ICC profiles - few issues

Question

Dears, I've been trying to understand color managment issues and there are still some gaps difficult to fill so far. Thanks in advance for a little support in answering following questions (OS: Win7 64bit, Dell Vostro 3560, testing CS6 ext.) :
1.   I am aware that screen of my notebook is not able to generate corectly the whole sRGB space. My question is : if I calibrate the screan by Spyder or other device and if I open in Photoshop a picture showing the whole sRGB gamut is it possible to use "color warning" function in CS6 to display which collors will not be generated by my screen?  Is the procedure described in http://damiensymonds.blogspot.com/2010/04/check-your-monitors-gamut.html correct? If not - how to make the settings to do that?
2. How I can find in Photoshop my actual ICC screen profile (it is notebook)? I found in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color the profile called "CalibratedDisplayProfile-1.icc" which is probably the standard screen profile of my notebook but I cannot find that name in Photoshop list of profiles.
3. I understand the need for ICC profiles of hardwere like screens, printers, scanners, etc. which enable translation of information about collors but what is the meaning of ICC profile of a picture itself? What is editing (or working) collor space?
4. When you save a picture you can choose an option to embed a profile. Why this is necessary? Is it a profile of a target printer or screen on which the picture is going to be watched?
Thanks for any ideas!
Marek

Answer 1

twenty_one wrote:
 Just want to clarify one thing: The display profile is not something you, as a user, ever need to concern yourself with (with a few specialized exceptions). All you need to do is make sure it's there and valid. The rest is handled by the OS and applications (insofar as they are color managed and will actually use it).
Yes, that is  clear.
If it's listed in Photoshop Color Settings as Monitor RGB <profile name>, that's it. End of story, nothing more you need to do.
The issue that disturbs me is only that  I do not know how to recognize the name of ICC profile of my screen in the list of profiles of Adobe Photoshop. For example when I installed a profile of minilab Frontier I see the icc file in my OS: C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color as well as I see this profile in Photoshop list for example when I want to choose a profile for proofing or profile conversion. I know that when you calibrate a monitor and you save the current icc profile it is also visible in Photoshop profiles list. So my only question is why I am not finding the profile of my screen "CalibratedDisplayProfile-1.icc" if its visible in C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color ???
Proofing to monitor RGB is unnecessary, all it shows you is how the image looks without any color management at all.
Well, to be honest the above is not very clear to me because:
a) I heard that if you work on a wide-gamut monitor you can proof to other monitor for example to emulate how your client (who owns worse sRGB screen) will perceive your work
b) I would like to see which colors from sRGB space will not be corectly shown on my monitor according to the excercise described in http://damiensymonds.blogspot.com/2010/04/check-your-monitors-gamut.ht ml
And under no circumstances should it be used as document profile or working space. That point needs to be hammered in for the benefit of anyone reading this, because it's a very common misconception.
Ok about moniotr' profile. But do you agree that converting to a profile of a minilab (which becomes embeded to the original image) can be used in order to make sure that your work will be corectly printed?
And one more thing: I suppose some confusion could arise because the term "convert" is used for all normal color management operations. Mechanically, they're all the same. But there is an operational distinction in that some conversions are done by the user, as when converting a document from one color space to another. Others are automatically performed by applications, like when the document RGB values are converted into the monitor profile for display. For this reason, some like to call this a "color transform" to avoid giving the impression that this is something the user should do to the file itself. However, I like to use the same term because it's basically the same thing that is happening. So, to sum up: You need two profiles to have color management. Where the file is coming from (document RGB), and where the file is going to (monitor, printer etc).
So how to explain the following fact: I took an image with embeded sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile (the image which I presented in my post from May 11, 2013 1:49 PM). I converted the image profile by EDIT->CONVERT TO PROFILE and I choose a RGB profile of a minilab. Collors reduced as in proofing test. Now when I open the file I see that the source profile (the embeded profile) is the profile of chosen minilab. So the initilal sRGB IEC61966-2.1 image profile disappeared.