else to match (software-wise).
My monitor is calibrated using Spyder, but this profile is only used for the monitor.
My printer is an epson and I print photos from CS5 exclusively.
I set my color management in CS5 to be managed by the printer and set the printer to use Adobe RGB with gamma 1.8.

This is the best solution for me and gives me matching colors all around.
The only issue I have is blues being very slightly purple on printing in some circumstances when compared to the monitor.
This seems to be a monitor viewing angle issue - my monitor is not IPS or wide gammut, but is pretty decent otherwise.

Your mileage may (will?) vary, but this might give you a start.
By the way, no problem with the tutorial on this forum, just the way things worked out that I ended up using the one I posted.

I tried shooting in Adobe RGB, but not all browsers see the color profiles and my images posted to the web looked like crap in some browsers.

The solution I arrived at seemed the best all around with the fewest problems

HTH

[Fit]

Was reading in another CiC thread recently about using LAB? Is that relevant in this discussion?

[Colin Southern]

I tried shooting in Adobe RGB, but not all browsers see the color profiles and my images posted to the web looked like crap in some browsers.

In reality, it's counter-productive when folks post to the web using Adobe RGB. First up, most monitors can't display anything outside of the sRGB gamut - so even if the profile is recognised by a colour management aware browser - and the user has a valid display profile - then the image is STILL essentially converted back to sRGB for display anyway (much like putting a speedo in your car that reads up to 400km/hr isn't going to make your car go any faster because changing the speedo doesn't make any difference to the capabilities of the engine). And second up, we get the (far more likely) scenario where a browser isn't colour managed and we end up with muted saturation & levels.

BTW, setting Photoshop to Printer Manages Colours can produce OK results, but in my experience still doesn't come close to what one can get using a correct printer profile for the printer / ink / paper / media settings actually being used.

[Colin Southern]

Was reading in another CiC thread recently about using LAB? Is that relevant in this discussion?

Yes and no - LAB is a different colour representation where Luminance is seperated from colour information. Conceptually it's a HUGE colourspace, but in reality in can accentuate issues where colours can be created that can't be displayed or printed (eg blue, with 100% luminance) (which RGB would show as white).

I actually enjoy working in it, but if you're going to be puching colours then you need to keep a slow eye on soft-proofing to ensure you're not going significantly out of gamut.

[sleist]

In reality, it's counter-productive when folks post to the web using Adobe RGB.

Agreed, and I knew this going in. Just wanted to "see" how bad the result was and it was worse than I expected - except for when I used Chrome.
Made me doubt what I was seeing when editing, so I reverted back to sRGB.

BTW, setting Photoshop to Printer Manages Colours can produce OK results, but in my experience still doesn't come close to what one can get using a correct printer profile for the printer / ink / paper / media settings actually being used.

I expected that to be the case, but it just wasn't so. Now, my printer is not a pro setup by any stretch (Epson Artisan 870), but produces acceptable results up to 8 x 10. I'm not claiming to be an expert and there may be variables that I'm unaware of that explain my results. Generally, I print small versions to see difference between screen and print versions, then send out some to MPix for larger prints.

Whatever the result or reason, it was an exercise that left me with as many questions as it answered.

[Colin Southern]

I expected that to be the case, but it just wasn't so. Now, my printer is not a pro setup by any stretch (Epson Artisan 870), but produces acceptable results up to 8 x 10. I'm not claiming to be an expert and there may be variables that I'm unaware of that explain my results. Generally, I print small versions to see difference between screen and print versions, then send out some to MPix for larger prints.

Whatever the result or reason, it was an exercise that left me with as many questions as it answered.

I went through this exercise with a client just last week - he used a generic profile with "Photoshop manages colours" and got some less than ideal results - he then selected "Printer manages colours" and got much better results ... but an hour or so later when we'd printed targets - scanned them - built the profile - and reprinted - we were able to do side-by-side comparisons with a couple of A2 prints and could identify areas that were very similar, but also areas that were subtly different (and in some cases not so subtly different!).

I too was surprised at how good the "printer manages colour" option actually was, but at the end of the day, I see it as being a bit like an in-camera produced JPEG -v- a user-processed RAW shot; the JPEG may look good enough, but it's never going to be as accurate (or have the same potential) as one where it's under the control of the artist.

It's pretty hard to beat a custom profile because (assuming everything is working properly), it's based on the actual printer output, taking printer variations / inkset / media performance / media settings all into account. And more important of all (for me anyway) is CONSISTANCY - from what I saw, I couldn't trust "printer manages colours" to be consistent across different types of image (which can get VERY expensive when printing canvas!).