Calibrated Monitor And Photo Printed

[Dogdots]

I'm really confused :scratch

I've been doing searches and reading the last few weeks on what I need to do to get a print that looks like what I have on my monitor.

My monitor isn't calibrated. I know...shame on me, but from what I have read...some say you need to calibrate it....a few say no. Smug has the True and Auto printing. How does that work with a calibrated monitor? Do you need to set your monitor up with the printer smug uses? Sams prints it just "as is" so they say without any type of changes then what is submitted.

This all started when I printed out over a hundred photos from my smug site. I used the True setting since most were landscapes and some BW photos. I wasn't happy with what I saw...they looked dingy....so Smug printed them in Auto. Thanks smug :thumb

Then I had two sets of photos with two different looks. Which still didn't look like what I saw on my monitor. So I took a sample to Sams. Oh my...now I have 3 different looking photos of the same photo :rofl

Will a calibrated monitor fix all my problems? I shoot in jpeg and Raw. My camera setting is sRGB and CS3 is RGB. I change to jpeg to upload to smug.

If my monitor is calibrated and I print off my smug site will they print as I see them on my monitor?

Then if I do calibrate...which calibrator is good? I have a LCD Sony monitor. I've never changed the settings since I took it out of the box 3 yrs ago....another shame on me?

This issue is really starting to irrate me. I'm looking for a time when I can edit a photo...print it and be happy with my results.

I'm hoping someone can help me. Thanks.

[Antonio Correia]

Mary
In the last weeks I had a similar problem.
I want to print books as gifts for Christmas and sell them :roflon line and I was needing to fine tune my monitor, calibrate the monitor that is.

I posted here (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=109629) about this matter and I received at home the i1Display2 (http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=788) to use on my Mac.
Disillusion or, shame on me :dunno

May be I made something wrong, but I couldn't see any improvement on the image.
I returned the item to it's origin. :cry

And why did I want to buy a monitor calibrator ? Because the books I was printing from Blurb were not as good as I would like them to be.

I will be soon sending to WHCC (http://www.whcc.com/index.htm) some pictures for them to print.
Then they will send the prints to me to evaluation.
Then I will be able to see if what they are going to print in the book is what I see in my monitor.
I have to adjust my monitor according to them.

In fact, I don't have much to change in the monitor...

But I say to myself: "If there are so many people using i1Display2/Spiders for their work with good results, and I was advised by some "super griners" to get a specific model, I must be wrong ...:dunno"

But for the time being I will keep this way:
No monitor calibration. Mac pure and simple. :D

Cheers. :D

[jfriend]

This is truly a complicated issue. I will try to explain a little how color display on our computers works and then maybe you can decide whether you think you should profile/calibrate your display or not.

First of all, an image is expressed in a particular color profile. You've likely heard of sRGB, AdobeRGB and maybe some others like ProPhotoRGB. These are standard color definitions. They define what each color value actually means. So if you have a red color that is described in RGB form as (201, 12,39), then each one of these color profiles describes exactly what color red that value of (201,12,39) actually is. And, it's a different red in each color profile.

Now along comes some software that wants to display this image. It reads the numeric values of the image. It reads the color profile that it is expressed in (let's say it's AdobeRGB, for this example) and it says "OK, I understand the AdobeRGB profile so I can translate the colors in this image to a known standard color".

Now, it wants to display that image on the screen. Hmmm. How does it tell the screen to display an exact color? If the software sends a 201,12,39 value to the screen, what color will actually display? Well, the answer is that "it depends upon the native characteristics of the display". It depends not only upon the display type and construction, but also on it's current calibration, and perhaps even temperature and some other environmental factors. In fact, one of the newer wide-gamut LCD displays will display a very different color if given that RGB value than an older CRT display.

So, how is the software to know how to accurately display that (201,12,39) pixel? The answer is that all modern operating systems support a concept known as a monitor profile. The monitor profle
describes for software on the computer how the current monitor displays colors. It contains enough information in it so that the software can look in the profile and figure out the answer to the question: "If I have an AdobeRGB value of (201,12,39) and I want to display it accurately on this monitor, what value should I actually send to the video card"? You can think of it as a mapping table that describes how to get a particular color from this monitor.

So, if a monitor profile is needed for accurate color display, how does a system get an accurate monitor profile? Because no two monitors, even of the same make, are identical, the only real answer to that question is that the monitor needs to be measured and a profile generated from those measurements. That's what the screen profiling software like Eye-One Display2 does. It has a sensor that you put on your screen and it then sends a bunch of difference values to the video card and measures that actual color that comes out of the monitor. From that data, it generates an accurate monitor profile and installs it into your system where color-managed software can then use it for accurate color display.

The only other ways to get a monitor profile are to install some standard profile. Better monitors will come with a "factory profile", either on a CD or downloadable from the manufacturer's web site. While this is probably better than nothing, since no two monitors even from the same manufacturer are identical, this is not as accurate as profiling your own display with actual measurements.

OK, now that we've gone through all that, you can hopefully see what needs to be done to give yourself the best chance of displaying accurate color.

Now, there are a number of other issues. Screens are transmissive surfaces (they gives off light). Printed images are reflective surfaces (they reflect light). These two surfaces have very different properties. Whites and blacks may not be quite as deep in a printed surface.

Then, there are color issues. A typical printer, ink, paper combination has a finite number of colors that it can actually produce. Your monitor probably can produce more colors than your printer can so you can end up with colors that you can see on your monitor that the printer is not capable of printing. The printing software will use various techniques to try to "map" the unprintable colors into something the printer can deal with, but there can be differences.

In my opinion, the first and most important step is to calibrate/profile your monitor with a hardware tool the Eye-One Display2. If you don't have a known accurate profile for your monitor, all bets are pretty much off for getting accurate display on your screen or any chance of that being similar to your printer. You could get close without profiling via blind luck, but it could also be far off and you'd have no way of knowing.

Beyond that, it depends upon how accurately you are trying to make things on screen. If you use extreme colors and may be running into colors that the printer can't print, then you probably need to learn how to do soft proofing in an app like Photoshop. Soft proofing tries to simulate on screen what can actually be printed, including color limitations of your printer/paper. To do soft proofing accurately, you have to get an exact profile for your printer/ink/paper combination. Smumug has such a profile available for EZPrints, though it's a bit of generic one because there isn't a different profile for each of their paper types or the different paper sizes that are printed on different types of printers like there really would be if one was being totally accurate.

[Dogdots]

Antonio it sounds like your going through the same thing as me only you did try to calibrate your monitor. I have read in places that some had problems with a calibrated monitor to...so it makes me wonder about doing it.

I checked out the link on where you sent your photos --- WHCC --- Could you let me know how they turned out?

Do you edit in Raw or do you just edit off the jpeg? Have you had any of your photos printed thru smug?

[Dogdots]

John thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me. I learned a lot.

I see I need a calibrator, but I don't want to run into the problem that Antonio had and it didn't work. I have read where people weren't happy with their results, but also have read were people were totally happy with the final result. Which makes this so confusing for a beginner like me.

Questions:

1. Should my camera be set to RGB like CS3 to make the editing process more accurate?

2. Once my monitor is calibrated...it won't be calibrated to smugs printer...what do I do then?

I don't do any printing off my printer. Mine is old and best used just for letters. I have a better printer, but haven't hooked it up yet. Just the thought of having to calibrate my printer to makes my head swim :rofl All I want for now is my photos to print like I see them after editing thru smug.

After having this problem with my printed photos I checked out my photos on my site with different peoples monitors. They all looked the same so that even confused me more.

I used Lustre thru smug and matte thru Sams. Sams lacked the reds when printed. My golden retreiver came out gray :rofl Thru smug the True printed my photos a grayish color and darker and with the Auto printing it blew out some of the photos. When my monitor is calibrated will this not happen? I'm hoping not.

Thanks you for taking the time to answer my questions.

[jfriend]

John thank you for taking the time to explain all this to me. I learned a lot.

I see I need a calibrator, but I don't want to run into the problem that Antonio had and it didn't work. I have read where people weren't happy with their results, but also have read were people were totally happy with the final result. Which makes this so confusing for a beginner like me.

Questions:

1. Should my camera be set to RGB like CS3 to make the editing process more accurate?

2. Once my monitor is calibrated...it won't be calibrated to smugs printer...what do I do then?

I don't do any printing off my printer. Mine is old and best used just for letters. I have a better printer, but haven't hooked it up yet. Just the thought of having to calibrate my printer to makes my head swim :rofl All I want for now is my photos to print like I see them after editing thru smug.

After having this problem with my printed photos I checked out my photos on my site with different peoples monitors. They all looked the same so that even confused me more.

I used Lustre thru smug and matte thru Sams. Sams lacked the reds when printed. My golden retreiver came out gray :rofl Thru smug the True printed my photos a grayish color and darker and with the Auto printing it blew out some of the photos. When my monitor is calibrated will this not happen? I'm hoping not.

Thanks you for taking the time to answer my questions.

LCD monitors these days are not really "calibrated". They are profiled which means that a descriptive file is created that describes how your monitor displays color. Color-managed software like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Lightroom can then use this descriptive profile to more accurately display color. If you want color accuracy on your monitor, this is the ONLY way to go. I don't know enough about what Antonio did to know why he didn't like his results. It's not because this isn't the right way to get accurate results.

All I can say is if you wanted to get an accurate time for how long is takes you to run a quarter mile, wouldn't you want to use a tool to measure out a quarter mile and then time yourself on that distance? Not calibrating your monitor is akin to just guessing how long a quarter mile is and then timing yourself at that distance. It could happen to be right, but 99.9999% of the time it's going to be more accurate to use the measured distance and the only way the measured distance is going to be wrong is if you misuse the measurement tool.

If you do it right, a profiled monitor used with color-managed software will produce more accurate colors than an unprofiled monitor.

If you aren't familiar with different color profiles and when to use which ones, then you should set your camera to sRGB and you should keep everything in sRGB.

That is the simplest color-managed workflow, the least likely to accidentally make serious color-mistakes and pretty much all images on the web and with most consumer printers need to be sRGB anyway. If you start out with sRGB in camera, then you can just keep it that way all the way through your workflow with little chance of making a mistake.

You don't want your monitor calibrated to Smugmug's printer. You want your monitor to display accurate colors period. Smugmug's printer is also calibrated to print accurate colors. So, if everyone is producing and seeing accurate colors, then you should be able to take an image from one output device to another and get pretty much the same result. Because different types of output devices (screens and printers) have somewhat different capabilities, there are some circumstances where you won't get the same result, but as long as you don't have extreme colors in your image that can't be printed on Smugmug's printers, you should not have this problem.

So, if you are using color managed software, on a properly profiled screen and thus are seeing accurate colors on your monitor, then you should be able to have your image printed at Smugmug's printers and get accurate colors in the print.

[Dogdots]

Smumug has such a profile available for EZPrints, though it's a bit of generic one because there isn't a different profile for each of their paper types or the different paper sizes that are printed on different types of printers like there really would be if one was being totally accurate.

I just re-read your posting and this answers questions I had. I've printed 4x6's, 5x7's. and 9x11's thru smug. Only with my 4x6's did I have problems. So they use different printers for different sizes of prints? And different prints for the choice of paper to? I never could figure out how I could get a good print in the 9x11's, but it wasn't the same in the 4x6 :scratch

[jfriend]

I just re-read your posting and this answers questions I had. I've printed 4x6's, 5x7's. and 9x11's thru smug. Only with my 4x6's did I have problems. So they use different printers for different sizes of prints? And different printes for the choice of paper to? I never could figure out how I could get a good print in the 9x11's, but it wasn't the same in the 4x6 :scratch

If the EzPrints process is working right and your image doesn't contain extreme colors that might be out of gamut (unprintable) and you are using the same paper for different prints, then you should get the same prints whether it's a 4x6 or a 9x11 even if they use different printers. If you don't, it's their fault and they should reprint it. Their printers are supposed to be calibrated to a standard and all should produce the same results (within the limits of the colors they are capable of producing).

[Dogdots]

If you aren't familiar with different color profiles and when to use which ones, then you should set your camera to sRGB and you should keep everything in sRGB.

That is the simplest color-managed workflow, the least likely to accidentally make serious color-mistakes and pretty much all images on the web and with most consumer printers need to be sRGB anyway. If you start out with sRGB in camera, then you can just keep it that way all the way through your workflow with little chance of making a mistake.

I just checked my CS3 and under Image--Mode-- its set to RGB. No setting for sRGB.

If I open in my Raw it is set up as RGB to, but can be changed to sRGB IEC6 1966-2.1. Should I change that? But if I change that then my camera/Raw are sRGB, but my CS3 is still RGB. Doesn't CS3 have a sRGB somewhere??? Or should I just set my camera to RGB and forget about the sRGB? Wow...that reads like I'm running in circles :rofl

I also noticed that in CS3 when I go to View--Proof set up--its check at Working CMYK. Since I don't do Proof set up I don't need to mess or change that do I?

I'm going to get the Eye One Display 2. I was originally thinking of getting the Spider 3, but I've been reading some not so good reviews on it.

Thanks John for taking the time to answer my questions :D

[Dogdots]

If the EzPrints process is working right and your image doesn't contain extreme colors that might be out of gamut (unprintable) and you are using the same paper for different prints, then you should get the same prints whether it's a 4x6 or a 9x11 even if they use different printers. If you don't, it's their fault and they should reprint it. Their printers are supposed to be calibrated to a standard and all should produce the same results (within the limits of the colors they are capable of producing).

Thats very interesting....some of my 4x6's didn't print the same as my 9x11's and then again some did. I just took a look at them. This is a good learning lesson for me. Get a calibrator :thumb

[billg71]

Read this: http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-color


John Paul Caponigro has a great .pdf, 6 Simple Steps to Good Color Management on his Techniques downloads page: http://johnpaulcaponigro.com/downloads/technique/technique.php

Check it out.

HTH,
Bill

[Ric Grupe]

This is truly a complicated issue. :nod

Thanks for the concise explanation, John.:thumb

[Dogdots]

Read this: http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-color


John Paul Caponigro has a great .pdf, 6 Simple Steps to Good Color Management on his Techniques downloads page: http://johnpaulcaponigro.com/downloads/technique/technique.php

Check it out.

HTH,
Bill

I checked out the smug link and was going to download the ICC profile for ezprint, but it doesn't list that it works for vista----just tried it. I either messed it up or it won't work with vista. Any suggestions? I think this would be a good tool to have.

John Paul Caponigro's site is good. The 6 steps to Good Color wouldn't come up for me...probably saw me coming :rofl but I will try it again later.

[jfriend]

I checked out the smug link and was going to download the ICC profile for ezprint, but it doesn't list that it works for vista----just tried it. I either messed it up or it won't work with vista. Any suggestions? I think this would be a good tool to have.

John Paul Caponigro's site is good. The 6 steps to Good Color wouldn't come up for me...probably saw me coming :rofl but I will try it again later.

What do you mean it doesn't work for Vista? I'm using it on Vista.

All you have to do is install it into your system (right click on it in the file system and select Install) and then soft proof with it in Photoshop by choosing it from the profile list in Photoshop. You don't set your monitor to it. You don't convert your image to it.

[Dogdots]

What do you mean it doesn't work for Vista? I'm using it on Vista.

All you have to do is install it into your system (right click on it in the file system and select Install) and then soft proof with it in Photoshop by choosing it from the profile list in Photoshop. You don't set your monitor to it. You don't convert your image to it.

I did it again and it works now :thumb I got confused somewhat when my box that pops open in CS3 looked different then what was on smugs page, but I did it and tried it out. Wow...I saw a difference.

Thank you for your help.

[billg71]

Sorry, looks like a broken link and I can't find another. I emailed about it, maybe it'll get fixed...

Try downloading the podcast version: http://www.insidedigitalphoto.com/category/color-management/page/3

[Dogdots]

Sorry, looks like a broken link and I can't find another. I emailed about it, maybe it'll get fixed...

Try downloading the podcast version: http://www.insidedigitalphoto.com/category/color-management/page/3

Ok...I've been on the insidedigitalphoto site for hours now :rofl Wow...so much information and I've even learned -- Thanks a bunch :thumb

[billg71]

Glad I could help! There's a ton of info out there, some of it in terms even I can understand....:rofl It's just a matter of digging it up.

Good color management isn't rocket science, it's just a matter of understanding some basic concepts and then being consistent in applying those concepts throughout your workflow. Once you get it, it's kind of a D'ohhh... thing, you wonder why you didn't see it in the first place.

Have fun with Inside Digital Photo, and be sure to check out the rest of The Passion of Photography podcasts, they're great! :thumb

Bill

[Dogdots]

Glad I could help! There's a ton of info out there, some of it in terms even I can understand....:rofl It's just a matter of digging it up.

Good color management isn't rocket science, it's just a matter of understanding some basic concepts and then being consistent in applying those concepts throughout your workflow. Once you get it, it's kind of a D'ohhh... thing, you wonder why you didn't see it in the first place.

Have fun with Inside Digital Photo, and be sure to check out the rest of The Passion of Photography podcasts, they're great! :thumb

Bill

Your so right..there is a ton of info out there. And I do get a grasp of some of it :rofl Well maybe :scratch

If you could let me know if I have this right:

1. Set my camera to RGB
2. Setting in CS3 --- Adobe ProPhoto, Edit color settings to North American
3. Turn on my gamut warning...yes or no? Some said yes..some said no.
4. I have the ICC downloaded to my CS3 for smugs printer.

Or...should I go back to a point and shoot camera :rofl

[billg71]

Mary,

1) If you're shooting RAW, it doesn't matter what you set the camera to, the RAW converter settings determine the color space. If you're shooting jpeg, it does but start shooting RAW. Right Now! Period! End of statement! :D

2) North American Prepress 2, change color space to ProPhoto.

3) Gamut Warning is one of those legacy things in PS, it tells you what's out of gamut but not how much. If something's a little out of gamut, you may never notice. If it's a lot, your print will come back looking like the South end of a Northbound Fido, but there's no way to tell using Gamut Warning. You're better off using the View-Proof Setup option, choose Custom and then select your profile in the Device to Simulate dropdown.

Here's how I do it:

a) Open the image in PS, then select Image-Duplicate. This gives me two copies of my image, one I can use for a reference and another that will look like my print. The object is, obviously, to make the print look like the finished, edited image I'm seeing on the monitor,

b) Now go to Window-Arrange and select either Tile Horizontally or Tile Vertically depending on whether the image is landscape or portrait format. Now go back into Window-Arrange and choose Match Zoom and Location. You now have two images either side-by side or one over the other, and whatever you do to one image in the way of scrolling and zooming is reflected in the other.

c) Select either the original image or the copy, depending on your workflow and which image you want to edit, go to View-Proof Setup-Custom and select the printer profile you're going to use in the Device to Simulate dropdown list. Be sure to check the Black Point Compensation and the Simulate Paper Color(they should have named it "Make My Photo Look Like Crap" :wink ) boxes. Check the Preview box, now you can see side-by-side the way your image will print versus how you want it to look. Before you click OK, change the Rendering Intent between Relative and Perceptual a couple of times to see which is going to get you closest from the printed image to your original.

d) Click OK, now you have two images, one that looks like you want it to and another that looks like the way it will print on paper. The object is to make the print file look like the original that you edited. Most of the time, the proof image will be a little duller, all you'll need is to add a Curves adjustment layer and boost contrast a little. If colors are very saturated in the original and end up looking like mush in the proof image, you'll need to go further and do some selective masking and saturation/hue adjustments. Play around a little, get it as close as you can.

e) Now resize the file for your print size, do an Edit-Convert To Profile to sRGB, change it to 8-bit and save it as a .jpeg print file, giving it a descriptive name so you'll know what it is later. Before resizing, profile conversion and saving as a jpeg, I'd save a layered copy as a .psd or .tif so you can go back and make changes later if you need to.

Upload it to your printer, tell them "Don't Mess With My File" or whatever, and you're done. Now you stand a better-than-average chance of getting a print that pretty much looks like what you wanted. If you really want to get that last 10%, or 5%, or 2%, whatever, out of your print, you'll have to move on to doing hard proofs, but that's really difficult unless you're doing your own printing and is a whole 'nother subject.....

It sounds like a complicated process, but once you run through it a couple of times it really becomes a second-nature thing, just another step in the workflow.

HTH,
Bill

[jfriend]

e) Now resize the file for your print size, do an Edit-Convert To Profile for the printer profile you're using, change it to 8-bit and save it as a .jpeg print file, giving it a descriptive name so you'll know what it is later. Before resizing, profile conversion and saving as a jpeg, I'd save a layered copy as a .psd or .tif so you can go back and make changes later if you need to.

Upload it to your printer, tell them "Don't Mess With My File" or whatever, and you're done. Now you stand a better-than-average chance of getting a print that pretty much looks like what you wanted.
I need to point out something in this thread for those printing through Smugmug. Smugmug and EzPrints (their printer) only accept sRGB images. So, you can soft proof to your heart's content and adjust the image so that all your colors are in gamut when viewed through the printer profile, but you do NOT convert to the printer profile before printing through Smugmug. You have to convert to sRGB (or leave it as sRGB if it is already) and upload an sRGB image to Smugmug. I don't intend to debate the merits of this approach - it's just the way it is if you print through Smugmug.

[billg71]

I need to point out something in this thread for those printing through Smugmug. Smugmug and EzPrints (their printer) only accept sRGB images. So, you can soft proof to your heart's content and adjust the image so that all your colors are in gamut when viewed through the printer profile, but you do NOT convert to the printer profile before printing through Smugmug. You have to convert to sRGB (or leave it as sRGB if it is already) and upload an sRGB image to Smugmug. I don't intend to debate the merits of this approach - it's just the way it is if you print through Smugmug.

Whoops, my bad....:uhoh I stand corrected and have edited my post. I print locally with an Epson 4800 and a 3800 so this off-site printing is new to me, I guess I missed something in the Help pages.

Bill

[jfriend]

Whoops, my bad....:uhoh I stand corrected and have edited my post.

Bill

Your workflow is, indeed, what you would do when working with some pro labs and uploading an image explicitly for print so I didn't mean to take anything away from that recommendation. In the Smugmug world, the image you first upload must be appropriate for both display on the web and printing thus is gets uploaded as sRGB.

Further, I don't think EzPrints accepts anything but sRGB and certainly doesn't through their Smugmug connection. To do so could technically be done I suppose, but would certainly add a lot of complication to the process. For one, EzPrints would have to go to the trouble of identifying exactly which printer every image size will get printed on and make a profile available for every printer/paper combination that they offer so that you could know for sure exactly which profile to convert your image to before it gets printed.

[Antonio Correia]

Antonio it sounds like your going through the same thing as me only you did try to calibrate your monitor. I have read in places that some had problems with a calibrated monitor to...so it makes me wonder about doing it.
I checked out the link on where you sent your photos --- WHCC --- Could you let me know how they turned out?
Do you edit in Raw or do you just edit off the jpeg? Have you had any of your photos printed thru smug?

Hello Mary. :D
I have not yet any work done from WHCC...:cry
I edit my photos from raw and I have never printed thru smug...

I am in process of printing from WHCC. They are very kind and answser as if we were their only clients, which I am sure we are not.:D

I would like to thank Friend and Bill for the time they spent writing about this matter. :D

[Dogdots]

Hello Mary. :D
I have not yet any work done from WHCC...:cry
I edit my photos from raw and I have never printed thru smug...

I am in process of printing from WHCC. They are very kind and answser as if we were their only clients, which I am sure we are not.:D

I would like to thank Friend and Bill for the time they spent writing about this matter. :D

Yes..jfriend and Bill have been very kind in responding on how to print a good photo --- Many thank-you's to all :thumb

When you do use WHCC...please let me and all of us know how it turns out. Finding a good printer and knowing the process helps all of us.

[Dogdots]

Bill and John....your help has been just wonderful. I've learned so much and thank you for taking time out of your day to answer in detail what I need to know to get the process down correctly.

I do shoot in RAW/JPEG and while I do that I make a big mistake I think. I don't edit in RAW. This is probably all wrong, but I open up to RAW....take a look at and I find that the photo doesn't look very sharp...kind of fuzzy. I then will open it up in CS3 and it looks fine. From there I make my adjustments at 16 bit. I do save all my work to psd. then flatten and change it to an 8 bit jepg.

Bill I had to chuckle...you must of known I'm the type of person that needs the step by step process to know how to do things :rofl Thanks!

I have another question tho and hope either you or John can answer this for me. In all my readings there was talk about light and monitor. What lights do I leave on in my room? Do I close my drapes? Where should my light placement be in my room or am I getting to deep into this process :scratch I do know my photos tend to be darker then they should be. Right now the lights in the room I leave on when editing is the ceiling light which sits right over my left shoulder and then one that sits to my front right in a corner maybe 3 feet away. As for my monitor I find I need to place the photo in my lower left corner to see how light/dark it is. Which makes sense since that is where my ceiling light is coming from.

And is there really much difference in the Huey..Spyder or the i1 Display?

After I get the calibrator...it looks like I start all over re-editing my photos...this isn't going to be fun :cry

[billg71]

Mary, there's no real right or wrong when it comes to workflow as long as it works for you. But you might be missing ut on some neat features by skipping through ACR, it's got some very powerful tools for doing global corrections. As an example, here's an original raw file(the first one to show up in File-Open), opened through ACR into CS4 and resized, converted to 8-bit and converted to sRGB:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m293/billg71/_D3C2021.jpg

Here's the same file after a couple of minutes in ACR, same resizing and conversion in CS4:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m293/billg71/_D3C2021asSmartObject-1.jpg

I opened the file as a Smart Object(so I could go back and make changes if necessary), adjusted black levels and recovery, added fill light, vibrance and clarity adjustments, played with the curves, sharpened, did a NR adjustment and cropped it. Then it went to PS for the resize, etc. All the ACR work took less than two minutes(but I'm pretty comfortable with ACR from working with Lightroom, YMMV).

So you may be missing out by not using ACR for global adjustments, but that's a judgment call only you can make for yourself. Just be aware that there are more options available than breezing through ACR with the defaults....

As far as environment goes, remember that what you're looking for in photo processing is consistency. No matter what time of the day or night, when you look at an image on your monitor it should look the same as when you last saved it. If you're working in a room with a lot of window light that won't be possible. So CLOSE THE DRAPES!! :D Lights shining directly on your monitor will reduce contrast and cause glare, so avoid that, too. Either turn them off or add a hood to your monitor(I have a ghetto hood rigged out of black foamcore and double-sided tape). Try to keep your background neutral, trying to edit photos on your monitor when it's surrounded by subtle(or not-so-subtle) colors on walls or drapes will effect your color perception and when you view your prints in a neutral surrounding you'll see the effects. The same goes for a colorful desktop picture, it may be pretty but it sure as heck ain't neutral.

You don't have to be OCD about this but your viewing environment does make a diiference so anything you can do to make it stable and neutral will go a long way towards helping your photos view and print consistently. I have a couple of pieces of grey foamcore thumbtacked to the wall behind my monitor, I use a medium-grey solid color for a desktop and have a hood on the monitor to keep the lights under the bookshelf above from shining directly on it. Not nearly as extreme as the folks who paint the whole room flat black and process photos in the dark, but I don't have a weekly with a shrink, either.... :wink

As far as profiling hardware goes, I don't have any experience with the Huey. I use the i1d2, before that the Spyder2Pro. Problems with the Spyder and more problems with Datacolor's TS led me to the i1 and I haven't looked back. Works fine, lasts a long time.... As a side note, I never cease to be amazed by the folks who will shell out thousands of $ for cameras and lenses and then post queries on the forums like "What's the best 24" monitor for $300?" or wanting a good monitor profiling setup but don't want to spend $100 for it.... :scratch:scratch But that's just me, figuring if I've got ten grand in a camera bag it might be worth $1500 to actually be able to see what I capture with all that gear'n'glass..... :huh

Sorry not to get back to you sooner but somehow or other I missed my notification email for this topic and it's been a busy week.

HTH,
Bill

[Anthony]

Can I suggest that you check with Amazon and treat yourself to this book?

Real world Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS4. By Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe
(There is a version for CS3 if that is what you are using.)

It is very readable and by following the text with some samples loaded up as go along, pretty quickly you will be squeezing tons more out of your images.

Anthony.

[Dogdots]

Thanks for getting back :D

I do see now that I am missing out when not starting in ARC to do my photo editing. It will become the first thing I do now.

Smart Object....I never understood what that was. So I open as a smart object into my CS3 program from RAW and then I can go back to ARC to make other corrections if I want to...Wow....didn't know that. I've learned so much on this thread. What changes will I need to make in CS3 to get out of Smart Objects when I'm done. I feel like I've been working in the stoneage till now :rofl

As for my room...just as I sit here I can see I need to make some changes. Right now I have no lights on in my room, but the sun is lighting up my monitor just fine ... not good. Drapes will be closed.

I've been wanting to ask something about - North American Prepress 2, change color space to ProPhoto.
1) I make the color space change in Raw to ProPhoto right?
2) But under my Color Settings in CS3....Is this where I make the change to North American Prepress 2? Is that the only change I make in that box. I'm not quite sure what all the settings need to be in that box.

I just got done tying out your steps, but I can't find where to change my photo back to sRGB after editing. I followed the steps even making the change to North American PrePress2 in my color settings (hoping thats where you do it) I noticed when I made that change other things changed to in that box. So I'm assuming that those settings it changed to are ok.

Oh I'm sure I'm a pain for you, but your help has been so valuable to me and I'm sure others that are popping in to read this thread.

Anthony I checked out the book....not out yet, but when it does I will take a look at it. Looks like its something I need along with a color mangement book :rofl

I wonder if sales in cameras would drop if people knew they should know all this stuff :scratch

Thanks again for your time and help.

[billg71]

Briefly:

In ACR, click the blue type at the bottom of your photo, select 16-bit and ProPhoto RGB. Once you do it it sticks, you don't have to worry about it from then on.

In Photoshop, Edit-Color Settings-NA Prepress 2 you need to change the Working Space from Adobe RGB 1998 to ProPhoto RGB. That's all. You're done! :D (the other settings will change but they'll be what you need or they won't matter for general photography)

Check this out: http://store.luminous-landscape.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=21&products_id=177 These guys are good.

HTH,
Bill

[Dogdots]

Briefly:

In ACR, click the blue type at the bottom of your photo, select 16-bit and ProPhoto RGB. Once you do it it sticks, you don't have to worry about it from then on.

In Photoshop, Edit-Color Settings-NA Prepress 2 you need to change the Working Space from Adobe RGB 1998 to ProPhoto RGB. That's all. You're done! :D (the other settings will change but they'll be what you need or they won't matter for general photography)

Check this out: http://store.luminous-landscape.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=21&products_id=177 These guys are good.

HTH,
Bill

Thanks a bunch Bill :thumb

[billg71]

Glad I could help. I posted in a hurry yesterday 'cause I was on the way out of the house, I hope the reply didn't come across as curt.

Anyway, if you're really interested in using ACR the Reichmann/Schewe tutorial should be a good place to start. I haven't seen it, but I have both of their Lightroom tutorials and Schewe really knows his way around ACR/Lightroom.

I'll add another: Their From Camera to Print tutorial http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/camera-print.shtml , it takes you through the entire process from start to finish with color management basics and processing in both CS3and Lightroom.

Andrew Rodney's book, Color Management for Photographers: Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users http://www.amazon.com/Color-Management-Photographers-Techniques-Photoshop/dp/0240806492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226923815&sr=1-1 is another great resource. It goes pretty deep into CM theory but it's easy enough to skim through and hit the high spots. Definitely a must-have for your photo bookshelf.

The great thing about digital photography today is that all these wonderful resources are available. The downside is that our craft has yet to advance to the point that we don't need to go through all this just to be able to get a decent print to put in the family album.... But the state of the art is advancing at an amazing rate, especially when you consider that digital photo printing didn't even exist twenty years ago and we didn't really have affordable digital cameras until around the turn of the century.

It's a great time to be a photographer! :clap

Just my $.02 worth,
Bill

[Dogdots]

Glad I could help. I posted in a hurry yesterday 'cause I was on the way out of the house, I hope the reply didn't come across as curt.

Anyway, if you're really interested in using ACR the Reichmann/Schewe tutorial should be a good place to start. I haven't seen it, but I have both of their Lightroom tutorials and Schewe really knows his way around ACR/Lightroom.

I'll add another: Their From Camera to Print tutorial http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/camera-print.shtml , it takes you through the entire process from start to finish with color management basics and processing in both CS3and Lightroom.

Andrew Rodney's book, Color Management for Photographers: Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users http://www.amazon.com/Color-Management-Photographers-Techniques-Photoshop/dp/0240806492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226923815&sr=1-1is another great resource. It goes pretty deep into CM theory but it's easy enough to skim through and hit the high spots. Definitely a must-have for your photo bookshelf.

The great thing about digital photography today is that all these wonderful resources are available. The downside is that our craft has yet to advance to the point that we don't need to go through all this just to be able to get a decent print to put in the family album.... But the state of the art is advancing at an amazing rate, especially when you consider that digital photo printing didn't even exist twenty years ago and we didn't really have affordable digital cameras until around the turn of the century.

It's a great time to be a photographer! :clap

Just my $.02 worth,
Bill


You didn't come across as curt :thumb

I've thought about Andrew Rodneys book for some time, but I was concerned it would be way over my head, but the luminous site seems more step by step visually with the process which seems to work best for me with all this new information.

I ordered my monitor calibrator yesterday. The Eye One. I'm getting excited for it to arrive since I've put my editing on the back burner till it arrives.

Thanks Bill....I'll let you know how the calibration of my monitor goes...hopefully it goes good.

[mountainpz]

Quick question regarding calibration tools. So it is time for me to spend a little cash on calibrating my monitor properly. There a a billion options out there but after doing a fair amount of reading I think I will go for the Colormunki or the i1display2. However I am slightly confused about what software one needs to get on top of the colorimeters. It appears the Colormunki comes with everything included for proper calibration. Software appears to come with the i1display2 but I also see EZ color packages out there. Does one need to get EZ color or is the Match software that comes with the i1display2 enough? It looks like the Colormunki option will end up costing less than going the i1display2 way if I also need to purchase EZcolor software. Been trying to get info from X-rite but no luck. Thanks for your help!

[billg71]

Paul, the i1d2 comes with the eyeOne Match software, which is all you'll need to calibrate your monitor.

The Colormunki will also do print profiling. If that's something you need, it's the best deal on a profiling package out there.

Bill

[Dogdots]

I just received my i1display 2 and had to download the driver from their site for my Vista. I then calibrated using the easy setup...so simple, but I don't know how good yet. I'll know more after my sample photos I ordered from smug arrive.

[mountainpz]

Paul, the i1d2 comes with the eyeOne Match software, which is all you'll need to calibrate your monitor.

The Colormunki will also do print profiling. If that's something you need, it's the best deal on a profiling package out there.

Bill

Exactly what I needed to know Bill. Will go for eyeOne then. Thanks a lot.

[Quantum3]

Hi,

I'm looking for info about how to do a good print.

I find just a little "mistake" in your comment. But not a 100% mistake.

Monitors can show only 16.7 million of colors so far, printers can print out 100 million of colors since CMYK has a wider gamut than RGB. Monitors are RGB, which are made and shown by luminance instead pigment. The available colors in any monitor so far are mostly the saturated ones becuase the more saturation, the more bright. Pigments are not allowed to produce same saturated colors than a monitor just because one is pigment made and the other one light made. Vivid colors always will be shown better in the monitor.

Now, I have a question.

It has sense using the same profile from monitor in the printer? I mean, we shoot in RAW and 14 bpc etc, which is greater than what we see in the monitor, (in fact, a 8 bpc image has much more tonal values when printed than when it's shown in the monitor) and even greater than the printer. Why reducing all the information from our RAWs when printing using a monitor profile in the printer, which is even more reduced than the printer's/RAW's gamut it self?

I would appreciate a reply a lot.

Thanks in advance,

Mart :)

[jfriend]

Hi,

I'm looking for info about how to do a good print.

I find just a little "mistake" in your comment. But not a 100% mistake.

Monitors can show only 16.7 million of colors so far, printers can print out 100 million of colors since CMYK has a wider gamut than RGB. Monitors are RGB, which are made and shown by luminance instead pigment. The available colors in any monitor so far are mostly the saturated ones becuase the more saturation, the more bright. Pigments are not allowed to produce same saturated colors than a monitor just because one is pigment made and the other one light made. Vivid colors always will be shown better in the monitor.

Now, I have a question.

It has sense using the same profile from monitor in the printer? I mean, we shoot in RAW and 14 bpc etc, which is greater than what we see in the monitor, (in fact, a 8 bpc image has much more tonal values when printed than when it's shown in the monitor) and even greater than the printer. Why reducing all the information from our RAWs when printing using a monitor profile in the printer, which is even more reduced than the printer's/RAW's gamut it self?

I would appreciate a reply a lot.

Thanks in advance,

Mart :)

I think you are a little bit confused here.

First off, most monitors can show more colors than can be printed. It's possible that the printer might have a few colors that can't be shown on screen, but it is more likely that the printer colorspace is smaller than the monitor. That is certainly true of my 30" HP monitor and my Epson printer.

Second off, I don't think you understand how monitor and printer profiles work. Your image is in a colorspace. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that it's in sRGB. That is an industry standard definition for colors such that an RGB value of (200,5,29) represents a known standard shade of red.

Now, when you want to display this image in accurate colors on your monitor, some piece of display software (let's say we're using Lightroom) must take that sRGB image and convert it to the monitor's colorspace (which is different than sRGB) so that that RGB value of (200,5,29) will still come out the perfect shade of red that it is supposed to be. The monitor profile is a recipe for how to display colors accurately on that monitor. The image itself is not changed at all. The software that is displaying the image does a color conversion using the monitor profile "on the fly" as it is displaying the image.

Now, suppose you want to print that image. The printer also has a profile that describes how it can display colors. Some piece of software that is going to do the printing takes the sRGB color values from your image and must convert them to the proper values for the printer such that the RGB value in the image of (200,5,29) will actually come out the right color on the printer. Because the printer is not an sRGB device, you can't just send (200,5,29) to the printer and get the right red. Instead, the software has to use the printer profile as the recipe for how to produce accurate colors on the printer and do some numeric conversions on the color before sending it to the printer.

If the monitor profile is accurate and the monitor is capable of producing the desired color, your image will be accurately displayed on the monitor. If the monitor is not capable of producing the desired color, then the software will try to "map" the desired color into something that the monitor actually can produce to "get as close as possible". The same is true for printers. Since the printer cannot always produce all the colors in your image, the software doing the printing may do some "mapping" to try to reproduce a nice looking image, even though the colors aren't reproduced exactly. There are a number of different techniques for dealing with these "out of gamut" colors, but that is the subject of another discussion.

[Quantum3]

I think you are a little bit confused here.

First off, most monitors can show more colors than can be printed. It's possible that the printer might have a few colors that can't be shown on screen, but it is more likely that the printer colorspace is smaller than the monitor. That is certainly true of my 30" HP monitor and my Epson printer.

Second off, I don't think you understand how monitor and printer profiles work. Your image is in a colorspace. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that it's in sRGB. That is an industry standard definition for colors such that an RGB value of (200,5,29) represents a known standard shade of red.

Now, when you want to display this image in accurate colors on your monitor, some piece of display software (let's say we're using Lightroom) must take that sRGB image and convert it to the monitor's colorspace (which is different than sRGB) so that that RGB value of (200,5,29) will still come out the perfect shade of red that it is supposed to be. The monitor profile is a recipe for how to display colors accurately on that monitor. The image itself is not changed at all. The software that is displaying the image does a color conversion using the monitor profile "on the fly" as it is displaying the image.

Now, suppose you want to print that image. The printer also has a profile that describes how it can display colors. Some piece of software that is going to do the printing takes the sRGB color values from your image and must convert them to the proper values for the printer such that the RGB value in the image of (200,5,29) will actually come out the right color on the printer. Because the printer is not an sRGB device, you can't just send (200,5,29) to the printer and get the right red. Instead, the software has to use the printer profile as the recipe for how to produce accurate colors on the printer and do some numeric conversions on the color before sending it to the printer.

If the monitor profile is accurate and the monitor is capable of producing the desired color, your image will be accurately displayed on the monitor. If the monitor is not capable of producing the desired color, then the software will try to "map" the desired color into something that the monitor actually can produce to "get as close as possible". The same is true for printers. Since the printer cannot always produce all the colors in your image, the software doing the printing may do some "mapping" to try to reproduce a nice looking image, even though the colors aren't reproduced exactly. There are a number of different techniques for dealing with these "out of gamut" colors, but that is the subject of another discussion.

Perffect... Let me see if I understand.

I have done a test, after reading your comment by lowering the resolution of a gradient to 15 DPI, so the image gets smaller and by zooming in, I can see the pixels which compose the shades of grey. I passed my mouse over each pixel and the value shown in the info palette was 0;1;2;3;4;5 etc, till 256 (some tonal values were repeteated). I did a bigger canvas and applyed the same gradient and at 16bpc, I did the same than before and I got exactly the same results. So I drew the conclusion that every single pixel in our monitor shows a shade/tone/density of grey, which belongs to an specific value from the total values tonal range (256).

I printed that image, in order to see if the low resolution file will have the same "low resolution" in its shades of greys shwon in the monitor, but happened the opposite: by each printed pixel, the shade of grey was wider than the shown in the monitor, which lets me think that "gamut resolution" (or depth) is not affected by the document's resolution and it's wider than the shwon by the screen.
I mean that I was expecting one shade of grey per pixel when printing out the gradient, same like I saw in the monitor, but it was the opposite. I just saw the "squares" with a wide gamut inside.
The same happens with a posterized image which is at its 100% zoomed (actual pixels) size/view in the monitor (so it's not some kind of moiré effect due the monitor's screen). Rarely it can be seen some posterization in a full sized image, but sometimes there is, but, when printing, the posterization just isn't there, and I'm talking about very noticeable and solid posterization (like the one which looks like patterns, preferably in the sky, instead random patterns or noise). This also makes me think that the gamut of a printer is wider than the shown by the monitor.
I also have been thinking and testing about how a printer creates the different grey of shades, something I already knew, but I found that the dynamic range of the printer works in the other way around than digital sensors. It works more like film than a digital sensor because, in the print, the more dense areas of dots are located in the begining of the shadows and not in the highlights. I already know that neither a 12 bits RAW file can be printed out, and think about this: for a constant resolution print I think it would be needed one cartridge per shade of grey (that's why the dots gets more spread, in order to avoid such amount of cartridges, hoever, ilusionism do great things, such as interpolation for one side and spreading for the other one). As you can see, the printer works opposite than a digital sensor.
Where I'm pointing with this, besides the investigation (and I would like to read your opinion). I'm pointing that you may be right in your statement, because I was thinking a lot, and testing a lot. I don't have no one in Argentina who can explain me this kind of stuff, so I just use a loupe, a flashlight and some prints.
Due that printer has a very low dots density in the highlights and maybe, a flat deep density in the shadows (I don't have a microscope, but I will try it by using my camera) your statement could be true.
However, a printer prints more than the 256 shades of grey than a monitor can show, since it's based in a 24bpc depth (32bpc plus alfa).
It's clear that a printer can simulate more shades of grey (I would like to know how much) by spreading the dots over the white paper and it is using the same black ink to generate the "variety of shades", just like a very precise aerograph.
Furthemore, the sRGB profile has the smallest gamut between the most popular color profiles.
It sounds quite logic, but you also say that printer color spaces are smaller than the sRGB. I would like to see a graphic chart showing what you say in order to do more tests and analizys since I don't know where to get them and I have been looking for lot of websites. By seeing that, my analizys will be closed but new questions will arrive.

(By the way, "It's possible that the printer might have a few colors that can't be shown on screen", I said that the printer cannot print highly saturated colors because that kind of saturated color are made by pure light, those colors belongs 100% to the digital world).

sRGB is the web standard color profile, but in photography and printing firstly was the TIFF format due the way it keeps the individuality of each channel that composes the pixel, but that's another topic. Why the sRGB is now used in printer shops? I guess it's because most digital devices comes with that profile and at the end of the day, the standard just means that, the standard, which doesn't means it's good. The only digital devioces which comes with other profiles (widers than sRGB) are the professional digital cameras.

I don't use sRGB for printing and I don't use JPEG files, another standard, because those formats are smaller than ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB 1998 and TIFF. If you think about making a sweet grey scale print, you will understand what I mean, and I'm poiting a bit toward the film and chemical process. I'm poiting to obtain the subtle shades of greys, even the very contasty images has smoother transitions between black and white when shooting/editing and printing. sRGB is not capable of such thing, nor printers with 2 black inks due the dot spreading.
I preffer Photoshop to do the colorimetric rendering intent when printing than do it before printing. I guess the mapping you say has to be better in that way, and mostly because the TIFF Format.

I know that piece of software you say and how it works, I actually teach about these things, but I also learn, for example, what you explain me about the color emulation "on the fly", like you say. But the problem is that emulation is very limnited by the monitor gamut, which is always the same (RGBA). I always think in the time when the monitors will be able to show 16bpc images or 32 bpc ones at more than 72/96 PPI, same with printers. Imagine a liquid screen, it doesn't has pixels, so it doesn't has gaps or steps!

I would also like to talk aout the techniques for dealing with those out of gammut colors, at least, in what consists those techniques.

Thank you very much for taking the time to replying. I would appreciate a complete feedback from you, if you don't mine :)

Øuantum³

[pathfinder]

Quantum3,

I have read your posts regarding printing with an inkjet printer and getting your prints - B&W or color _ to match your screen. As you obviously know from reading and experience, this can be challenging at times.

You need a carefully calibrated monitor, software that is fully aware of color spaces like Lightroom or Photoshop ( or a few others ) and the proper printing profile for your printer, paper, and whether the image is to be color or B&W.

The best book I have seen covering this topic is by Uwe Steinmuller and Juergen Gulbins, published by Rocky Nook "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" I think you will find this answers many of your questions and helps you determine the answers for yourself.

They include links to a series of images and graphics that include stepped gray scales, and how to adjust the various parameters to achieve success at printing. Page 79 describes how to find the absolute black and white point that your own printer is capable of printing discernably, a very useful task to do and understand. I can actually print 5,5,5 and 252,252,252, and discern them on my prints I make on my Epson Stylus 3800.

One other task I would suggest is to purchase a few prints from Smugmug so have to compare to your own prints and see if they match closely as well.

[jfriend]

It sounds quite logic, but you also say that printer color spaces are smaller than the sRGB. I would like to see a graphic chart showing what you say in order to do more tests and analizys since I don't know where to get them and I have been looking for lot of websites. By seeing that, my analizys will be closed but new questions will arrive.

Here's an interesting article (http://pixsylated.com/2008/05/why-your-photos-look-lousy/) that has a bunch of color space graphs that might help you see visually how some printers compare to other color spaces. You should know that it's a printer/paper combination that creates a capability to display color and to accurately print color to a printer, you have to have an ICC Profile for your particular printer and paper combination and have the right software that can use it.

[Quantum3]

Here's an interesting article (http://pixsylated.com/2008/05/why-your-photos-look-lousy/) that has a bunch of color space graphs that might help you see visually how some printers compare to other color spaces. You should know that it's a printer/paper combination that creates a capability to display color and to accurately print color to a printer, you have to have an ICC Profile for your particular printer and paper combination and have the right software that can use it.

I see... I think I will shoot my head... In my country the available paper is about 3 kind of different grams in the Epson paper (not differnt kind of surfaces and chemical composition) which 24 sheets costs 60 dollars and the paper I can afford (there are not more options), which is Foto Jet, Folex Imaging....... :( I usually don't do prints, nor in shops. People from shops here don't know neither the 10% of what I know... I feel very sad. All what I have learnt was self taught and I want to grow but my intelligence has limits and I need teachers in order to learn more than the lazo tool (that's what you can learn here) In Argentina nobody teachs Lightroom or Capture NX excepts me. I have also disertations in some schools and I was attempting to be part of the Nikon Team in my state, but due economical problems, they decided not to open the school yet. However, I know I WANT MORE KNOWLEDGE!!! I have read lot of hard to find websites, I read and read and I just can deduce the rest. There are too much forums where people only express their subjective ideas of "what they think they think", you know, ambiguous "reasonings" and such, no proofs of what they say... I feel intelectualy lonely. Thanks God I have a very smart girlfriend so we talk a lot about these things, in fact, I was talking her about your reply and I was anxious to read it, and I found another guy who also knows what he says and he recommended me a book, but not available in my country and I don't know how to buy though Internet. I'm not pesimist, I just live in a third world country with tons of ignorants, delinquents and arrogant people (and the common people whom I have a normal felling toward them). Man... How old are you? I'm 28... and I feel I'm losing my time while I could be in Europe or USA learning all this stuff, and analizing papers and buying the most adecuated to my needs and such... You know, I could buy a Nikon D700 and a Apple Cinema Display thanks to a work I do for a guy in California, retouching pix... He may could buy me the books I need and send them to my home... There are lot of obstacles and I'm too perfeccionist and I don't want to understand all these stuff at my 45 years old!!! I want it now! BECAUSE I WAS WISHING THIS INFO SINCE YEAR 2005!!! I have a huge print, about 1,50 metters in the largest side I found in the streets, people here drops trash to the streets. Seems it is a big photograph, taken by some kind of medium format film camera because the image has not patterns and says Kodak in the back. That's the best thing I could achieve in order to teach to my pupils the difference between patterns and no patterns and such... I have been looking the life's cost in the UK, food is pretty cheap, I just need Wi Fi, water, gas and electricity. I have been looking for a home in England, in the middle of the nothing, a little and old home, I dont need more. I already have some freelance jobs, I don't care cars, clothes, discos, restaurants and such. I just want to learn more and more, and I have my lovely D700... I'm getting crazy and idiot in my damn country.

Thanks for listening and for the info, I'm reading it with tears in my eyes, actually.

[Anthony]

I think you are a little bit confused here.

First off, most monitors can show more colors than can be printed. It's possible that the printer might have a few colors that can't be shown on screen, but it is more likely that the printer colorspace is smaller than the monitor. That is certainly true of my 30" HP monitor and my Epson printer.

Second off, I don't think you understand how monitor and printer profiles work. Your image is in a colorspace. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that it's in sRGB. That is an industry standard definition for colors such that an RGB value of (200,5,29) represents a known standard shade of red.

Now, when you want to display this image in accurate colors on your monitor, some piece of display software (let's say we're using Lightroom) must take that sRGB image and convert it to the monitor's colorspace (which is different than sRGB) so that that RGB value of (200,5,29) will still come out the perfect shade of red that it is supposed to be. The monitor profile is a recipe for how to display colors accurately on that monitor. The image itself is not changed at all. The software that is displaying the image does a color conversion using the monitor profile "on the fly" as it is displaying the image.

Now, suppose you want to print that image. The printer also has a profile that describes how it can display colors. Some piece of software that is going to do the printing takes the sRGB color values from your image and must convert them to the proper values for the printer such that the RGB value in the image of (200,5,29) will actually come out the right color on the printer. Because the printer is not an sRGB device, you can't just send (200,5,29) to the printer and get the right red. Instead, the software has to use the printer profile as the recipe for how to produce accurate colors on the printer and do some numeric conversions on the color before sending it to the printer.

If the monitor profile is accurate and the monitor is capable of producing the desired color, your image will be accurately displayed on the monitor. If the monitor is not capable of producing the desired color, then the software will try to "map" the desired color into something that the monitor actually can produce to "get as close as possible". The same is true for printers. Since the printer cannot always produce all the colors in your image, the software doing the printing may do some "mapping" to try to reproduce a nice looking image, even though the colors aren't reproduced exactly. There are a number of different techniques for dealing with these "out of gamut" colors, but that is the subject of another discussion.

Really good explanation John. I have saved it for future use when this subject comes up for discussion. Although (I think) I have a reasonable grasp of the processes, it is not always easy to put the key points in a succinct fashion in the way you have.

Anthony.

[Quantum3]

Quantum3,

I have read your posts regarding printing with an inkjet printer and getting your prints - B&W or color _ to match your screen. As you obviously know from reading and experience, this can be challenging at times.

You need a carefully calibrated monitor, software that is fully aware of color spaces like Lightroom or Photoshop ( or a few others ) and the proper printing profile for your printer, paper, and whether the image is to be color or B&W.

The best book I have seen covering this topic is by Uwe Steinmuller and Juergen Gulbins, published by Rocky Nook "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" I think you will find this answers many of your questions and helps you determine the answers for yourself.

They include links to a series of images and graphics that include stepped gray scales, and how to adjust the various parameters to achieve success at printing. Page 79 describes how to find the absolute black and white point that your own printer is capable of printing discernably, a very useful task to do and understand. I can actually print 5,5,5 and 252,252,252, and discern them on my prints I make on my Epson Stylus 3800.

One other task I would suggest is to purchase a few prints from Smugmug so have to compare to your own prints and see if they match closely as well.

Hi mate,

Thank you very much for your support and your comprehensive feeling. I have bneen looking those books, but they're just in paper, so I will see if I can buy those by using a client who lives in California since I don't know how to buy through Internet.
About the prints, believe me or not, I would preffer printing something made by myself, since I have taken hundred of good photos (will post something here) since year 2005 (year in which I started taking pix and dealing with all this stuff) and I just have 4 printed photos hanging from my wall because I don't want to print my stuff till having all my stuff calibrated. I put lot of effort in my photos and I don't want them printed with defects. If I have to wait to some "16 bits printer", if that's would be possible in some years (since pattern spreading seems the only way so far, so the depth of pix are quite compromised). It should be a printer specially designed for grey scaled images. I think it should have around 2 cartridges for the sahdows, like 4 for midtones and like 8 for lights and highlights. So resolution will be constant instead pattern spreading. I also would like 16 bit monitors (not those with leds, they are building even brighter monitors, all is going more and more away from what it can be printed!) with liquid screens, so no pixels at all, no matrix. Why monitor fabricants doesn't make a 32 bits monitor, for example? Why!? Cameras already exceed the screen and printer limits! I think this is quite serious! Why photographers are so quite? This is just like industrial revolution: the possibility for auto-sustainable eco-buildings and non pollution machinery was able to be build like 40 years ago but people seemed confortable with our Co2 friend! And still is that way...
I have been quite sad yestarday, after reading a link who passed me Jfiriend and about the books you mention because I'm living in a country which doesn't let me grow up. Just imagine that I am a private teacher in this matter of digital devices and such. I also have been art director from a 3D company, but his owner was so untidy that I left it (but I met some cool persons). Plus, in Argentina, people usually robs (like printing at 15 DPI instead 300), so I work only for some frends here, elders and people from first world countries. I mean, I'm a freelancer.
Also, printer shops here has no idea about printing. I asked in the most important places what's kind of profile they use, and if they can lend me the paper which says how much magenta, cyan, yellow and black they use for printing, in order to balance my pix before going there and print and all of them just got like "uh!?" In the whole state the are just 2 persons who knows how to calibrate the whole equipment, but they live 700 kilometers away from my state, plus, I cannot afford their prices. However, I teach this things as far as I know and I met a pupil, who's obsessive 100% about this matter, just like me, who has bought the EyeOne thingie. A few days ago I bought an Apple Cinema Display and I'm just stunned about how the images looks in this monitor! No body has Macs around here, but this new friend who had bought a MacPro few weks ago, so I will touch for first time in my whole life, a Machintosh!!! The price of that Mac here is equal to 2 years and half of hard working, 8 hours per day and 7 days a week without spending any cent, so it's impossible to buy one for everyone here, excepts for high end publicity agencies.
I also cannot afford Epson paper (and no one here): 24 sheets of glossy paper is equals to 16 hours of hard working, and sum the inks and sum that the printer's range is poorly less than 8 bpc... It's bad... The entery month is not enough to make some prints.
However, thanks to my client in California (and a possible one from the U.K.) I will be able to buy "high quality" stuff, starting for lenses for the D700 I bought, flashes and such.
In first world countries, a guy with 20 years old already knows how to use flashes and surely, owns a couple. I'm 28 years old and I did photographs using mere 500 watts tungsten lamps (also my apartment is quite dark, no ambient light). If you like, you can check some of my personal works here: www.mart1980.deviantart.com (http://www.mart1980.deviantart.com)

It was a pleasure reading your message, mate, same with jfriend... I will dig this topic even if I'm digging my tomb...

See you later, and thank you very much :)

Mart :)

[arodney]

There's a bit of misinformation circling about here.

Displays (which are emissive devices) don't necessary have "larger" or "smaller" gamuts than a print. You have to define what print process first. The fact is, the shape of a display color space and that of nearly any printer is just different. Some colors fall in, some fall out of gamut. See "Fitting round pegs in square holes" below.

We have wide gamut display options today as well (if you want to send a bit more money). They have gamuts that closely approach or exceed Adobe RGB (1998).

All the working spaces we deal with (from sRGB to ProPhoto and everything in between) are based on a color space that behaves like an emissive display, not a reflective output device! There is no such thing as an sRGB printer. The shapes of printer gamuts and display gamuts are quite different. These RGB working space are theoretical (there's nothing that "produces" ProPhoto RGB).

If you shoot Raw, you've shot without any color space as Raw is Raw (essentially grayscale data). Your Raw converter will have a color space, hopefully a big honking one, that is used to process this data into a full color image, after which you can, depending on the converter, select any encoding color space (sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, you name it). The color space used in Adobe Raw products is very similar to ProPhoto RGB (it has the same color primaries but uses a different Tone Response Curve people often incorrectly call "gamma"). If you shoot Raw, and you use say an Adobe Raw converter, you'd want to select ProPhoto RGB as an encoding color space if your goal is to preserve all the colors the capture device and the Raw converter could contain.

Gamut mismatch (fitting round pegs in square holes)

It IS true that the wider the granularity in a color space, the harder it is to handle subtle colors. This is why wide gamut displays that can't revert to sRGB (current LCD technology doesn't allow this.) are not ideal for all work (ideally you need two units).

There are way, way more colors that can be defined in something like ProPhoto RGB than you could possibly output, true. But we have to live with a disconnect between the simple shapes of RGB working space and the vastly more complex shapes of output color spaces to the point we're trying to fit round pegs in square holes. To do this, you need a much larger square hole. Simple matrix profiles of RGB working spaces when plotted 3 dimensionally illustrate that they reach their maximum saturation at high luminance levels. The opposite is seen with print (output) color spaces. Printers produce color by adding ink or some colorant, working space profiles are based on building more saturation by adding more light due to the differences in subtractive and additive color models. To counter this, you need a really big RGB working space like ProPhoto RGB again due to the simple size and to fit the round peg in the bigger square hole. Their shapes are simple and predictable. Then there is the issue of very dark colors of intense saturation which do occur in nature and we can capture with many devices. Many of these colors fall outside Adobe RGB (1998) and when you encode into such a space, you clip the colors to the degree that smooth gradations become solid blobs in print, again due to the dissimilar shapes and differences in how the two spaces relate to luminance.

Labs that make you funnel your images into sRGB are using a half backed, at best color management scheme. Their devices do not print sRGB, their gamuts are larger (depending on the technology, not but a huge factor). They don't allow you to soft proof and convert based on your preferred rendering intent and then post edit. They should just admit they don't work with modern color management and forget confusing users with profiles and such.

Oh, in terms of display and working space gamut compared to a modern output device, the Epson K3 inks have a great deal of colors that exceed Adobe RGB (1998)! The new HDR inks, even more. What that means is, you've got capture devices and output devices that exceed the gamut potential of Adobe RGB (1998), hence the reason many are advising the use of ProPhoto RGB as an encoding space (do so in 16-bit). If you must deal with these consumer labs, you can always convert that master image to sRGB and send off to print, retaining the full gamut (in ProPhoto) for demanding output on modern output devices.

As for reading, here's a long but good piece on rendering Raw to final print:

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prophotographer/pdfs/pscs3_renderprint.pdf

Another piece on color spaces on the Adobe site:

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

[Quantum3]

There's a bit of misinformation circling about here.

Displays (which are emissive devices) don't necessary have "larger" or "smaller" gamuts than a print. You have to define what print process first. The fact is, the shape of a display color space and that of nearly any printer is just different. Some colors fall in, some fall out of gamut. See "Fitting round pegs in square holes" below.

We have wide gamut display options today as well (if you want to send a bit more money). They have gamuts that closely approach or exceed Adobe RGB (1998).

All the working spaces we deal with (from sRGB to ProPhoto and everything in between) are based on a color space that behaves like an emissive display, not a reflective output device! There is no such thing as an sRGB printer. The shapes of printer gamuts and display gamuts are quite different. These RGB working space are theoretical (there's nothing that "produces" ProPhoto RGB).

If you shoot Raw, you've shot without any color space as Raw is Raw (essentially grayscale data). Your Raw converter will have a color space, hopefully a big honking one, that is used to process this data into a full color image, after which you can, depending on the converter, select any encoding color space (sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, you name it). The color space used in Adobe Raw products is very similar to ProPhoto RGB (it has the same color primaries but uses a different Tone Response Curve people often incorrectly call "gamma"). If you shoot Raw, and you use say an Adobe Raw converter, you'd want to select ProPhoto RGB as an encoding color space if your goal is to preserve all the colors the capture device and the Raw converter could contain.

Gamut mismatch (fitting round pegs in square holes)

It IS true that the wider the granularity in a color space, the harder it is to handle subtle colors. This is why wide gamut displays that can't revert to sRGB (current LCD technology doesn't allow this.) are not ideal for all work (ideally you need two units).

There are way, way more colors that can be defined in something like ProPhoto RGB than you could possibly output, true. But we have to live with a disconnect between the simple shapes of RGB working space and the vastly more complex shapes of output color spaces to the point we're trying to fit round pegs in square holes. To do this, you need a much larger square hole. Simple matrix profiles of RGB working spaces when plotted 3 dimensionally illustrate that they reach their maximum saturation at high luminance levels. The opposite is seen with print (output) color spaces. Printers produce color by adding ink or some colorant, working space profiles are based on building more saturation by adding more light due to the differences in subtractive and additive color models. To counter this, you need a really big RGB working space like ProPhoto RGB again due to the simple size and to fit the round peg in the bigger square hole. Their shapes are simple and predictable. Then there is the issue of very dark colors of intense saturation which do occur in nature and we can capture with many devices. Many of these colors fall outside Adobe RGB (1998) and when you encode into such a space, you clip the colors to the degree that smooth gradations become solid blobs in print, again due to the dissimilar shapes and differences in how the two spaces relate to luminance.

Labs that make you funnel your images into sRGB are using a half backed, at best color management scheme. Their devices do not print sRGB, their gamuts are larger (depending on the technology, not but a huge factor). They don't allow you to soft proof and convert based on your preferred rendering intent and then post edit. They should just admit they don't work with modern color management and forget confusing users with profiles and such.

Oh, in terms of display and working space gamut compared to a modern output device, the Epson K3 inks have a great deal of colors that exceed Adobe RGB (1998)! The new HDR inks, even more. What that means is, you've got capture devices and output devices that exceed the gamut potential of Adobe RGB (1998), hence the reason many are advising the use of ProPhoto RGB as an encoding space (do so in 16-bit). If you must deal with these consumer labs, you can always convert that master image to sRGB and send off to print, retaining the full gamut (in ProPhoto) for demanding output on modern output devices.

As for reading, here's a long but good piece on rendering Raw to final print:

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/prophotographer/pdfs/pscs3_renderprint.pdf

Another piece on color spaces on the Adobe site:

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf

I have read your posts regarding printing with an inkjet printer and getting your prints - B&W or color _ to match your screen. As you obviously know from reading and experience, this can be challenging at times.

You need a carefully calibrated monitor, software that is fully aware of color spaces like Lightroom or Photoshop ( or a few others ) and the proper printing profile for your printer, paper, and whether the image is to be color or B&W.

The best book I have seen covering this topic is by Uwe Steinmuller and Juergen Gulbins, published by Rocky Nook "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" I think you will find this answers many of your questions and helps you determine the answers for yourself.

They include links to a series of images and graphics that include stepped gray scales, and how to adjust the various parameters to achieve success at printing. Page 79 describes how to find the absolute black and white point that your own printer is capable of printing discernably, a very useful task to do and understand. I can actually print 5,5,5 and 252,252,252, and discern them on my prints I make on my Epson Stylus 3800.

One other task I would suggest is to purchase a few prints from Smugmug so have to compare to your own prints and see if they match closely as well.[/quote]

Hello Mate,

First of all, thank you very much for reading and for replying. I find quite a lot of nice people here who is willing to help by using technical and logical reasonings, thing which surprises me since I have been in lot of forums and members usually use too much colloquial languaje mixed with prepotency and arrogance just because they don't know how to reply or refute x statement or just becuase the statement is above their heads. I could name a bunch, but that's not ethic and that is another topic. However, I just wanted to say and explain why I'm so happy here :) I also must introduce my self in some "say hi" section, but I'm too busy reading and replying the bunch of huge replyes I have received and I don't like delaying the reply because is not ethic as well...

Okay!

Due my furstration, my girlfriend went to a cool Developing Shop today in order to probe me that those shops are not so bad as I though, 'cause I already had been there and I know they don't know what's a color profile. 1 year ago, I did a journey through all the printing shops and developing shops in my state, in order to find the best one, I do surveys, personal surveys in order to detect the perfect shop and none of the shops know what's a color profile or a photocolorimeter. I printed 4 photos in one of the "most quality" places and they have done an ugly job, avoiding their incompetence by saying that my monitor was too bright (I have it calibrated and profiled), for example. I was in a hurry that day, so I didn't crush their shop, which name is "Dicky" LOL... There were a couple of tourist there and they were making fun of the name of the shop JAjajaA

Anyway!

I have an Apple Cinema Display of 20 inches and it looks fantastic. I was familiarized with very cheap LCD monitors like the Viewsonic which cost no more than 150 dollars. Now I have a good work as a freelancer so I can buy something better. I don't know what are the capabilities of this monitor, but superficially, images looks nicer than with the old monitor, even like in 3D.

How can I know the gamut of my monitor? I used a grey scale image and for example, in my old monitor the grey scale shows some gasp, the apple one shows a very smooth gradient. Yes, I know it's a primitive way, but's the only I have. If you have the answer to go pro, please, I would like to read it :) I'm also a bit aware of contrast aspect ratio and how is involved with the gamut, as far as I deduct.

You say that LCD cannot revert to sRGB, I don't get that point, nor why I should have 2 units, and what kind of unit? LCD + CRT, maybe? Why?

I also don't get this point "is no such thing as an sRGB printer. The shapes of printer gamuts and display gamuts are quite different. These RGB working space are theoretical (there's nothing that "produces" ProPhoto RGB)". Specially "(there's nothing that "produces" ProPhoto RGB)".

Your message is a bit confusing, but I'm trying to understand it.
The shops here are managed by incompetent people. Publicity and adds in Argentina are bought to Europe or USA and just to a couple of agencies in Buenos Aires which most of the 80% of their productions are printed overseas. Sames happens with food. Argentina has lot of vegetables goods, which are sell to the exterior, then, the foreing countries sell the product inside a bottle with packaging. In few words, we have the goods, you pack it, we buy it. So foolish, but well, that's why Argentina is a thrid world country, and is getting worst, another topic, sorry.

As conclusion, I understand that you say there are wide gamut printers, but not for the public?

Well... I'm a bit confused... I also would like to know how developing labs can develope digital photos wityh chemicals (that I was told). I will search it in google, but if you have some link, will be appreciated and read.

Now I'm going to read the links you passed me :) I want to go to the whole deepness of all this stuff...

Thanks a lot for your attention and help, buddy :thumb

Øuantum³

By the way, I just remembered a case where I went to a "High Quality" Develop Photo Shop and I send them photos in ProPhoto RGB, I told them the thing about the profile and how to render it and such. At the end of the day, they showed me the photos, some of them were good (the "Fitting round pegs in square holes", as you say) but some others they told me "We have had to make them black and white because neither in sepia we could develope this photos!!! We are confused, we hope it's okay for you". I just said, it'0s becuase the color profile of the picture... Grabbed the pix and went to the client's house. Luckily, the client liked the pix...

Just a little example of thousand...

Well... Will read the links :)

[Quantum3]

There's a bit of misinformation circling about here.

Displays (which are emissive devices) don't necessary have "larger" or "smaller" gamuts than a print. You have to define what print process first. The fact is, the shape of a display color space and that of nearly any printer is just different. Some colors fall in, some fall out of gamut. See "Fitting round pegs in square holes" below.

We have wide gamut display options today as well (if you want to send a bit more money). They have gamuts that closely approach or exceed Adobe RGB (1998).

All the working spaces we deal with (from sRGB to ProPhoto and everything in between) are based on a color space that behaves like an emissive display, not a reflective output device! There is no such thing as an sRGB printer. The shapes of printer gamuts and display gamuts are quite different. These RGB working space are theoretical (there's nothing that "produces" ProPhoto RGB).

If you shoot Raw, you've shot without any color space as Raw is Raw (essentially grayscale data). Your Raw converter will have a color space, hopefully a big honking one, that is used to process this data into a full color image, after which you can, depending on the converter, select any encoding color space (sRGB, ProPhoto RGB, you name it). The color space used in Adobe Raw products is very similar to ProPhoto RGB (it has the same color primaries but uses a different Tone Response Curve people often incorrectly call "gamma"). If you shoot Raw, and you use say an Adobe Raw converter, you'd want to select ProPhoto RGB as an encoding color space if your goal is to preserve all the colors the capture device and the Raw converter could contain.

Gamut mismatch (fitting round pegs in square holes)

It IS true that the wider the granularity in a color space, the harder it is to handle subtle colors. This is why wide gamut displays that can't revert to sRGB (current LCD technology doesn't allow this.) are not ideal for all work (ideally you need two units).

There are way, way more colors that can be defined in something like ProPhoto RGB than you could possibly output, true. But we have to live with a disconnect between the simple shapes of RGB working space and the vastly more complex shapes of output color spaces to the point we're trying to fit round pegs in square holes. To do this, you need a much larger square hole. Simple matrix profiles of RGB working spaces when plotted 3 dimensionally illustrate that they reach their maximum saturation at high luminance levels. The opposite is seen with print (output) color spaces. Printers produce color by adding ink or some colorant, working space profiles are based on building more saturation by adding more light due to the differences in subtractive and additive color models. To counter this, you need a really big RGB working space like ProPhoto RGB again due to the simple size and to fit the round peg in the bigger square hole. Their shapes are simple and predictable. Then there is the issue of very dark colors of intense saturation which do occur in nature and we can capture with many devices. Many of these colors fall outside Adobe RGB (1998) and when you encode into such a space, you clip the colors to the degree that smooth gradations become solid blobs in print, again due to the dissimilar shapes and differences in how the two spaces relate to luminance.



Mmmhhh, I've read you reply for 5 times now and my conclusion is:

Doesn't matter which color profile has an X foto, monitor will convert it to its own color profile, in order to show it the best possible in X display. In that proces, some colors fall in, some out (and I guess it getworst while editing a pic). So, becuase we edit a cristal cup through a broken glass, the cristal glass will not the same at the end of the day because all its color data has been changed by using a broken glass, same when converting from a profile to another.
When you say "fitting round pegs in square holes" you mean we're not working in some standard. For example, if I use ProPhoto, I must use a Monitor and printer that is able to hadle the same profiles, otherwhise, desviations will occur, some of them quite a lot. However, if I like how the image looks after editing and knowing I'm editing colors through an sRGB glass, I must convert it to the monitor's (with all it's deviations) profile in order to match what I had seen in it with the final print, becuase at the end of the day, the dysplay is our eye.

This is like taking photos with sunglases, I think.

Am I right?

By the way, I was reading a lot tonight and I found a printer called IRIS, which has a constant DPI. The past night I was thinking about that, Printers usualy doesn't print at 300 DPI, in the highlights, I think they go close to 3 dots per inch, just before the whitness of the paper.

I also found that some papers are prepared to be printed in profiles like ProPhoto.

The website was in spanish, but I can put the link here: http://www.artgoritmo.com.mx/giclee.htm

And: http://pixsylated.com/2008/05/why-your-photos-look-lousy/

That I have read.

[Quantum3]

Quantum3,

I have read your posts regarding printing with an inkjet printer and getting your prints - B&W or color _ to match your screen. As you obviously know from reading and experience, this can be challenging at times.

You need a carefully calibrated monitor, software that is fully aware of color spaces like Lightroom or Photoshop ( or a few others ) and the proper printing profile for your printer, paper, and whether the image is to be color or B&W.

The best book I have seen covering this topic is by Uwe Steinmuller and Juergen Gulbins, published by Rocky Nook "Fine Art Printing for Photographers" I think you will find this answers many of your questions and helps you determine the answers for yourself.

They include links to a series of images and graphics that include stepped gray scales, and how to adjust the various parameters to achieve success at printing. Page 79 describes how to find the absolute black and white point that your own printer is capable of printing discernably, a very useful task to do and understand. I can actually print 5,5,5 and 252,252,252, and discern them on my prints I make on my Epson Stylus 3800.

One other task I would suggest is to purchase a few prints from Smugmug so have to compare to your own prints and see if they match closely as well.

Hello Administrator,

Yes, I have been reading many web sites, seeing many charts and such... I have discovered, if I'm right and doing a brief (the whole thing can be found in this topic) that editing a picture in ProPhoto by using a monitor which looks more like sRGB is like taking photos with sun glases.

I have been talking with my client in CA, so they will send me the book :)

In the test I did, I found (by using a looupe and deduction) my printer cannot recognice values of blacks below 24 and above 240, more or less. Below 24 there is a flat black area, but without a mircroscope I cannot be sure. I could do the trick of m,acroi photograhy by turning the lense of my camera, but I don't want to expose its back, since it's a very expensive camera. But I already have done the same when exploring the pixels in the screen, in the year 2005 in order to probe to my teacher was worng or giving incomplete information.
I did a digital imaging course in the best school in my state and country, but they never thought I would take a macro pic of my monitor and ask about this kind of stuff... I was almost expulsed because of my hungry of knoledge. They called me to an empty classroom an they told me "you do hard questions we don't know how to reply and you put us in shame before the other pupils". They also thought I was doing it with bad intentions... It happened to me the same thing in every school I was (music composition school, English school, theatre and painting arts).

You know, in the more expensive school in my country, teachers says things like: "The alfa modifies the opacity of an object", end of the explaniation. At least, they could say "The Alfa Channel"...

Well...

Will keep reading... And I will post something new right now :)

Thanks for all the support, and I have also thank to the site, but want to keepo learning and expoerienting with this site. It's not the same saying hello than givin an explaniation about my happines since I belongs to Digital Grin, you know, and I need more experiences here :)