What color space?

inskip · #1 05-21-2005, 11:06 PM

If I work in Adobe PS7 and print to my inkjet, should my color space be set to Adobe RGB (1998). Should ALL of my equipment (digital camera, printer, scanner, etc) be set to Adobe RGB? I'm shooting for more consistancy but have been confused by color managment and calibration issues.

Also, I can't figure out where to change my scanners color space(if I even need to). It's older, an Epson 1640 Photo. It wants to send me into OS 9 whenever I click on any one of its icons. However, I've been using it in OSX by importing into Photoshop.

philbach · #2 05-22-2005, 05:12 AM

Well I am not an expert in profiling. The enclosed picture is out of the Photoshop manual. CS2 page 230. Each device has its own profile. And these profiles are made by the device manufacturer. I.e. scanner, monitor, photoshop, and printer. Each device has its own color gamut. Gamuts are the range of color values that the device can process. In photoshop it is recomended to use adobe RGB since that has a wide range of colors. i.e. a large color gamut. After working with picture in photoshop and sending the picture to the printer the printer's printing profile is used. In the dialog box in CS2 it says "let printer determine colors.

For the most accurate printing quality its important to calibrate your monitor, scanner, and printer. If you have your printer calibrated then in photoshop you have "let photoshop handle colors" and you would use the printer profile you established.

So at present I would recommend that you use adobe rgb in photoshop. Don't change the other profiles until you have the right equipment. For starters though I would recommend that you profile your monitor. There are simple profilng applications to do this but for more accurate results you will need to buy an USB device that hooks up to your monitor from one of the companies

At any rate take a look at the picture and keep clanking away. I am still clanking myself.

Swampy · #3 05-22-2005, 10:30 AM

There is an excellent tutorial on Color management on the Apple site. Quicktime movies help make the Colorsync process much clearer.

http://www.apple.com/pro/color/

Check the right hand column for the Learn How tutorial

inskip · #4 05-22-2005, 10:36 AM

Okay, I was under the impression that everything should be the same profile for consistancy in workflow. What about my digital camera? It has two options sRGB and Adobe RGB. Too me, it seems like it should be Adobe RGB since the pics will be brought into Photoshop for editing. But, I'm brand new to digital photography so wasn't sure.

Profiling and calibrating equipment confuses the heck out of me...
Does anyone have a link to a simple, free explaination on how to do this?
I can't afford to shell out any more money after buying my camera, plus, I still want the CS2 upgrade.

Doug Nelson · #5 05-22-2005, 02:05 PM

There's more than one kind of profile.

The color space profile is the range of usable colors. sRGB is a smaller space than Adobe RGB (less colors), so I'd recommend avoiding it if you have that option.

Device profiles are different, they adjust colors (usually to match a calibration target). And not all scanners accept profiles.