Colour Management made Simpler


In an ideal world all the images transferred from all digital cameras onto all computers would look the same on every computer screen (whether they on be laptops, desktops or mobile devices running under Windows, Linux or MacOS) and they would look the same when printed out on any printer. If this nirvana existed then it would be a flagship testament to the organisations who publish international standards for use in manufacturing technology and the market for monitor calibration hardware and colour management software would vanish overnight


Everything that has ever been written on the subject of colour theory would fill a hard drive but as a photographer I prefer to be out taking photographs rather than getting stressed out about whether my colour management techniques are up to scratch. When I went digital I discovered that there was this stumbling block termed 'Colour Management' which did not exactly fill me with enthusiasm but which I knew I had to know something about if I wanted to successfully print my work. So I read up on the often nauseating subject of Colour Management and my first impression was: "does this really need to be so difficult or is it actually a lot simpler than it seems?"


After visiting other websites to investigate I was filled with dread. I am a pretty clever person (or so my academic qualifications would have us believe) but I found impossible to find an article which would calm my fears by explaining to me in plain English what Colour Management was and how you control it. It was when I read the article "Color Management is for Wimps" by Ken Rockwell that I gave out a sigh of relief


That was seven years ago and I have not broke sweat over Colour Management since. This is a genuine example of someone providing genuine value! In the years sine I have been really enjoying my digital photography. All this without worrying about Colour Management so here I will explain a little bit about it and why it can be easier than you think. If after reading this you think it sounds easy then it will be easy but only if you have faith in the message and begin to believe in it


Colour Management addresses the problem of achieving the best possible colour reproduction across your imaging workflow. In my case I want to take images from my camera into the computer and then print them. I can do this very easily because I use international standards and rarely deviate from them. The only thing I need to do is make sure my LCD monitor is calibrated (sRGB and 6500K) and I do this manually - although I have used monitor calibrators in the past - and then send my images to an on-line printer in JPEG format. I don't shoot in RAW


I use a series of grayscale calibration images when tweaking my monitor brightness and contrast and a physical calibration colour print for reference obtained from my printer and my eye does the rest. This system works for me every time and I can quite easily predict what my images will look like when printed. My printer uses the sRGB Standard and my monitor is an sRGB device as is the camera so there is no problem. I also tell my imaging editor (Gimp) to treat all my JPEGs as having embedded sRGB profiles, whether or not the images come with profiles attached. This is quite simple but very effective


Recap on Simplified Colour Management Workflow


The more you worry about colour management the more you will be distracting yourself from the business of making art. The level of theory and minute detail involved in Colour Management theory would reduce strong men to tears and for that reason I advise most photographers to stick to the basics - shoot JPEGs in camera and assume sRGB for the monitor and printer settings. Colour Management can be very simple because there are worldwide standards for it. The problems begin when you want to deviate from these standards. There people who do and printer and software manufacturers wish there was more of them


By keeping colour management simple it is much easier to make prints which look the same as the images you see on the monitor screen if you set your monitor to use the sRGB standard. Prints usually look flatter than their on screen versions so if you want more vibrant colours and contrast then you can always simply compensate by boosting these variables in your editor and then reprinting


Here are a couple of useful take away points regarding Colour Management:




References

Color Management on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

Color Management is for Wimps http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/color-management/is-for-wimps.htm