Photo Craft Imaging
Info Sheets
Color Management FAQs




Q: What is Color Management?
A: Color management is making various devices deal with color information in a manner that results in us seeing color in an expected way. To accomplish this we must be able to determine the characteristics of the devices (scanners, digital cameras, monitors, printers), and define those characteristics into a common language (mathematical formulae) so that the devices will communicate with each other in a way that colors come out correctly to us, the viewer.

This process of characterizing and defining results is called creating an ICC profile.




Q: Where do I start?
A: Most of us start with the monitor. Whether a CRT or LCD type monitor, no two monitors come out of the box looking alike. Think of the last time you were in a store that sells televisions. You saw a wall of TV’s and the color of each looked different. The first thing we need to do is establish the characteristics of our particular monitor, and then create a “monitor profile” which can be used by programs to portray the color correctly.

The best way to do this is with a small device called a colorimeter. A colorimeter reads the colors and luminosity (brightness) of your screen. These devices, along with the required software, are fairly inexpensive. We sell several packages here at Photo Craft. It is impossible to do critical color work without using a hardware device to calibrate your monitor and create a monitor profile.

You can purchase ColorVision's Spyder PRO monitor calibrating colorimeter and software at Photo Craft. Spyder PRO and Special FAQs.




Q: If I profile my monitor will my prints come out right?
A: Not necessarily. All printers print differently, as well as do different papers in combination with different inks, dyes, pigments, etc. Printers must also be profiled and they must be profiled for a particular media and if an inkjet printer, a particular media/ink combination. Typically, this is done by printing a series of color patches of known values and then reading the results using a color spectrophotometer. The printed values are compared with the known values, and a matrix is created which tells the printer to represent colors the way we expect.

At Photo Craft we create Custom Profiles for our printers. We post these profiles on our website for those who would like to use the profiles for Soft Proofing and Level 2 printing to the LightJet and the Fuji Frontier. [Profiles for LightJet and Frontier]

Most manufacturers of desktop inkjet printers create profiles for their printers and materials. Some of these are built into the printer software and will help to make prints look fairly good when printed with that particular manufacturer’s materials and when the user is viewing the image on a profiled monitor. Even if you don’t profile your printer, you will probably get better results from your printer if you are using a profiled monitor.




Q: If I profile my monitor and use a profiled printer, will my prints match my monitor?
A: Somewhat. A perfect match is impossible. You cannot match color between light reflected off a piece of paper and light transmitted by a monitor. You can get to the point where you will feel fairly comfortable in the results you get printed in relation to what you see on the screen. Even prints made on different types of printers will usually not match perfectly. Can you get close? Yes. Can you get an exact match? Seldom.

Further, many other things come into play regarding “matching”, especially when trying to match prints made from different devices. The lighting under which the prints are viewed; the white point of the paper; the absorbency of the paper coatings; the metermeric or spectral characteristics of the dyes or pigments used; whether the printer acts like a RGB or CMYK device and whether it uses a RGB, CMYK or expanded CMYK color space; all come into play. This is why we will not offer to match prints made on other printers or using other methods. We will use other prints as a guide but never offer an exact match.

But, prints viewed under proper graphic arts viewing conditions will look a lot like the image viewed on a high quality, properly calibrated and profiled monitor. Further, and most important, the same image viewed on different, properly profiled monitors will look extremely close. This allows different operators in different locations to look at the same image and be fairly confident that they are looking at the same color and luminance.




Q: How can I profile my printer?
A: Most manufacturers of desktop printers build some level of color management into the software that drives their printers. Some have profiles posted on their web sites. Some third-party web sites exist with profiles that can be downloaded.

There are some companies that make applications that print out patches and read them on desktop flatbed scanners. This helps but is a far cry from using a color spectrophotometer. Of course, not everyone has four or five thousand dollars to buy a color spectrophotometer. Companies like ColorVision, Gretag, and Monaco Systems have recently come out with intermediately priced devices in the thousand-dollar range.

If you are using Photo Craft for your printing, you do not need to worry about printer profiling, as we have done the job for you. Files can be submitted to Photo Craft in any one of a number of color editing spaces (sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), Ekta Space, Colormatch, etc.). If you are using a properly calibrated and profiled monitor, you can be reasonably sure that your print will come out looking fairly similar to that which you are viewing on your monitor. For those wanting to use advanced softproofing techniques, we post the profiles for our LightJet and Frontier printers on the web.




Q: What is a color editing space vs. a color mode?
A: A “color editing space” is a common ICC-established profile model of color used by devices that is commonly understood throughout the industry. Color editing spaces come with names like sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998). There are also established color editing spaces specifically for video. A lot of cameras and printers build their color model around the sRGB space. Most web work is done in sRGB. sRGB tends to be an easy space to edit in, as it does not have colors that are highly saturated. It is great for wedding and portrait work. Many high-end professional digital cameras also generate files in Adobe RGB (1998). Adobe RGB (1998) is considered to have a wider gamut of color than sRGB. Adobe(98)RGB tends to be a good space for working on images involving fashion, commercial or nature/landscape photography where more saturation is desired.

A color “mode” is a broader term, which applies to a basic color model. The most common modes we use are RGB (red, green, blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), and Grayscale. Other modes you might encounter are LAB and INDEX color. Most photographers work primarily with RGB. Color film is an RGB material. Color photographic prints are RGB. Computer monitors are RGB. Most popular desktop printers use CMYK inks but the software that drives the printer uses an RGB model to interpret the colors. The LightJet and Frontier are both RGB printers using RGB lasers to image photographic paper, which is then processed through traditional photographic chemistry.

But, the RGB model of color is too broad. No device can image the complete RGB color space. Every device we use can only portray a portion of the RGB spectrum. By profiling a device we define what part of that spectrum the device can portray or what part of the model we want to work in. This is where the “color editing spaces” come into play. They define a gamut or restriction within the overall RGB color space. When we convert from Adobe RGB (1998) to the LightJet printer profile, we are redefining the colors from one profiled (restricted gamut) RGB color space to another.




Q: What color space should I use?
A: That depends on what sort of work you are doing. As photographers we stick with RGB. Film is RGB, digital cameras are RGB, our scanners are RGB, our monitors are RGB, our LightJet and Frontier printers are RGB. Even our Fine-Art printers use RGB drivers to run the expanded gamut CMYK inkjet heads. As for the working or editing space, many people settle into either sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998). When Photo Craft does Drum Scans or Repro Scans we deliver the files to people as Adobe RGB (1998). The file may be “tagged” or “untagged”, which means that the file either has an embedded profile that Photoshop will recognize (tagged), or you will need to assign it a profile (untagged).

People that are doing a lot of Frontier printing may want to work in sRGB as that is the color model that the Frontier is designed around. This will work especially well if you are doing wedding, portrait, or event photography as the sRGB editing space is fairly nice with skin tones and tends to hold contrast in check.

People that are doing a lot of nature and landscape work, fashion photography or commercial work will probably want to stick with Adobe RGB (1998) with its wider gamut. Adobe RGB (1998) will allow for more saturated colors. It will also allow you to convert to an sRGB editing space for Frontier prints without losing anything whereas once a file is in sRGB you can’t expand it out to a wider gamut editing space without some loss in color quality.




Q: How do I set my Color Preferences in Photoshop?
A: From the main menu bar click on Edit then Color Settings. We use the following as our default:

Color Settings




Q: Where can I learn more?
A: We like Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting. Especially good for those who lie awake at night worrying about this sort of stuff.

Adobe has an interesting white paper on color management in PDF format.

Other interesting links:
International Color Consortium