Color Management

[LeviFiction]

@Jimmy - I'm not familiar with how Painter saves to PSD format, if it saves the text as editable vectors or not. But PSP does not import any vector information from a PSD file. So regardless of where it breaks down, PSP can't open text from a PSD image. However, PSP does supposedly open Painter files (*.riff) though I am uncertain if that includes editable text.

As for color management - I don't print or do any monitor calibration so I can't speak on that.

David Milisock was a user on here that wrote a book on Color Management with PSP. But I've been unwilling to spend $30 to see if he manages to make any good points on getting Color management to work properly. http://graphictechnology.com/tutorials.html

I mean Color management in PSP is meant to be simple. As I'm sure all of you already know. It uses the built in options from Microsoft. You can set the main workspace colorspace and cmyk colorspace. The CMYK color space is what is used to split the channels into CMYK images using the SPlit command. As well as how to combine them back together. PSP's version of soft-proofing is to split and recombine the images using the set CMYK color profile.

And the Colorspace of the editor determines how PSP sees colors internally and what gamut it's working with. By default it's sRGB. When you import an image you have the option to have PSP try and change the values of the pixels from the embedded profile to more closely match the gamut in the workspace profile. Most of the time you're probably not going to notice drastic differences if you don't do the conversion, but some colors might get duller, some areas might get flatter as they hit a wall. So conversion is recommended to keep your image looking as close as possible, or, if you have the profile, changing the workspace color profile before importing the image so no conversion is necessary.

Actual color management, is liteally just put in an accurate monitor and printer profile and it should attempt to render the output to match.

There aren't many options. Why it doesn't work for those who use it, no idea. Again I don't use color management, I don't even print. I just take the word of people like CHoffman as gospel for areas of the program I don't understand.

[bruce1951]

I have a client who I sell many prints to. (A3+). Colour is critical to the work due to the items I photograph and print. I need to have prints that reflect the 'true' colours. I use Photoline and QImage to do my work. Simply because I can't trust PSPs color management.

A side story to the importance of colour. I have discussed colour with him a number of times and made adjustments to get the colours correct. On one occasion one print slipped through the cracks. Over a 3 year period I supplied and he sold a number of those prints. It wasn't until I returned to his place to do more work that I realised the colours were wrong. Real wrong. But it had been a good seller. So what to do? Well I fixed the colour. The prints stopped selling!!! Moral of the story? Does critical colour rendition really matter?

FWIW. The above print was an old one I had done with PSP. I recently ran it through Photoline to get the 'correct' colour. To the best of my testing the miss colour was a result of something PSP did. I followed 'almost' the same work flow in Photoline and QImage for a different result.

If your work needs to be colour critical be aware of PSP's flaw. Otherwise stick with what makes you happy.

bruce

[JoeB]

If your work needs to be colour critical be aware of PSP's flaw. Otherwise stick with what makes you happy.

A good point, and one illustrated by that background story you provided. Like LeviFiction, I don't use color management, although I do a fair amount of inkjet printing for the occasional requests I get where the output needn't be 100% for the purpose intended. But back when I was having small prints made of actual artworks I just did the graphic work in PSP (display color management by eye I guess) and printing of the output was done by commercial print shops. I worked personally with their people during the setup process and they looked after print color management profiles. Colors came out satisfactory enough for the artists who painted the original artworks.

So I would say that unless people are working in commercial print shops or doing the equivalent type of printing on their own, there is way too much concern being made about color management in PSP. A bit of practice will tell you whether - and how - there is a difference between your display and print output and most users can then compensate to get the desired print output by making necessary changes in what their display shows. And as your story pointed out, while the eventual print output might not be 100% color accurate, once you have the proper workflow established you'll get a very satisfactory print result almost all of the time. And a properly executed monitor calibration - just using visual tools rather than expensive calibration tools - is probably the best first step in getting satisfactory results. And unless you always work with your graphic editor and display in the exact same lighting conditions at all times, even the most accurately calibrated monitor is going to show the same image differently each time you view it in somewhat different lighting conditions that the previous time(s).

[bruce1951]

JoeB I learned long ago that there was no such thing as fool proof color management. PSP has a 'bug' that doesn't help. But the reality is that other factors will determine the outcome more. I have a very crude monitor calibration tool. It's called my eye! With a bit of fiddling I used my eye and a series of prints to setup my work flow and calibration/s. (The correct paper/printer profiles are also very important). Then I only work on colour critical work at the same time of day so that my work space always has the same lighting conditions. (In my case a window with morning light prevents colour critical work. So everything is done in the afternoon when direct outside light isn't an issue).

Another important factor is the viewing environment of any finished print. Folks tend to forget that monitors have back light. Whereas prints are reflective. The holey grail of color management is an unattainable goal for most folks. But endless threads on forums have been devoted to the subject. While we/I all come down on Corel and PSP's broken color management the reality is that other factors let Corel off the hook. But that doesn't mean Corel should ignore the problem.

bruce