Color on an LCD

LCD Color: is it necessary to manage? Or what is Calibration?

What is color calibration?

Once I have accidentally or by great effort, as I learn to use my G2, made a decently composed shot, how can I know that I've made the best representation of the colors, when I take the image into an image editor?

My ViewSonic LCD monitor is four years old. I am running on a Windows XP SP2 platform.

I guess I have two questions:

1) Is there a way for me to check or fix its color calibration--hopefully not a too expensive way?

2) If not, how should I go about looking for a color-calibrated monitor for a Windows computer?

I know I'm jumping ahead from using the digital camera to using the digital darkroom. It's my most puzzling question, though, right now. And this feels like a non-threatening place to ask it.

I never even heard of color calibration until I started reading at OPF.

Mary

Mary Bull said:

My ViewSonic LCD monitor is four years old. I am running on a Windows XP SP2 platform.

Click to expand...

Unlike CRTs LCDs don't denigrate that much over time.

1) Is there a way for me to check or fix its color calibration--hopefully not a too expensive way?

Click to expand...

Apart from some rather expensive LCD/TFTs an actual calibration is not possible because you cannot change the colours [which you can change for CRTs].

2) If not, how should I go about looking for a color-calibrated monitor for a Windows computer?

Click to expand...

Don't. The Viewsonics, I have heard, are quite capable monitors; why exchange it if it principally works well? You should look for profiles for your monitors and your printer/ink/paper [Epson's canned profiles aren't bad], install them, set them where necessary.

Be aware that

a) Photoshop Elements is not colour managed, as isn't Irfanview
b) you will not get better pictures or colours
c) colour management is about consistency [particularly if user or equipment changes].

Essentially calibration and profiling is a standardised way to get experience into the work-flow. If you work with the same monitor, same printer, same ink, same paper, and you know their differences, you don't need another form of colour management.

Hi Mary,

as Dierk just said. I've not noticed any colour issues with what you have posted here, fwiw. If you go to http://www.doorhof.nl/int/ for example, on the bottom of the page there is a black/white strip. You should set your monitor contrast/brill settings so you can see most of the shades, and that should do it.

Best wishes,

Ray

Thanks, Ray.

This has been worrying me for weeks, even before the skin tones thread in another forum here at OPF.

That was the first I knew of color calibration in monitors.

I didn't like to take up anyone's time by asking. When my printer died, it really came to the forefront of things I wanted to know, however. I think it's fortunate for me, that at just this juncture, the Entry Digital Phhotography forum was created.

Thanks a mil to you and Dierk, both. And to Asher, also, for this new "room."

Mary

I am a bit confused. There is hardware sold, Spyder 2 among them, that claim to calibrate LCD monitors. Are these hardware calibration tools any good?

Richard

While I can't speak for the Spyder 2, I did watch Gregg Loewen calibrate my tv. He used hardware connected up to a laptop to get color temp readings and move/shift color curves around (I still have his print-outs of before and after). I was very impressed and it was well worth it to me.

So this is a partial answer. I don't know if the Spyder 2 is any good; but the hardware calibration tools can help a great deal, if you know what you're doing.

-Chris

ChrisDauer said:

While I can't speak for the Spyder 2, I did watch Gregg Loewen calibrate my tv.

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TV = CRT?

CRTs can easily be calibrated as you can change the behaviour of the ray gun and several other components [though there are cheaper CRTs that may not alow this conveniently]. This is not possible with LCD/TFTs though some of the hi-end ones allow for some changes via filters (I guess).

TMK, the best you can do with LCD/TFTs is having a custom profile so any software aware of them will translate images to what the monitor can show.

This is as I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1. Both CRTs and LCDs can and should be profiled.

2. Calibration can be done in one (but NOT both) of two ways.

a. By adjusting the hardware controls on the monitor.
b. By loading a set of values into the LUTs of the video card when the PC is started.

(a) is the best method, but will only work for CRTs.
(b) will work for both CRTs and LCDs, and can give quite acceptable results.

Regards,

Stuart

Richard -- I don't have a Spyder but I do have an i1 from Gretag (now X-Rite, I guess).

The following is the understanding of someone who is very much a beginner in the color management arena, so I'm sure that there are many others who can correct and augment what I write.

For my 19' LCD from Dell (4 or 5 years old) the i1 and associated software guides me through a calibration process whereby I change the R/G/B and brightness/ contrast values until I meet their target (I don't have the information with me so that's as specific as I can get right now...) PLUS, after the puck (I'm assuming its a photospectrometer) detects the brightness/ contrast/ color values, the software generates a profile that my monitor then uses w/ color managed applications to display the correct colors on my screen.

For my laptop LCD, all I can do is profile it and cannot calibrate it (it simply doesn't let me adjust the R/G/B values) but the profile still lets the monitor do a relatively good job of matching the colors on my calibrated monitor.

Being able to profile/ calibrate my monitors has let me do a better job of printing consistent, reliable photos from home. Does it make the colors better? Nope. But I know that if any of my relatives print pictures of my kid from SmugMug, that they will consistently get the same colors that I see on my monitor (so no more trial and error of getting prints on line then trying to adjust my monitor to get the right results.)

One other thought -- you can get sample prints from many of the photo printing companies (EZPrints for sure) which lets you download the image onto your computer as well as get a hard copy from them (for free) -- this way you can do a 3 way comparison -- compare the image on your monitor to the hard copy image you received from EZPrints (or wherever) and, if you print at home, compare those to what comes out of your printer. If nothing else, it gives you a target (the print from EZPrints) that you can use as a reference of what should be fairly standard colors and will tell you how far off you are. At least it worked for me.

Much longer than I planned. Sorry for rambling, but hope it helped a bit.

Matthew -- It helped alot. Thanks

A year or so ago I found a load of confusing stuff re. ICC colour profiling issues. As I was using an OKI colour laser printer, no paper maker/whoever offered profiles, and OKI couldn't help. I spent days emailing OKI uk support different image files. Eventually I came across 'profile prism', at http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism/ and the help and faq files there. I Bought the software etc., and I was able, within about 20 minutes of the postman delivering it, to get excellent results, not just on the OKI, but _any_ paper, _any_ ink, and on _any_ printer connected to a pc (not Mac). But to get to the point I wanted to make, the explanation given by Mike Chaney, wrt. icc profiling and so on, is about the clearest I have found, and, he has a 'manual' method of setting up your monitor - no expensive gear required. Go to the link, above, and read the 'about' files, at least.

I have since bought a better lcd monitor, and the optix xr calibrator. The xr only gave a slight adjustment difference compared to my/Mikes manual method, but as Dierk implied, you need a higher-end display to be capable of doing some of the adjustments, but the profiling works, anyway.

I think, you will find more dramatic improvements, if you're comparing screen to printed output, by reducing the ambient light in the screen area, and viewing the printed image in its final situation -i.e. under artificial light, daylight, whatever, and make allowances by eye, rather than using relatively expensive vdu calibration devices. If you want higher quality prints, and if you want to spend a bit of money, then spend your money initially on profile prism, and then Qimage - from the same guy - if you have a pc system.

Best wishes,

Ray (not often impressed by software - but this stuff works well, and is very reasonably priced - I get no kickbacks ;-))

Bonjour Mary [he said wispering]
I'm so glad I can post this bear for you [he said as a private joke]:

http://adrianwarren.com/pstutorials/pb/
A lot to learn easily there…

Hope you'll like this bear………

YFF


PS of course all others can have a look on this usefull link!

Mary Bull said:

Thanks, Ray.

This has been worrying me for weeks, even before the skin tones thread in another forum here at OPF.

That was the first I knew of color calibration in monitors.

I didn't like to take up anyone's time by asking. When my printer died, it really came to the forefront of things I wanted to know, however. I think it's fortunate for me, that at just this juncture, the Entry Digital Phhotography forum was created.

Thanks a mil to you and Dierk, both. And to Asher, also, for this new "room."

Mary

Click to expand...

Thanks for the Blue Bear and the CS Photoshop tutorial link

Nicolas Claris said:

Bonjour Mary [he said wispering]
I'm so glad I can post this bear for you [he said as a private joke]:

http://adrianwarren.com/pstutorials/pb/
A lot to learn easily there…

Hope you'll like this bear………

Click to expand...

Why, Nicolas, you have been inspired to post in rhyme!

I'm not planning to learn Photoshop CS, but I'm sure I will find info that's useful in general about image editors at that website.

Here, I want to continue briefly on the off-topic subject of the private joke: It relates to a bear hug I refrained from offering to Nicolas once, when I was feeling particularly appreciative of him.

IIRC, he said he was afraid of being hugged by a bear. Especially a big brown bear who catches trout and roams the north woods getting fat on blueberries.

Now, there's a picture! Who's going to post a big brown bear for us? Plenty of blue polar bears about. Need a brown grizzly one.

PS of course all others can have a look on this usefull link!

Click to expand...

Of course. That's the whole point of making my question into a public thread.

PM help does help me. But a forum lays down help for whoever needs it.

Mary

Dierk Haasis said:

Unlike CRTs LCDs don't denigrate that much over time.



Apart from some rather expensive LCD/TFTs an actual calibration is not possible because you cannot change the colours [which you can change for CRTs].

Don't. The Viewsonics, I have heard, are quite capable monitors; why exchange it if it principally works well? You should look for profiles for your monitors and your printer/ink/paper [Epson's canned profiles aren't bad], install them, set them where necessary.


Essentially calibration and profiling is a standardised way to get experience into the work-flow. If you work with the same monitor, same printer, same ink, same paper, and you know their differences, you don't need another form of colour management.

Click to expand...

At first glance Dierk, I thought I would utterly disagree with what you have wiritten (my highlighting) when you say "dont".

I still disagree with you for putting in the "dont"!

However, you do mention but not further elaborate on profiling. That is where the remedy is!

Now to make it wasy for beginners if you have an LCD start with the profile process. I believe you do need your monitor profiled UNLESS

You never alter colors by what you see on the screen.

The screen is just a window. It, itself as a bias. It may show reds more strongly or have an issue with certain oranges for example. Now in the graphics card in your computer (and in certain LCD monitors) there are places for storing a whole library of conversion tables ("LUT's or look up tables) that allow colors to be reassigned. Some colors are made more saturated. Others might be shifted to a different hue and the brightness of all colors are adjusted up or down in some way.

But how do we get the instructions into the LUT's?

The answer is a profile. This is generated using an instrument which hangs down on to the surface of the center of the CD monitor screen. You click your mouse on a button on the screen and just follow the instructions. It is that simple!

To make sure the "puck" on your screen is reading colors from the screen, one wears neutral clothes and dims the room. The computer will make the screen flash a series of different colors and at different bightness. These are measured by the puck and recorded. These measurements are then used to construct a set of adjustment instructions.

It is unimaginably easy! If you can send an email, set a clock, bake a cake, or roll a joint, you sure can profile you monitor.

There's likely to be someone near you who has a calibration puck/device/Spyder, spectrophotmeter,colorimeter or what ever. For your viewsonic, any available instrument would be fine.

Without that, you have no idea what a change in color on you screen would mean for a final print unless you are blessed with infinite patience.

So what is always needed for the best prints is, without exception, a color managed workflow.

While you are working, you must have a window to you view a representation of your image file that does not trick you into thinking, for example that the blues are to dull. If you adjust that to look good on thescreen, the print could then be aweful.

So, the lesson is always profile your LCD.

Also if you can, do it once a month or at least every 6 months as the LCD electronics can drift.

Asher

Well stated Asher. A color managed workflow is an important step as you start to get serious about your digital photography, and a calibrated monitor is fundamental to a color managed workflow. There are a number of good resources to get you started on your understanding of this somewhat arcane but critical field of knowledge. One of them is here.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Mary Bull said:

Why, Nicolas, you have been inspired to post in rhyme!

Click to expand...

Bordeaux wine maybe ?-)

Asher Kelman said:

I still disagree with you for putting in the "dont"!

Click to expand...

As you already know - and Mary even more so - I tend to grabbing attention early on with a bland statement going counter to the most published opinion. In this specific case take also into account that I know Mary for quite a while - and I know a little bit about practical psychology [How and why do people work in mysterious ways in everyday situation?].

First of all 'Colour Management' is understood as an expensive and complicated process nowadays - and rightly so. If you go all the way it is expensive and you have a steep learning curve. And most of the time it is unnecessary.

What exactly is colour management? It is nothing but experience. I think we all agree about monitors and prints physically not being able to show exactly the same colours. If someone disagrees, please, read up on colour models (in this case additive vs. subtractive, or CMY[K] vs. RGB). The best we can get is an "almost there". This means we still have to know our equipment quite well to "know" what the print will look like from the monitor.

[Aside:] And don't get me started on so called soft-proofing. Anybody who has ever worked in or with a printing house can tell you that it is impossible to proof without printing with the correct machine settings on the actual paper used for the run. Even the Cibachromes and several other methods are merely a (very poor) cheap way to reassure, or better yet: becalm, customers.

IIRC, Mary currently tries to learn digital imaging from the bottom up: how to take photos, how to make use of more advanced settings in her camera, which RAW converter/image processor suits her best etc. She also uses a cheap colour laser printer, which is good for graphical presentations - reminds me of an advertising agency I worked for a couple o' years ago: the account managers came up with the brilliant idea to send their Powerpoint presentation files to the printing house to make brochures from them; what a laugh - but not for serious continuous tone image prints.

Over the past few years I found that misinformation and myths surround digital imaging, some are self-made, some come natural. For instance [applicable in this case], many folks use their camera TFTs to judge sharpness and colour (only composition can be). Another urban myth is the focal length multiplier (nope, a 200 mm lens does not become a 300 with a dSLR). A more elaborate and not as clear-cut one surrounds colour management.

For starters, you don't get better colours in a (perfectly) colour-managed work-flow. you only get more consistent and reproducible colours. As long as you don't change your set-up and are the only one evaluating pictures you can do it by your own experience; colour profiles add the experience of other people. Which can be a good thing if you have more than just a fleeting idea about what you are doing. It is necessary the moment you often change your set-up and work in conjunction with others, i.e. different monitors, various printer-paper-ink combinations, outsourcing to print houses, sending photos to agencies etc.

Even more problematic is calibration, so I don't get started about that (most TFTs and printers without a RIP cannot be calibrated; no TFT can be really calibrated).

Asher, do you really think we should load all our knowledge about digital imaging upon poor little Mary just now? May I remind you that even hardened Priests of the Church of DI get led astray in colour management sometimes, remember the metallic look of skin?

On a more practical note for Mary, a good way to come up with consistent colours I already hinted at and everybody agreed:

- look for a monitor profile; it should already reside in C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color, if not search on Sony's Web site in the support/download area
- install Microsoft's (new) Color Management Tool
- set the monitor profile default (see the first step)
- let your G2 tag images with AdobeRGB
- if possible install a profile for your printer
- get QImage, sit down for an afternoon and go through the help (Mike Chaney also offers an on-line tutorial accessible through the Help menu)

Up to step 4 everything is quite straightforward, after that it gets messy, but the moment you have set up everything in QImage, you don't need to worry anymore.


PS: Much more interesting for colour rendition is a neutral reference. May I endorse Michael Tapes WhiBal.

Dierk, How can I not endorse your post? (There's still a metalllic look on those images, albeit less on my Eizo

Mary, Just pointers to emphasize.

For the Monitor: see if we can find someone near you to set up the color on your monitor. If we have a knowledgable OPF member near you, then that would be easy. Alternatively, a god camera store might do it with the sale of your printer. you'll need to bargain hard on the price, LOL!

When you are ready and buy an epson printer: install the epson software that comes on a disk with any new Epson printer. They self install in the right place. The Epsonprinter profiles are magnificent. When you get your printer, we'll give you step by step instructions for great printing from photoshop merely by selecting the correct options.

Asher

Dierk and Asher raise interesting questions (interesting to me at least) regarding the difference between "profiling" and "calibrating" a monitor. I'd have to do a bit of research to determine whether, properly speaking, those terms can't be used more or less synonymously for our purposes.

Setting the semantic question aside, however, as I see it there are at least two different distinctions at work here. One is between (a) calibrating/profiling your display system only with software (e.g., the Adobe Gamma utility, default manufacturer-provided icc profiles, etc.), or (b) doing it with a hardware-based system such as a colorimeter or spectrometer.

The other is between (b1) accomplishing this exclusively by addressing the video card's LUTs, (b2) doing it by a combination of b1 and making adjustments to the monitor directly, as for example by adjusting a CRT's separate RGB guns, or (b3) addressing the monitor directly, via a DDC/CI path.

Back to the semantic point momentarily, I think some of us are using "profile" to refer to (a) vs. "calibrate" for (b), and others (Dierk?) to distinguish between (b1) and (b2). Personally, to the extent I use the terms differently at all rather than just loosely-goosily, I think I fall into the former camp, in that I tend to think of "calibration" as being hardware-based as opposed to a software-only solution — even if that hardware-based process involves no adjustments whatsoever to the monitor itself.

Now to the extent Dierk is a member of the latter camp, I think he's partly right when he says that generally speaking CRT's can be calibrated while LCD's can only be profiled. For a first-camp member this statement is incorrect, however, because it has long been possible to apply hardware calibration/profiling solutions (e.g, Spyder, Optix XR, Eye One Display 2, etc.) to LCD's. But even for the second-camp crowd it's no longer entirely accurate, as there are an increasing number of good LCD's that can be calibrated more or less directly.

For example, I have one of the new NEC 2090uxi's. It falls into category (b3), which at the moment is about as good as it gets from a color profiling/calibration standpoint. Using NEC's proprietary Spectraview II software and an Eye One Display 2 puck (jargon for a colorimeter), it bypasses the video card entirely and addresses the display's own internal 12-bit LUTs to calibrate it and produce an icc profile for use in a fully color-managed workflow. It does this quickly and easily and essentially without user intervention other than hanging the puck on the screen and pressing the Calibrate button in the software.

The other thing that's going on in this discussion is some mild dispute about the value of a truly color managed workflow. I think Dierk's perhaps right, at least in theory and in part, when he argues that color management "doesn't matter" if all you ever do is use one monitor and one printer and one paper. At some point you could tweak this that and the other to get acceptable results in that system. It's unlikely the results would be ideal in the sense of providing everything the system would be capable of, but they would be acceptable. Even that has some difficulties though because of the multiple variables involved and having no objective, as opposed to arbitrary, starting point. If your prints don't match your monitor, do you adjust your monitor or your printer settings?

But how many of us are working in such a completely closed loop system? A truly color managed workflow with a calibrated (hardware-based) starting point will give consistent results both within the system and across other systems. And when you change printers or papers, you *know* what to adjust.

The good news is that the relative difficulty and expense of doing this effectively have both decreased very substantially over the past couple of years. Anybody can do it now, and IMO, anybody who's reasonably serious about their digital photography *should* do it.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

I say yes to a voice of reason from the confusion which is Color Management.

Thanks Nill.

Some more introductory info on color profiles for LCDs

There are three levels of effort possible in making sure that what you see on your monitor is what others who are equally careful will see.

1) display standard targets (10 levels of white-to-black, or standard color targets) and make adjustments so that they come out right. Hard work. Confusing. But see Norm Koren's websites, www.imatest.com and www.normkoren.com for a good discussion, instructions, and test targets.

2) purchase a colorimeter (about $100 to $200) and associated software to make the comparisons automatic. These are hassle-free, fairly good quality, and will tune up any CRT, LCD monitor or relatively new laptop for accurate color. I use the eye-1 from Gretag (purchased thru Rawworkflow). It's the best in several reviews. It prints out a results chart each time you do a new analysis, so that I could tell, for example, when my old laptop just wasn't bright enough to produce the full range of colors anymore. Just ask for D65 (6500 Kelvin) and gamma = 2.2, and step back. Done, as long as the display can meet these standards. The Eye-1 also measures your ambient lighting, and lets you know when it might distort your viewing conditions significantly.

3) purchase a spectrophotometer ($1000 and up) and associated software. With this kind of equipment, you can tune up digital projectors, $2000 flat screen tv's, whatever you like. But as Mary observed, you need a computer and some interfacing gear to run all this. It is laboratory grade equipment.

Naturally, I think (2) is a good investment. Maybe someday I'll find a research grant that will pay for (3), but I'm not holding my breath. The reason (2) is so simple is that a "colorimeter" just measures three standard colors, chosen to match CRTs and LCDs, while the spectrophotometer can handle anything that you can see and some things that you can't.

Profiling printers is a much more complicated story. Since printers don't give off light, you can only use methods (1) and (3), The cheaper, simpler (2) packages can't handle this. The most common solution seems to be to purchase good profiles, use paper which is consistent in its properties, do a lot of careful comparisons under controlled lighting, and learn what sort of "Kentucky windage" to add for the results that you want. Sort of an expensive (1) variant.

scott

Nill, I didn't see your post when writing my note above. I fall into the camp who believe that "calibration" is setting display hardware parameters, and "profiling" builds corrections into the LUTs. So I would say that using Eye-1 Display2 on a CRT does a bit of both, in two clearly separated parts of the program, and for an LCD does almost exclusively profiling.

Nill Toulme said:

Dierk and Asher raise interesting questions (interesting to me at least) regarding the difference between "profiling" and "calibrating" a monitor.

[some say it]... is between (b1) accomplishing this exclusively by addressing the video card's LUTs, (b2) doing it by a combination of b1 and making adjustments to the monitor directly, as for example by adjusting a CRT's separate RGB guns, or (b3) addressing the monitor directly, via a DDC/CI path.

Dierk... is ... partly right when he says that generally speaking CRT's can be calibrated while LCD's can only be profiled.

The other thing that's going on in this discussion is some mild dispute about the value of a truly color managed workflow. I think Dierk's perhaps right, at least in theory and in part, when he argues that color management "doesn't matter" if all you ever do is use one monitor and one printer and one paper. But how many of us are working in such a completely closed loop system?

The good news is that the relative difficulty and expense of doing this effectively have both decreased very substantially over the past couple of years. Anybody can do it now, and IMO, anybody who's reasonably serious about their digital photography *should* do it.

Nill
~~

Click to expand...

I certainly agree with your last points. One of the first steps in getting serious about digital is to be able to produce images that you can share with others who will view them on other displays. That's not closed loop.

scott

A quick Thank You to Mary for starting this thread! I really enjoyed the discussion.

Richard

Mary Bull said:

What is color calibration?
Mary

Click to expand...

I suggest you start with this primer:

http://www.takegreatpictures.com/HO...aphy/Details/Color_Management_and_Display.fci

"But, there is another way..."

For those (like me) that are daunted by the initial outlay for option 3) -- the $1000-plus spectrophotometer route, if you have a decent flat-bed scanner you can finesse the printer profiling with a much less expensive solution.

There are a couple of sources (I don't remember which ones off the top of my head) that will vend you a scanner profiling package that includes a calibrated color target. You place the target on the scanner bed, and run the profiling software so you have an accurate idea of what you see with your scanner.

Now, print the electronic version of the supplied target on your printer, using your printer, ink, and paper combination with no printer profile selected, and after a suitable drying period (usually 24 hrs), scan the printed target on your profiled scanner. Any differences from the original calibrated pre-printed target can be calculated, and a suitable printer profile results.

It's a bit round-about, and may not produce as accurate results as directly reading printer output with a pricey spectrophotometer, but the price for packages like this are quite reasonable (under $100, if I recall), and for non-fussy work, can give good results.

Having recently acquired an Epson 4990 flat-bed scanner (they are discontinued, but if you can find one in stock at a big-box store, it's a good deal, since it includes the hardware infrared dust/scratch reduction channel), I intend to explore this route for experimenting with my R1800, rather than buying a spectrophotometer that would be easily 2-3 times the cost of the printer.

For the future, I must applaud the newest HP printer, for including the spectrophotometer in the printer. Considering the (purported) cost of said spectrophotometer, and the included inks, HP is practically giving the printer away. It will be interesting to see if this concept can be pushed down into the smaller (and cheaper) printers, thus solving this particular problem for all users of their fine art printers.

Edit: Ray and I were posting at the same time. I took a quick look at the Prism software. It's an example of what I was just talking about. You need a flat-bed scanner to do printer profiling with it, but a flat-bed is a lot less expensive than a spectrophotometer, and you can use it for a lot of other things. You may already have a sutiable one, so that part comes for free.

Progress Report from Mary

Dierk said, and I promised here to follow these recommended steps:

On a more practical note for Mary, a good way to come up with consistent colours I already hinted at and everybody agreed:

- look for a monitor profile; it should already reside in C:\Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color, if not search on Sony's Web site in the support/download area

Click to expand...

I looked. It wasn't there.

I went to the View Sonic website and found the signed driver for WinXP. Downloaded and installed it.

- install Microsoft's (new) Color Management Tool

Click to expand...

Did that.

- set the monitor profile default (see the first step)

Click to expand...

I'm at that point. It says the default is sRGB.

Is that what I should choose?

Reason I ask, is that next you say to set the G2 to tag with RGB.

Currently it tags with sRGB.

- let your G2 tag images with AdobeRGB

Click to expand...

See my question above.

- if possible install a profile for your printer

Click to expand...

Ray West has just posted some advice, below, on a profile for the color laser printer. So that may be possible.

And it seems as if one will be available for the Epson inkjet.

I read somewhere in this thread (I think) that HP has a built in color profiler in one of its inkjet printers. But maybe that's high end and more than I want to spend?

- get QImage, sit down for an afternoon and go through the help (Mike Chaney also offers an on-line tutorial accessible through the Help menu)

Click to expand...

Next to-do on the list.

I just wanted to report in on progress so far, and ask the question--just to be absolutely certain--if I should use MS's sRGB default with the new color management tool or RGB.

In other words, does the selection for the monitor need to be consistent for the selection for the G2?

Off to get Qimage now.

And thanks a mil for all the wonderful support--@Dierk and @ all who have posted to this thread.

Mary

P.S. I got three good mushroom shots and one passable holly berry shot from my late-morning adventure with AV f2.0.

Reason I ask, is that next you say to set the G2 to tag with RGB. Currently it tags with sRGB.

Click to expand...

Mary,

The G2 doesn't give you a choice of colour space. In any case, it doesn't make any difference at all if you shoot in RAW. It's the RAW conversion software that set's the colour space. Canon software will honour the tag, other converters won't.

Also please be aware that aRGB contains colours that most monitors can't display, so to some extent you're flying blind. If you tag a JPEG destined for the web or non colour-aware applications with aRGB it will look washed out.

Stuart

Is my nearsightedness getting to me?

When I looked at the text with my RAW shoots after conversion this morning, I thought it said sRGB.

So, in step one of the new Windows Color Management tool I should change it from s (or a?) RGB to RGB?

Just to clarify.

I appreciate you more than words can say, Stuart. (And I'm aware that the "a" key is right next to the "s" key on our QWERTY keyboards, so "a" could have been a typo?)

Mary

Mary,

Dierk suggested you tag with Adobe RGB (aRGB), which is a larger colour space than sRGB (the default for the web and all non colour-aware applications, and a good approximation for the colours which most monitors display).

I'd suggest that you stick with sRGB for now.

Profile and calibrate your monitor first. Once it's displaying correct colours the Epson printer profiles should give pretty close renditions.

Stuart

Thanks, Stuart.

As you well know, my deficiencies lie in vocabulary and terminology equally as much as in my actual understanding and skills.

Well, I'll leave it for the time being at the Windows XP default sRGB.

Further progress report: QImage demo is downloaded (saved) and waiting to be installed.

What an adventure I'm having!

I appreciate you more than words can say.

Mary