Color Manage - Yes or No?

First, I'm a color management geek and fan. Almost all of my work in the past was under my total control, so I was able to select my own commercial printer. I only worked with commercial printers who had a firm grasp on color management, had current software and equipment, and access to their prepress department. My jobs always came out great, with my proof matching theirs, and the final job being a very close match to the proof. I'm using IDCS4, Mac, etc.
OK...new ballgame. I'm now doing freelance work for mixed clients. They don't seem to have the same high standards I do. They usually want to handle the print end and often don't know who will print their jobs until after the file preparation is completed. Then, they go out for bids and I am out of the loop (until the job won't RIP or they get unexpected, lousy results, of course).
So, how is everyone preparing jobs when the commercial printer is unknown?
I have been turning color management off in InDesign, converting RGB images to US Web Coated SWOP v2, stripping the profiles, and placing them inti IDCS4. This goes against my grain, of course, being a color management nut and control freak.
Any wise suggestions to help get good color and avoid problems in this type of scenario?
Lou

My point was really that you need to know the printer to claim any kind of control if you are supplying PDF X/1a. That is really self explanatory, but Lou seemed to be saying that if your client gives you junk then you are ok to send it on as junk which I think is an addressable point for a responsible designer or file preparer (which is what I do from a prepress/design seat). The buck has to stop somewhere and the printer is the worst place!
If you supply PDF/X4, how will the average printer, currently taking X/1a know that? Depending on their settings, they might apply generic conversions!
As far as I understand it, X/4 is not an accepted industry standard yet (although I expect it will be one day) and if you supply those to a prepress, they are required to make judgements about the conversion which is not their responsibility. I say that because subjective decisions may be needed and no designer worth their salt would give up that responsibility.
I find that US SWOP is a great standard for blind submission, and since we don't have a standard option for tagged PDF under industry accepted standard of X/1a, it is better than random choice. It depends on type of work, one would never supply generic USSWOP pdf for a high end book but for a throwaway flyer it is usually acceptable when files are supplied by average designer.
A good designer will find out who is printing and prepare files correctly, if it must be unknown they will speak to the third party about the problem or else risk bad jobs at remote site in the future. If their client insists on getting a PDF they can then submit to assorted unknown printers then the client would need to (a.) advise printers of type of file being supplied... or (b.) have the ability to repurpose for printer when known, which is where X4 from designer would be good. In both of these situations, the responsibility has then shifted to the client who is choosing the printer.
If the designer is dealing with the printer directly, then it must be PDF X/1a with correct destination profile.

Similar Messages

How do I turn off color management in my Epson Stylus Photo R1900

How do I turn off color management in my Epson Stylus Photo R1900 printer? I am using the laetest Epson driver, I am using Adobe Photoshop CS5 and I'm using OSX 10.5.8.
Thanks
Joe

I have researched the matter a lot and I,
along with many others, still have problems with this complicated
subject.
Color management is as simple in theory as Honoring a Source Profile and CONVERTING it to a Target Profile (monitor or printer) for Proofing.
But yes, we work at the mercy of the rocket scientists who try to dumb an extremely complicated process down so regular folks (like me) can make it work — trouble is I think their approach needs a bit more distilling and common sense sometimes...but it is very doable once you put in the time to figure it out, just follow the CHAIN in your workflow if you're still having problems.
If you want a "simple button" try staying in sRGB and printing out of Apple Preview app using OEM standard papers matched to your printer and OEM ink set.

CS6: Can't switch off color management in the printerdriver when photoshop manages colors

So this is weird: I'm using CS6 Extended and Lightroom 5 on a Windows 7 Pro machine, printing to an old Canon Pixma Ip5200R. When i print from Lightroom, i am using a special printer profile for the pixma and my photopaper, so color management is switched off in the printer driver. The photos print fine.
Now when i print the same photo from CS6, it has a magenta color cast, so clearly something is wrong with the color management. Even though i am using the same printer, the same paper, the same printer profile and - of course! - had set photoshop to manage the colors, and switched color managent off in the printer driver. The magenta cast could be an indication that the photo is double colormanaged.
It took my quite a while to find out what happens, and this is really weird: When i re-checked the printer driver settings, i noticed that the color management settings did not stick. The canon printer driver offers the options "driver matching" "windows ICM" "none", e.g. having color management done by the printer driver or windows, or switch color management off. So when i go to the PS print settings and set it to "photoshop manages colors", add the correct printer profile, i have to check the settings in the printer driver and make sure that color management is set to "none". I set it to "none" and click OK. Now everything should be configured correctly. But it's not - because when i re-check the print driver settings, i see color management is set to "diver matching". I can go to the print driver settings again and agian, but whenever i check, color management is set to "driver matching". This setting simply does not stick. No wonder i get a mangenta cast on my prints, the colors are doublemanaged by photoshop AND my printer driver.
Now, this is getting weirder: Only the color management settings don't stick. I can change other settings like print quality and the stick.
But - how do i get rid of this? The culprit seems to be photoshop, not the printer driver. If i print from lightroom, i can change the color management settings in the (very same) printer driver and they stick. When i set the photoshop print dialogue to "printer manages colors" i can change the color management settings in the (very same) printer driver - and they stick! So this looks as if photoshop stops me intentionally from using the correct printer driver settings, that is from switching off the printer drivers color management if it is set to manage colors.
I have already resetted my personal photoshop preferences, but this changed nothing. What am i missing? What is going wrong? Your help is very appreciated.
Tobias

Hi all, Just to let you know that I finally solved my problem myself.
Essentially what had occurred was that I had updated my Epson driver for my printer , but it hadn't installed, despite informing me that it had! To cut a long story short when I checked in System preferences the older driver for Leopard O/S was still the current driver. I proceeded to ask Epson support for assistance, bu despite their efforts I could not immediately resolve the problem. They were directing me to my Utilities program to remove all traces of my current driver from Printer Utility which did not exist. When I queried this they stated it was not always visible and I should proceed to the next step then install the new driver. Problem was they required me to access this invisible utility in order to complete this process, and yes before you ask I had informed them I was using an Intel Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6.2 O/S. Finally I ignored their advice and took the following steps:
1. I opened System Preferences and double clicked the Printer & Fax icon.
2. I highlighted my Epson R2400 Pinter and removed it by clicking the minus sign at the bottom of the Printers window.
3. Next I did a search and deleted any old drivers for my R2400 that were on my system with the exception of the new Driver.
4. I restarted my Mac Pro.
5. I reinstalled my new printer driver which I had previously downloaded from Epson Support.
6. I restarted my Mac Pro and found that the new driver had installed correctly and full functionality had been returned to the Print Features Dialogue box i.e I could now turn of color management and access advanced features to set the quality of printing using the full spec of the R2400.
Hope this post will be helpful to others if they have a similar problem
Regards Denis
Message was edited by: Denisimo
Message was edited by: Denisimo

Color Management in Bridge CS6

Hello,
I'm having a strange color management issue in Bridge (64 bit). Essentially, Bridge is not displaying images in either the thumbnails or preview pane using the correct color profile.
Background: I'm on Windows using a dual monitor setup (both independantly calibrated) but I have the issue even when I use only one monitor. Photoshop has no issues with color settings. I've tried resetting all settings (hitting Ctrl as Bridge starts). I've tried purging my cache and having Bridge generate monitor-size previews.
The weirdest part is when I start Bridge, for a split second images appear to be in the correct profile, and then Bridge adjusts everything to the wrong color profile.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!

Omke Oudeman wrote:
about A:
I don't get that, I have a custom made monitor profile based on D65 and with or without this profile the only difference one would spot would be in the total picture, this screenshot shows what I see and that is not as much difference between the Bridge thumb and preview (and in the metadata placard you can see they are 16 bit ProPhoto with on top of it the floating PS panel with the same image. It is one picture of one screen, without my monitor profile (and without knowing what happens during the adding process to the Adobe site) or with, the difference between both applications would not change, only the total picture. (or I really don't understand anything anymore about color management )
The first threshold question is whether you're using a wide gamut monitor. I'm going to assume the answer is yes. The reason it's essential to embed your monitor profile in your screenshot is if you do not have a wide gamut monitor, someone looking at your image who does will be able to tell since the gamut will be smaller than it should be. If you are not using a wide gamut monitor, that would explain why you cannot see the difference. Additionally, whether you have a wide-gamut monitor or not, if you do not embed a profile, the untagged image will appear way oversaturated when brought into Photoshop (this is happening for me) unless I can guess the approximate color space of your monitor.
Admittedly, if you are using a wide-gamut monitor, then although the image will be way oversatured without a profile (until I assign one), both the Photoshop portion and Bridge portion should be way oversatured by the same amount. However it's not particularly helpful to use guesswork and approximation when trying to narrow down a problem like this. You say "this screenshot shows what I see," but you have to keep in mind you are looking at it on your monitor. Even though your screenshot will obviously look right to you on your monitor, someone looking at it on a smaller gamut monitor won't see what you're talking about.
about B:
There you have a point but this was a current project at hand and at this moment there is a bit over saturation in the wood. In real life I also almost never have to deal with the bright colors of your example. I don't want to go again messing my workspaces to create a screenshot for the files you provided but I can assure you I have less to none difference between both files in both Bridge and PS, like I never have seen your problem on my current computer (Mac Pro, 2 x 2,4 6 core intel Xeon mid 2012 and a lot of RAM and SSD etc including ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 MB VRAM running OSX 10.8.3) as well as my former MacPro with same graphic card - and two others - that I used since 2008 during OSX 10.5 to 10.7 with all used versions of CS.
Yea, I understand why you don't want to mess with your workflow. I wouldn't either if I were in the middle of a project. But (assuming you have a wide-gamut monitor) if you finish a project and do get the chance, I encourage you to try the ProPhotoRGB color patch in Photoshop versus Bridge. When you really stray from sRGB, you, like me and Yammer, should see a major difference. I suppose there's the possibility that the Mac version of Bridge works differently, but that doesn't seem likely. It's possible you've never noticed the difference before because (again, assuming you have a wide-gamut monitor) you've never been looking for it, or you don't shoot many subjects with colors vastly outside sRGB - things like flowers, dyes, clothing, bright lights, etc.
And as for the quote, I also never make my choices based on colors for DNG in Bridge, in fact, I always shoot with manual WB set to 5500 K, whether in daylight or artificial light, I just don't bother because I want my colors to be adjusted in ACR and refined the way I want them in PS. The plus side of manual WB is that all colors are off in the same way and can be adjusted in the correct direction in one go for a series
That's an interesting idea and really illustrates the beauty of shooting RAW - tons on flexibility. And in fact, whether you use manual white balance, or don't, with RAW everything can be corrected or adjusted from a certain baseline by the same amount after the fact anyway.

Color Management Problem

I just installed Photoshop CS3 on my home PC, and seem to be having a problem with color management. When opening photos taken with my Canon G9, or even pictures downloaded off the web, in Photoshop they appear badly posterized. Viewing the same photos in the Canon ZoomBrowser, or with the standard Windows XP tools, they appear correct.
Obviously, my color management is not properly configured. I am using the standard North American defaults with sRGB for my RGB working space, and I've tried every RGB color management policy. My monitor is an older Dell 24" LCD (I don't have the model number in front of me right now). My monitor is not calibrated, but that would not account for the dramatic difference I see in Photoshop vs. other viewing applications.
The best I can achieve is by switching the RGB working space to Monitor RGB (or proofing with that configuration), and discarding the embedded color profile (sRGB in my Canon images). And yes, Photoshop does list the specific color space profile for my Dell monitor. This still results in a different color rendition from that which I see when viewing the same photo in other applications, with blues shifted slightly toward purple.
I have several other Mac and PC based Photoshop systems in my office, but I haven't had the chance to see how the same pictures look on those. It seems to me that this is something particular to the color space of my Dell monitor, but I'm not sure of the appropriate way to correct it.

Your prints are too dark. So you need to either make your monitor darker,
or your prints lighter. Given that you are probably fairly happy with your
monitor for cruising the web, etc, let's focus on your printer.
If it's like my HP, there is a brightness adjustment in the printer driver
under Start>Settings>Printers and Faxes><"printer name">. Adjust it until
the overall brightness of the print matches, as closely as possible, the
appearance of your screen.
To save paper and ink, I recommend that you print a thin strip at the top
of the page, and snip off the strip after each test.
Here is a test strip that you can use, with a variety of blurred skin tones
as well as a gray test strip. The procedure is documented here:
http://curvemeister.com/downloads/TestStrip/digital_test_strip.htm
As a final check, download images from any well-known web gallery and print
them, or use one of the calibration images from www.drycreekphoto.com . If
they are too dark or too light, you may want to revisit the brightness of
your monitor.
Trust your vision, and treat this as a learning experience. With a little
patience, and a systematic procedure, you can get good results without a
calibration device.
Monitor calibration devices are a valuable tool in a professional or high
end amateur setting. No one is saying they are a complete solution to
matching display to printer, and some final tweaking may be necessary for
matching print and display.

Color management for the umpteenth time

I am flummuxed by color management. I have read everything about it and still I have mixed results. Lets start at the basics:
1)I have a Canon pixma 6600d printer
2)I have calibrated by lcd monitor with Huey.
3)I use elements 5.0
4) I have assigned pictures for Adobe rgb.
5) I have read the instructions from Steves Digicam which recommends that I make the source adobe rgb and the target the paper profile that I am using. I am using the correct paper profile.
6) In Print preview, I set the color adjustment to manual, say no to icm, and none to media. This is according to the instructions of all color management gurus.
Some interesting things are happening. When I print a picture file that is Dng (adobe camera raw), the print looks terrible.Too much saturation. heavy magenta, etc. When I print a jpg file of the same picture, the result is much better although not the best. The best match is for one of 2 options. 1)Turn off icm in pe5, use printer color management. or 2) leave on Adobe rgb in pe5. In print preview: set source to adobe rgb. In printer profile, set to adobe rgb and relative colormetric. In Print driver, set color adjustment to auto. These are the most satisfying results.
Questions:
1) Are there problems in printing from a dng file or should I always try to print from a jpg file on my 6600d?
2) If I am using printer color management, should I always turn off color management in pe5 edit?
3)Is there anything else I haven't thought of that explains why I am having lousy results using the correct canon paper profiles in the print preview screen?
Thanks. I know this has been covered a million times.
Andy

Andy....
1. Same as Source - The data that's sent to your Printer is still the data that was created for the Colour Space of the Image. In your case the Source Space indicates sRGB. So sRGB colour numbers get sent to the printer.
What doesn't get sent is any profile information i.e there is nothing to tell the printer your sending it to that the colour space is sRGB. This means that if the printer is to perform colour management, it can't because it doesn't know the source profile - although there may be an option in the Printer Driver to force it to a preset.
2. In some Epson Printer Drivers there are two or more settings for Colour Management and yes they are confusing and I don't think consistent across the range.
I can't tell you all the possibilities but on my R2400, the ICM checkbox turns on Colour Management in the printer and then you have to select a bunch of other options about input profile, rendering intent, and output profile e.g. for the paper/ink type etc, etc,
However, by checking ICM ( on the R2400) it also makes visible an option called No Colour Adjust and by checking this it turns OFF colour management.
So, yes confusing, ICM appears to turn CM ON and then NCA turns it OFF. If this is the setting you use then in Elements you have to select a Print Profile that matches the printer/paper/ink i.e one of the Epson profiles.
3. The Printer Colour Management setting tells Elements to do no Colour Management but it will pass source data to the printer along with a profile.
Elements wont convert the Source Colour Space to the Printer/Paper Colour Space. The assumption then is that you set the Printer Driver accordingly to do the Colour Management Conversion. This might typically be to check ICM and select those features I mentioned in #2.
4. As for the R380 - I can't say what settings that have but take a look at the link below for more info about setting up Epson Printers.
It shows the R800 but the info may be similar for your 380
http://tech.epson.com.au/downloads/message.asp?platform=&techtips=techtips&EmailAdd=&Metri cIDReturned=1044920&submit=Search+%3E%3E&sCategory=Inkjet&id=stylusphotor800
Colin

Color management settings for the best print output

Color Management while Printing has been one of the challenging areas which has been discussed a lot over user forums and has been a painful area in terms of clear understanding while taking print outputs.
Here is an easy-to-understand KB (Knowledge Base) article ‘Color management settings for the best print output’ to help you get the best from your printers using PSE and bridge that knowledge gap.
This article explains color management in Photoshop Elements, how to get better prints, and addresses some of the following issues like horizontal/vertical streaks in print output, too dark or too light print output, ICC profile problems and Color differences between prints from PSE and other applications.
Thanks,
Garry

Thanks Noel.
Yes have shared in PSE forum as well. But I usually drop such posts on PS General forum so community moderators as well as our power users who mostly use both PS or PSE or are aware about can communicate to their students, audiences etc.
The idea is to reach out the message to as many as folks via relevant forums. Most of my otehr posts have found mentioned only on PSE forum.
Thanks for the feedback Nice to hear such a great feedback within 5 mts of publishing
Regards,
Garry

Trying to Understand Color Management

The title should have read, "Trying to Understand Color Management: ProPhoto RGB vs, Adobe RGB (1998) my monitor, a printer and everything in between." Actually I could not come up with a title short enough to describe my question and even this one is not too good. Here goes: The more I read about Color Management the more I understand but also the more I get confused so I thouht the best way for me to understnand is perhaps for me to ask the question my way for my situation.
I do not own an expensve monitor, I'd say middle of the road. It is not calibrated by hardware or any sophisticated method. I use a simple software and that's it. As to my printer it isn't even a proper Photo filter. My editing of photos is mainly for myself--people either view my photos on the net or on my monitor. At times I print photos on my printer and at times I print them at a Print Shop. My philosophy is this. I am aware that what I see on my monitor may not look the same on someone else's monitor, and though I would definitely like if it it were possible, it doesn't bother me that much. What I do care about is for my photos to come close enough to what I want them to be on print. In other words when the time comes for me to get the best colors possible from a print. Note here that I am not even that concerned with color accuracy (My monitor colors equalling print colors since I know I would need a much better monitor and a calibrated one to do so--accurately compare) but more rather concerned with color detail. What concerns me, is come that day when I do need to make a good print (or afford a good monitor/printer) then I have as much to work with as possible. This leads me to think that therefore working with ProPhoto RGB is the best method to work with and then scale down according to needs (scale down for web viewing for example). So I thought was the solution, but elsewhere I read that using ProPhoto RGB with a non-pro monitor like mine may actually works against me, hence me getting confused, not understanding why this would be so and me coming here. My goal, my objective is this: Should I one day want to print large images to present to a gallery or create a book of my own then I want my photos at that point in time to be the best they can be--the present doesn't worry me much .Do I make any sense?
BTW if it matters any I have CS6.

To all of you thanks. First off yes, I now have begun shooting in RAW. As to my future being secure because of me doing so let me just say that once I work on a photo I don't like the idea of going back to the original since hours may have been spent working on it and once having done so the original raw is deleted--a tiff or psd remains. As to, "You 're using way too much club for your hole right now." I loved reading this sentence :-) You wanna elaborate? As to the rest, monitor/printer. Here's the story: I move aroud alot, and I mean a lot in other words I may be here for 6 months and then move and 6 months later move again. What this means is that a printer does not follow me, at times even my monitor will not follow me so no printer calbration is ever taken into consideration but yes I have used software monitor calibration. Having said this I must admit that time and again I have not seen any really noticeale difference (yes i have but only ever so slight) after calibrating a monitor (As mentioned my monitors, because of my moving are usually middle of the road and limited one thing I know is that 32bits per pixel is a good thing). As to, "At this point ....you.....really don't understand what you are doing." You are correct--absolutely-- that is why I mentioned me doing a lot of reading etc. etc. Thanks for you link btw.
Among the things I am reading are, "Color Confidence Digital Photogs Guide to Color Management", "Color Management for Photographers -Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users", "Mastering Digital Printing - Digital Process and Print Series" and "Real World Color Management - Industrial Strength Production Techniques" And just to show you how deep my ignorance still is, What did you mean by 'non-profiled display' or better still how does one profile a display?

Keynote and Color Management

Does anyone know whether Keynote uses color management? I am using the program to project images of famous artwork for educational purposes and want to make sure that the images look the same as they did when edited in Photoshop. If there are color settings to choose from, where would they be found?
thanks in advance for any wisdom

According to my own testing on Keynote '08, the answer is yes. Images in Keynote are the same as in Safari, which is color managed. Images are different in QuickTime, which is not color managed. I also would like to see definitive answer, though.

How do I turn off color management in Photoshop 5?

There are three selections, only the first two clickable, in PS5 under Color Management in the Print dialouge:
Printer Manages Colors
Photoshop Manages Color
Separations (grayed out/unclickable)
Under Printer Manages Colors - there is no option to turn off color management for my Canon 9500 Mark ii
Under Photoshop Manages Color - there is no option to choose "No Color Management"
You can chose "No Color Management" in PS3, but not PS5? What happened to this option?
How is it possible to create a profile from a print of color swatches if I can not turn off color management?
(I am running Mac OS 10.6.4)
PS> this is the second time I'm contacting Adobe. First was by phone but I couldn't understand the message left on my voice mail after the phone technician had to ask for help from upper management - the english was so bad. I'm hoping by the written word I'll be able to understand. Please help.

I have researched the matter a lot and I,
along with many others, still have problems with this complicated
subject.
Color management is as simple in theory as Honoring a Source Profile and CONVERTING it to a Target Profile (monitor or printer) for Proofing.
But yes, we work at the mercy of the rocket scientists who try to dumb an extremely complicated process down so regular folks (like me) can make it work — trouble is I think their approach needs a bit more distilling and common sense sometimes...but it is very doable once you put in the time to figure it out, just follow the CHAIN in your workflow if you're still having problems.
If you want a "simple button" try staying in sRGB and printing out of Apple Preview app using OEM standard papers matched to your printer and OEM ink set.

Which monitor for accurate color management?

I shoot digital product and food photography using a mac powerbook. I've been using a LaCie CRT (yes, I said CRT) monitor for fine tuning my photos. It has finally started acting up so I'm ready for a new monitor. Can anyone recommend a dependable monitor that has color, brightness and contrast controls for use with establishing color managed profiles using eye1 macbeth (now that company is called something else which I can not remember at the moment). Obviously it needs to be accurate when it comes to color, brightness and contrast as well.
I ended up using my laptop screen this past shoot cause I had no other choice - but it made me really nervous.....
thanks -

First of all, my sincere condolences for your loss. Losing your last high-end CRT is a traumatic loss. I'm still hanging on to two (2) of them! (Knock on wood!)
Highly recommended monitors:
The NEC 2690 and 2490.
You want to use the SpectraView II software to conduct all the work internally and use GammaComp and ColorComp.
If Andrew Rodney chimes in with updated recommendations, listen to his advice.
Wo Tai Lao Le
我太老了

Color Management for Epson printer using Photoshop Elements 6

I have consistently dark prints when using my new Epson workhorse 1100. It prints fine from iPhoto but not from Photoshop Elements 6. The Epson people say it's an Adobe problem. The Adobe people won't help, as it's not under warranty. I am interested in settings in PSE6 or on my Mac OSX. Or, what's a profile and how do I set it? Thanks!!

Yes, I've tried all of the options: Printer manages color, PSE manages color. All are the same dark prints.
On another conversation on this forum, I read the following. Very discouraging to think that Adobe knows of this problem but won't give me any tech support because too much time has lapsed.
I don't know what "plugs" are--sounds like this user figured out a way around it.
Any advice?
Thanks!
Fran
Re: Color mismatch EpsonR800 and Elements 6
Adobe has admitted that there is a color management issue with PSE 6 for Mac. I have an Epson R1900 and I am now getting acceptable color-managed prints by allowing the Epson Printer driver to manage color management (ie; color management in PSE 6 turned off). The Epson Photoshop Plug In also works well with PSE6 and ICC profiles; however, I have yet to solve 2 problems with this particular plug in: (1) How to get the program to capture 3rd party ICC profiles and (2) how to print borderless prints. If anyone has seen a user guide for this particular plug in, I would be grateful to know how to download it.

Which color management monitor?

I shoot digital product and food photography using a mac powerbook. I've been using a LaCie CRT (yes, I said CRT) monitor for fine tuning my photos. It has finally started acting up so I'm ready for a new monitor. Can anyone recommend a dependable monitor that has color, brightness and contrast controls for use with establishing color managed profiles using eye1 macbeth (now that company is called something else which I can not remember at the moment). Obviously it needs to be accurate when it comes to color, brightness and contrast as well.
I ended up using my laptop screen this past shoot cause I had no other choice - but it made me really nervous.....
thanks -

As for the last sentence in my previous post, I thought we were in the Color Management forum, where Andrew Rodney is often active.
You may want to post there too:
http://forums.adobe.com/community/design_development/color_management#
This Photography forum is a graveyard these days.
Wo Tai Lao Le
我太老了

Invalid Color Management in Lightroom? (RAW)

I've noticed the strange thing, how Adobe Camera RAW 4.1.1 displays the same image differently in Photoshop CS3 & Lightroom 1.4.1
Here are the screenshots from both programs:
What I've got in Lightroom/develop mode:
http://www.imagebam.com/image/956c3d6537871
What I've got in Photoshop:
http://www.imagebam.com/image/17a67c6537874
Notice the reds on the face and oranges on the trees on the background. 1) Face on second, photoshop variant is more reddish. 2) The contrast differs as well!
3) There is more orange on the leaves on the second image.
That's all happens in the preview in Lightroom - if I export image as a JPEG and open it in Photoshop - the images will be the same. But BEFORE the export they're DIFFERENT! What's wrong?
(Image is shot on Sony Alpha 350, white balance and all the settings in Camera RAW are the same in two programs).

>yes they are, but in practice PDF causes lot's of bugs.
My experience is opposite in that pdf is usually the only thing that actually works for multipage documents and things containing vector graphics. For single page photos of course tiff always works, but there are lots of clueless operators that do not know their behind from a color profile.
>In my experience colors will be different even for an eye of a consumer. On some printers red will be more reddish, on others green more greenish etc. The contrast will differ either. Maybe you and we use different printers. BTW I work on Windows, maybe that's the point.
I have always had basically perfect results. There was a time when Lightroom interacted wrong with printer drivers when you used profiles inside of the program instead of having the printer driver manage for you. This has long been fixed. Of course there are subtle differences between printers and it would be good if Lightroom had some sort of soft proofing to judge this in advance. The differences are usually pretty minor though nowadays.
>Well, Noritsu, as I know, for example, uses its own color management profile, which you cannot tune even in Photoshop. If you use sRGB, it will be ignored, and you'll get a very low contrast print with desaturated color and you have to be there when it's printed to tune it with the lab assistant. Usually they do it themselves ... well... good. I have SOME good experience with Costco. But for many cases I can't get my colors and contrast without being there when it's printed. And it depends on paper - is it metallic, for example, or matte. The picture will be different. The colors will be different. And you can't check it exactly on your monitor being at home, or in office.
I tested this extensively. If you do this right, it is very hard to see the difference between a sRGB print and a print converted to the profile. With well-tuned Noritsus, you get a small difference in oranges, and a tiny difference in greens - independent of the paper you use. This is the whole point of these machines. If you feed them sRGB, they should give you great results. Maybe my local costcos is very good, but I doubt they are very different from other labs. I tried both Matte and Glossy and they both showed the same result. This is borne out by softproofing in Photoshop that shows exactly the same effect. Note that I wrote about using lab profiles with Lightroom extensively and always tell people to use the profile, but in reality it really is not that important.
See for example: http://lagemaat.blogspot.com/2008/05/great-prints-from-labs.html
If you see large differences in contrast and saturation, there really is something wrong with your calibration workflow or your lab. FOr good prints, the only thing they need to do is to turn off their auto color correction, which with most labs you can do automatically in the online submission pages. I should tell you that you do have to judge prints under good lighting. Often these differences are simply caused by one day being sunny and the other overcast when you walk out on the parkinglot and take out your prints. This is not a real difference. Use a good high color rendering index lamp of high color temperature and you will see that they were the same. My local costcos is calibrated by drycreek photos every month and the profile hardly changes at all over time.
>I don't know, Jao, maybe your point in photography is different, and you don't pay so much attention on colors. These things are subjective! Maybe you pay more attention on other components of photo. In my experience it takes lots of time to prepare a 40"x30" photo for print and then it takes more time and money to colormatch it.
Actually my work is almost always about color. Perhaps I don't sweat it as much. I'd really like Lightroom to have some kind of soft proofing though showing how anal I am about color. I don't use costcos for prints larger than 12x18 as they don't do it locally, but I usually use smugmug's lab (EZprints) for the really large prints. They color manage for you and supply a profile that you can soft proof to if you want. They also appear to scale and sharpen the prints somehow. I've always had outstanding results from them and you can send back the images that you don't like at no cost, although I have never had to do that. I also use smugmug for galleries that clients can order from directly. They have always been very happy with the prints.
>And I work in Windows, maybe your Mac does it better, maybe that's the point of my sad story. But Windows is my karma for many reasons.
The point maybe, also, you print every time on the same printing hardware in Costco - that can explain it all.
I have been happy with my costcos and with EZprints, but I doubt that it is much of an issue. As said, I don't use inkjets very often as they are so darn expensive and annoying to operate but I have never had much issue with bad prints. There is no reason why you could not get windows to behave better. The only thing that you need is to calibrate regularly. I have seen on this forum that windows tends to corrupt monitor profiles over time. The issue is always fixed by recalibrating regularly. Once every month should be plenty.

Is Bridge color managed?

My monitor is correctly profiled and the colors in Photoshop CS5 are correct and they print correctly. When I view the same image in Bridge, however, the colors are slightly more saturated and seem incorrect. They appear as they do when I view them in non color managed applications. Is Bridge color managed as is CS5?

do you mean the small thumbnails (no) or the Preview (yes)
if the Preview doesn't "match" Photoshop, then the image is likely untagged (or Ps is applying a different source profile)
i am pretty sure Bridge applies sRGB to untagged images for the Preview, and Ps applies its working RGB profile for all practical purposes (if we don't color manage it)
try downloading the IPHOTO TEST FILES and taking them into Bridge (and other file managers)
PS
the iphoto tutorial images contain a low resolution 72ppi collection of 10 files of one image in five different colorspaces in tagged/untagged pairs

Color Manage - Yes or No?

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