Sooo, I have a laptop with Vista on it that’s a couple of years old, and I’m sick of color management problems. I have calibrated with good gear, and I bought a good quality stand alone monitor but I’m still frustrated as often as not. Files look different on the desktop than they do in photoshop or in picture vewier, sometimes a little sometimes a lot, printing is hit and miss, trial and error. I hear that Macs have been doing color management well for awhile and are good at it, and also that newer windows are improving, but I’m turning to The Dope.
For people that do a lot of photography, do some printing, it’s a serious hobby or a job, what do you use? Do you think I should go Mac or can I get better results with Windows if I just…
Thanks
I use Mac, but Windows PCs are fine for color sensitive work. My approach to color isn’t quite as painstaking as others but, for example, a fine art photographer friend of mine who is absolutely obsessive and anal about color works on a Windows platform. There’s no reason Windows can’t color manage as well as a Mac.
Pictures will look different, even on a Mac, depending on what application you open them in and how those applications color manage images, whether they honor embedded profiles or not, etc. Once you start dealing with Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, and other extended gamut spaces, you may see unexpected results if you open your files in, say, an un-color managed web browser.
How off are your prints? Do you use ICC profiles for all the papers you print on? Are you making sure to turn OFF color management in the printer’s software, and remember to turn it ON in Photoshop?
I think the desktop is limited to 32-bit color - maybe photoshop uses greater color depth.
Have you tried the Pantone Huey? It not only calibrates your monitor but will adjust the settings depending upon room lighting - which can also have an effect.
Finally, the resolution may be an issue. If the desktop resolution is lower than that of the photo, I would imagine that to accomodate the lower desktop resolution any number of compromises and approximations would be made which could cause small but perhaps noticeable shifts in colors in certain places.
I’m not a photographer just an avid pc user. So I don’t know if any if these potential issues have already been explored and dismissed, but I thought they might be worth mentioning
Are desktop pictures in Windows even color managed? Does “picture viewer” (not familiar with that app) support color management? You’re only going to get proper results if all of the piece of your puzzle support color management – no new computer is going to change that.
If you’re serious about this stuff, I recommend picking up Real World Color Management. It is a fairly complex topic, and I found that book to be very helpful.
Yeah, to outline color management in a nutshell, for printing from Photoshop:
Calibrate your monitor using a hardware color calibrator like the Spyder or the Huey.
Download the ICC profiles for the paper and printer you are printing on. Install them, and read the documentation that comes with them to know what settings you should use for your printer
Edit your photo in Photoshop
When you print the photo, make sure you have “Photoshop Manages Colors” selected in the print dialogue. Choose the ICC profile for the paper-printer combination in the Printer Profile section. I personally use “Perceptual” or “Relative Colometric” under Rendering Intent
Hit print
Now your printer’s dialogue box should pop up. Most printers have their own color settings. Look for something like “Printer Color Management” in the drop down menu. Make sure you turn these OFF (No Color Adjustment). You only want Photoshop color managing the image. Also, make sure you have the correct media type selected for your paper. Refer to the documentation that came with your ICC profile.
Now print
That’s the general workflow. Not all paper manufacturer’s canned ICC profiles are that great. If you’re really serious, you also calibrate your printer using a hardware calibrator. I generally find that papers from the same manufacturer as the printer have very good ICC profiles. Ilford’s are pretty good, too, but Moab, for instance, has always given me some trouble.
Thanks all, my biggest question was how much of my problem was windows, and it seems like not much.
I have found that turning off color management in both printer and photoshop gets me the best results, tried that on a recommendation from a local shop.
After reading through this, I went back to some of my old photos and I think part of the problem is my new monitor. I have a big problem with blues, sky colors are coming out way off. They look fine in photoshop, and fine in picture veiwer and then if I put them on the desktop I get hideous results, hmmm.
My laptop screen seems ok, and, like I said, I pulled out some old stuff from before I was shooting in RAW, and it’s there as well, but just in the blues and sky shoots, browns and greens seem ok.
I don’t print my photographs, but if you have room for a good CRT monitor, they seem better even now for graphics work. I use a second-hand LaCie Electron 22 Blue — and despite the weight ( 60lb ) and suspected heavy power usage, I wouldn’t swap it for an LCD of twice the cost. And I think calibration works better on them, but that’s just a guess.
If you’re concerned about how your images appear on your desktop, try soft-proofing them with “Monitor RGB” selected (under the View menu–Proof Colors checked, Proof Setup set to Monitor RGB.)
That’s…odd. Are you doing all the steps I outlined in my post above? Can you describe how your prints are off? Are you getting a uniform color shift (like, say, too magenta)? Or are the prints printing darker? Or are all the colors off in a seemingly random way? Are you using manufacturer’s inks? What kind of printer are you using? More detail, please.
Dude, I’m the Outlier, I thought you knew. I have a Canon printer and use their inks and paper, sometimes prints are dark and sometimes have a color cast. I usually ‘soft proof’ with a 4x6, and print larger when I’m happy.
So this only happens sometimes? It’s not consistent? That’s really odd. If you’re printing the same way every time, using the same paper and print settings, whatever is off should be consistently off. I don’t understand why it would differ. You’re using all the steps I’ve outlined above? You select the Canon paper profiles when printing from Photoshop?