Colour Management

[MartinB]

Colour management

I would like to clarify how colour management works with ASP. I must say the information in the users guide regarding colour management and its use is very limited, as to be virtually non existent. Considering the importance of ICC profiling in images and the effects of incorrect use I think we should have a chapter in the users guide not just a line.

So to clarify - With Bibble the Default profile was prophoto RGB but you could change the working space to any ICC profile and you could also output to any ICC Profile.

When I first tried a trial version I contacted the help as Corel and they came back to say you could not alter the working space anymore and it was fixed prophotoRGB, but of course you could change the output.

I decided to buy ASP, I don’t know if I missed this on the Trial version but on the colour management tab it now says ICC Profiled – “ICC working space proofed per your monitor profile (Recommended)” or None Linear - So is None linear prophotoRGB ? and also does this mean what ever my monitor is calibrated at which is normally just sRGB will this be my colour working space – is this not rather limiting?

Any response appreciated

MartinB

[afx]

When I first tried a trial version I contacted the help as Corel and they came back to say you could not alter the working space anymore and it was fixed prophotoRGB, but of course you could change the output.

Correct.

on the colour management tab it now says ICC Profiled – “ICC working space proofed per your monitor profile (Recommended)” or None Linear - So is None linear prophotoRGB ? and also does this mean what ever my monitor is calibrated at which is normally just sRGB will this be my colour working space – is this not rather limiting?

Me thinks the text is a bit misleading.
Linear: No camera profile used, translation to monitor only.
ICC Profiled: Camera profile is used to transfer to working space (linear ProPhoto) before translating to the monitor.

Soft proofing is yet another thing that could be added on top of the ICC profiled mode....

Linear is not something the average user will ever need. It can be useful for IR/UV images and it is needed for profiling cameras (working on an ASG chapter about this at the moment).

cheers
afx

[claudermilk]

The current setup makes sens to me. Use ProPhotoRGB as the working space since that has the widest gamut; this meshes nicely with shooting RAW in the first place--maintain the maximum amount of data for as long as possible. Use the monitor ISS profile for display to present the closest approximation of the colors stored in the file while accounting for the calibrated monitor's idiosyncracies. As afx said, linear is not something normally used.

[MartinB]

Thanks for the explanations – Question on the ICC Profile – If no camera profile has been selected what is the default profile ? So far I have used ICC Profiled with no Camera profile and the images on my computer look OK. Still have to calibrate Monitor yet.

My interest in getting the Colour Management correct is that my wife has started a business selling Silk flowers – some have very vivid colours so I am trying to represent them on Web sites and also in commercial print so getting the correct representations is how you would say – Interesting !

PS – weird effect – I have just pulled up a raw file ( cannon 350D) with Colour management set to None – The image is quite dark and the histogram is scrunched to the left. Add Perfect clear and the image looks reasonable – add Tint and the whole image turns Bright Pink. Is this a bug or the nature of using Linear RGB

Regards

Martin

[afx]

If no camera profile has been selected what is the default profile ?

The camera specific one that is generated by the lab and shipped with AS.

Still have to calibrate Monitor yet.

Much more important than messing about in the CM tool.

My interest in getting the Colour Management correct is that my wife has started a business selling Silk flowers – some have very vivid colours so I am trying to represent them on Web sites and also in commercial print so getting the correct representations is how you would say – Interesting !

An exercise in frustration as you have no control over the average viewers monitor....
Commercial print is doable, but web is a mess...
First profile your screen, next obtain a printer profile from the print shop and use that for soft proofing.
Currently AS does not support CMYK profiles though which might be a bit of an obstacle, depending on the print shop.

PS – weird effect – I have just pulled up a raw file ( cannon 350D) with Colour management set to None – The image is quite dark and the histogram is scrunched to the left.

This is expected.

Add Perfect clear and the image looks reasonable

Well, PC thinks this is an image that needs fixing and its automatic heuristics decide it is underexposed so it pulls up the exposure...

– add Tint and the whole image turns Bright Pink. Is this a bug or the nature of using Linear RGB

Do not expect sane results when you venture outside the boundaries of regular processing.

cheers
afx