SOFTWARE TO EDIT, Ne Tae: Rat ta oe YOUR PHOTOS SUA EL a Canon Raises Hi Fla ET Ze “6 —— +x 3 ~~" es fa AS ee YY at Ss — ni TRAVEL CAMERAS Py Ye ana - ALL-DIGITAL WORKFLOW 4 i] How The Pros Do It Ls Yi} ky Sd . ee , see H l I |CALIBRATING YouR Monrtor AND PRINTER py Douctas Drxon 2 re you frustrated when the colors in your prints s do not match what you see on the computer monitor? Or when the image displayed on your sereen looks different than what you saw when you shot the photo? The problem, of course, is that colors are in the eye of the beholder, and are dependent on the ways we manipulate and display them. We represent a scene digitally with values generated by a camera and then display it on a sereen using emitted light, or on a piece of paper using pigments. Yet, different image sensors, and different types of displays, and dif- ferent inks and papers can dramatically change how the color values are represented and perceived. So, what are we to do in this messy, imperfect world? The answer that has developed in the graphic design and print industries is eolor management, keeping track of how colors are represented, profiling and calibrat ing the devices used to acquire and display them, and then actually adjusting the stored color values for an image so that they match across different displays and printers, More recently, this kind of color science and tech- nology has become much more accessible to a wider range of users, from consumers and photo enthusiasts, to corporate users. You can take advantage of the sup- port for color management and device profiles that is built into the operating system (both on Windows and, Macintosh), the associated display and printer drivers, and applications like Adobe Photoshop (and Photoshop Elements). And, for even more accurate results, you can use produets from companies, like Color profile your specific displays and printers, (These tools are also cross-platform.) Let’s explore the range of approaches for getting more consistent color with your photos, starting with casy tweaking of your monitor, taking advantage of the options in software, and then exploring agement products ion, to ColaVision's ColorPus (tp) is a nome color management solution for calibating your LCD or laptop, while Spyder? (above) is a more advanced calorimeter, a esCoLor MANaceMENT While we have a variety of ways to represent color (see ‘accompanying sidebar ), each color model, and each physical device, can only represent part of the full gamut of possible colors, so you can lose information when moving im: between different representations and devices In addition, a set of RGB or CMYK values in an image file are just num- bers that represent colors to be displayed or printed, and are not necessarily consistent with similar numbers in other images. Unless the numbers were acquired and managed properly, they do not actually correspond to an absolute CIE measurement of perceived color. Color management, then, is about making sense of color values, and having them act consistently across different devices. You can ground the color values stored in an image by associating a color space that defines their meaning, such as the sRGB color space used for the Web and computer monitors. Applications also need to use an internal color space to manage colors, such as the Adobe RGB color space used by Adobe applications. And, you can control how colors are used on spe devices by using a color profile of the device, typically usin the ICC (International Color Consortium) open proiile for- mat. (For Windows users, ICC profiles are stored in WIN: DOWS\system 32\spoolldrivers\eolor.) A. color management system ean then reconcile this information to actually adjust the color values sent to a display or printer 10 minimize the color discrepancies between devices In fact, thisis probably already happening on your system by default At startup, a utility, like Adobe Gamma Loader, can load a display profile that is used system-wide to adjust displayed colors to the characteristics of your monitor. When you scan an image, the import sofware may be apply ing some form of color adjustment based on the character- istics of your scanner, and when you import a digital photo, itmay have a color space associated with it, along with other camera information stored in the file header Then, when you edit an image using a tool, like Adobe Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements}, it will use the color space stored in the image (if any), and you can set the working space within the application, And, when you print the imag full color mani your software application can perform ement based on your printer profile, or you can enable the color management capabilities in your printer driver By det: files for your devices, or you can download deviee-specific profiles from the manufacturers, Or, as you will see, you can use calibration equipment to profile your specifie equip- ment. Profiling is not critical for capture devices, such as di ital cameras or scanners, since they are relatively consistent and stable. It is most important for displays, since they are naturally variable and have adjustable controls. And, profi ing printers can give better results, by compensating for the differences in ink and papers. continued on next page CoLor MopELs \ tad T see purple, you see lavender, and others see vio- let. Color is a perception that happens in our eyes and brain that depends on the properties of the scene we are viewing and the light sources that illu- inate the scene. Different people can have different perceptions of the same scene, and the perception can change dramatically with differences in lighting. You can measure light scientifically by wave- length, placing the spectrum of visible light it in the spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared, And, you can measure light sources as illuminants by their spectral energy, and describe their color tem- perature (ie., 6500 degrees Kelvin for daylight sunlight). Color can then be discussed scientifical- ly using the CIE (International Commission on Mluminationt) color models, which try to represent the full gamut of visible colors based on studies of human perception When working on computers, however, we are restricted to the range of colors that can actually be generated on or displays and printers, and tend to use other color representations that more closely match our equipment. We use the RGB (red, green, blue) format to store images, derived from the three colors used on displays. This is additive color, start- ing with a black display and adding tight to combine together to make colors up to full white. Televisions and video use variants, such as YUV and ¥.Cb,Cr that separate the luminance information (¥) for black and’ white TY from the color (UV or Cr,Cb). Printers use CMYK for subsractive color, starting with a white sheet of paper and adding ink pigments, reducing the reflected light down to black. CMY is an, magenta, yellow (the three colors between RGB on the color wheel), which are the negatives of RGB (cvan is a combination of green and blue, and there- fore absorbs red light), K is an extra pure black ink, to avoid generating muddy grays from mixing the other colors. But, why should we need to work with these rep- resentations that were designed for the conve ience of computer devices? Instead, we use more useful color models, like HSB (hue, saturation, brightness). In tools like Photoshop Elements, the Color Picker displays the hue as the base color in spectrum, and then a palette of that hue with the saturation as its purity from gray to full and brightness from black to white The standard language for specifying precise col- ors is the Pantone Matching System, with reference color sets and associated guides and tools. Pantone alo offers the Color Cue, a handheld device that instantly identifies color samples (S349 list).