Book workflow and colour match

Question

Hallo,
I take all pictures in RAW mode. Now I have designed a book with these pictures and have some doubts if I order it that it will be printing in right colours. Because normally all book makers need the files in the sRGB format.
Or is Aperture so intelligent and convert it automatically ?
Thanks for help.

Answer 1

ecause normally all book makers need the files in the sRGB format. Or is Aperture so intelligent and convert it automatically ?
Each make and model of digital camera has a proprietary colour preprocessing, somewhat the same as the proprietar colour preprocessing in physical film. Kodak Kodachrome does not render the same scene as Kodak EktaChrome, Kodak EktaChrome does not render the same scene as Agfa, and so on and so forth. These proprietary colour preprocessing 'looks' are preserved in the raw file format, and the colour management system that renders these 'looks' relative to an ICC colour space characterisation, e.g. sRGB or AdobeRGB.
When you colour correct your colour capture and then save it out to disk as a digital original, the ICC colour space characterisation becomes your SOURCE profile. Your SOURCE profile defines what (CIE) COLOURS the (RGB) COLOURANTS in your digital original should reproduce. When I open your digital original, the SOURCE profile you embedded is automatically used to construct a ColourWorld. In the profile you embedded to Device to PCS Profile Connection Space transform is used and in the ColourWorld my system constructs the DESTINATION is the ICC profile for the state of my colour display. The CMM Colour Matching Module then converts the colourants pixel by pixel in memory without changing your digital original. You still have the same RGB values and you still have the same embedded ICC profile.
Now, if you follow so far, in what way are you able to work with the colour management system? Well, first and foremost you don't want to define your colourants through a colour space with a small size and small shape in the PCS Profile Connection Space. Similarly, if with an SLR and Kodak EktaChrome you shoot a colour humming bird, you could corrupt your shot if your development did not preserve as much as possible of the colour you had to begin with.
So, open the Apple ColorSync Utility, select an sRGB profile, select La*b Plot > Hold for Comparison, select an AdobeRGB profile (you may have several installed). Note that you can't see the sRGB colour space as it is contained completely within the Adobe RGB colour space. Now start by selecting the Adobe RGB profile, hold it for comparison, and select the sRGB profile. The shape and size of the Adobe RGB colour space is dimmed, and inside it you see the sRGB colour space. Now try comparing the sRGB colour space with the colour spaces of good quality large format inkjets configured with bright papers and photo archival inks.
If you can't identify a colour in your source colour space, you can't image that colour in your destination colour space. It is irrelevant whether your destination colour space in fact contains the colour, because the colour is not in your source colour space.
Similarly, if I have to input character information in ANSI X3.4 American Standard Code for Information, first published in 1968, I can't interchange character information that calls for characters not in ANSI X3.4 American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
Don't use sRGB. It is simple set theory.
/hh