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Thread: Color Space: Shooting, Processing, and Printing

  1. #1
    Lifetime Member Jay Gould's Avatar
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    Default Color Space: Shooting, Processing, and Printing

    Having sold my first image now I had to create a finished product for printing. Frankly, never expecting it to occur - the buyer did not find the image on my website & I live in a caravan which means no walls/no printing/no images to display - I never gave printing a serious thought.

    My workflow was to shoot in Adobe RGB, process in Lightroom and Photoshop in Pro Photo color space, and convert to sRGB when saving for web posting.

    Oh yeah , I also never gave enlargements a second thought.

    To add to this, since I live in a caravan and travel full-time in Australia, I need a printer on whom I can rely because I will not see the final image that is mailed to the buyer.

    My mentor recommended a printer that uses Adobe RGD for the printing profile. Price is OK; however, the size limit is 20x40 - my buyer wants the image without further cropping: 26x40.

    I was referred to a printer by a friend who sells a fair number of large images; he has been very happy with the printer. This printer prints in sRGB!

    Hmmmm

    My friend is not concerned by printing in sRGB, he referred me to this older article: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm.

    This is my friend's workflow:

    I only shoot in RAW, Adobe RGB
    My workflow is basically KKYs
    Raw conversion is Adobe RGB 1998, 16 bit. 300 DPI
    Then Photoshop CS5 - colour settings North America prepress 2
    I also save as a tiif with layers as my mastercopy.
    Flatten -->resize and save as highest quality JPEG in sRGB for printing
    Given my circumstances I must use this printer. How would you process the image?

    What color space would you convert to when converting your RAW image? Knowing that the image is going to be printed in sRGB, I am going to reprocess the image. Should I start with sRGB instead of Pro Photo?

    All help greatly appreciated!!
    Last edited by Jay Gould; 01-29-2012 at 06:10 AM.
    Cheers, Jay

    My Digital Art - "Nature Interpreted" - can now be view at http://www.luvntravlnphotography.com

    "Nature Interpreted" - Photography begins with your mind and eyes, and ends with an image representing your vision and your reality of the captured scene; photography exceeds the camera sensor's limitations. Capturing and Processing landscapes and seascapes allows me to express my vision and reality of Nature.

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    Since this isn't something you do frequently I would use your existing workflow and and instead of converting a file for web presentation I'd convert the finished print file to sRGB. The only difference would be the size of the image and amount of sharpening for a print the size you want. Congrats on the sale!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Gould View Post
    My mentor recommended a printer that uses Adobe RGD for the printing profile. Price is OK; however, the size limit is 20x40 - my buyer wants the image without further cropping: 26x40.

    My friend is not concerned by printing in sRGB, he referred me to this older article: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm.

    What color space would you convert to when converting your RAW image? Knowing that the image is going to be printed in sRGB, I am going to reprocess the image. Should I start with sRGB instead of Pro Photo?
    HI Jay,
    First no printer actually prints in Adobe RGB. It may accept Adobe RGB but it will convert internally using the color profile of the ink/paper combination.

    Ken Rockwell used to have a page about caveat emptor where he described he puts in stuff that is not true just to be funny. I couldn't find that page (maybe he took it down and is trying to be serious). But the page you refer to has serious errors. Some of what he says may be apparently true, like colors will look dull on a web page in Adobe RGB but only if you don't have a color managed browser, and today most browsers are color managed. His statement about sRGB compressing data: "Adobe RGB squeezes colors into a smaller range (makes them duller) " is incorrect. Basically to digitize a larger range with N numbers (whether dynamic range or color), one needs to choose the interval which one digitizes the data. No big deal, as the interval in a 16-bit number is much smaller than can be seen with the human eye. But the color interpretation of the data values is on the output, not the input, so no "squeezing" is needed. (8-bit digitizaion might have some posterization in rare instances.) Ken's idea of take one image off his web site and make prints in Adobe RGB, sRGB, etc is like saying there is no difference in dynamic range in images--here take my one image and print it on printers with different dynamic range and you won't see any difference, so dynamic range doesn't matter. In order to test if you can see a difference in practice , one needs different input. Kind of like his megapixel myth page where he says something like you don't need more than what, 3 megapixels (I haven't read the page in a while). Too much BS.

    I'm attaching the standard plot of the eye color space with the sRGB color space on it. Adobe RGB is slightly larger than the sRGB, notably more into the green. Note too that the difference in the range of other sRGB colors are closer to that of the eye (the reds, yellows, purples, blues). Each printer+ink (or whatever color method is used) will have a different triangle of responses, and the better systems will have slightly better than the sRGB.

    What all this means is that one can get a print that comes closer to what your eye can see in most colors except green. Indeed, in my experience, prints with green vegetation often come out with duller greens than I see with my eye. I usually saturate green a little more to compensate.

    In my opinion, the best workflow for printing as well as in general is: raw, convert to 16-bit Adobe RGB (proPhoto RGB is close but note proPhoto includes a range outside the human color range). Do all work in 16-bit Adobe RGB. Then after resizing and sharpening for the print, apply the ICC profile for that printer and paper combination. Then convert to 8-bit tiff (assuming the printer only takes 8-bit, if it takes 16-bit, stay in 16-bit) and send to the printer).

    Jay, in your image, if I am recalling it correctly, there was little to no green. So you won't see much, if any difference from sRGB to Adobe RGB.

    I strongly recommend having a print made (like x/10 inches) and sent to you for confirmation before the large print is made and sent you your client.
    If your system is well calibrated and you send the image with icc profile, then most likely you will be satisfied with the print (especially as it is lacking green). Note too that the average intensity should often appear a little bright on your monitor or the print will appear too dark.

    Roger

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    BPN Member Don Lacy's Avatar
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    Jay, How is the print being made? Modern inkjet printers can print colors in the pro RGB gamut and the files do not need to be converted to sRGB and the newer light-jet printers also do not need files converted to sRGBi. It your printer can only excepts sRGB images then he is using older printers and is not up to date with the newer technology and I would look for a different print studio there are plenty of high end studios that except files online and will ship internationally. Also second Rogers advice on working with proofs from the studio to ensure the image meets your standards again a good studio will ofer this as part of their service for exhibition prints. If you do not want to go the exhibition print route have smaller 8X10 made and make the corrections your self to the files. Here is the studio I use read through their web site to see what service you should be looking for in a print studio and they have a great FAQ section that has a lot of info on printing. http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/...bitionmain.htm
    Don Lacy
    You don't take a photograph, you make it - Ansel Adams
    There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs - Ansel Adams
    http://www.witnessnature.net/
    https://500px.com/lacy

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