Colour Calibration / Management / Profiles ?

[Mark Spencer]

I'd appreciate some advice if anyone can help? I'm relatively new to digital
photography.

My images are distinctly 'muddy' when reproduced on something other than my
monitor at home. This is immediately obvious when I print, but I'd assumed I
needed a new printer (it's an Epson Stylus Photo 895), but as I got the same
'muddy' quality when I submitted three images for projection at my local
camera club last night, I'm wondering whether it could be something to do
with Colour Calibration/Management.

When I first installed Photoshop ~6 months back, it said (something like)
the monitor's profile appears to be corrput, did I want to use it anyway? I
said no. This seemed to be born out by the fact that images I viewed in
Windows Photo Gallery and Powerpoint all had a terrible sepia tone until I
subsequently deleted the monitor profile. Vista Color Management is now
configured to use sRGB IEC61966-2.1 as default for monitor and printer.

Have I set this up wrong somehow, or should I be using a different colour
profile/s?

My graphics card is INNO3d NVIDIA GEFORCE 7300GS and monitor is SAMSUNG
SYNCMASTER 205BW 20.1" TFT-LCD. I have the latest NVIDIA graphics driver
installed. My camera is a Canon EOS 40D

Thanks for any help.
Mark

[Jeffrey Kaplan]

Post by Mark Spencer
My images are distinctly 'muddy' when reproduced on something other than my
monitor at home. This is immediately obvious when I print, but I'd assumed I
needed a new printer (it's an Epson Stylus Photo 895), but as I got the same
'muddy' quality when I submitted three images for projection at my local
camera club last night, I'm wondering whether it could be something to do
with Colour Calibration/Management.

Almost certainly. First, make sure that you have the color profiles
sRGB and aRGB installed on your computer. Do so via your computer's
display settings \ color management. If you do not have them, you can
locate them on Adobe's download site. Then calibrate your monitor. You
can do this manually if you know how and have an appropriate test image
of known correct values, or you can get something like a Pantone
Spider. NOTE: Windows 7 has a built-in display calibration wizard to
guide the user through manually adjusting both the display settings in
the computer and the monitor.

Second, when editing your photos, apply the color profile appropriate
for the intended display: sRGB for computer monitor/projectors and aRGB
for printing.

Also, bug the person who runs your club's computer to do the same if it
hasn't been done there. At my camera club, it's been a constant
complaint over the past couple of years that photos displayed on the
projector were muddy compared to the submitter's system. The guy who
ran the computer would respond with "it looks better on the monitor".
Well... I now have the computer and that job and the FIRST thing I did
was install the color profiles from Adobe and calibrate the system. The
complaints have stopped. :)

[Sandy Birrell]

Post by Jeffrey Kaplan

Post by Mark Spencer
My images are distinctly 'muddy' when reproduced on something
other than my monitor at home. This is immediately obvious when I
print, but I'd assumed I needed a new printer (it's an Epson
Stylus Photo 895), but as I got the same 'muddy' quality when I
submitted three images for projection at my local camera club
last night, I'm wondering whether it could be something to do
with Colour Calibration/Management.

Almost certainly. First, make sure that you have the color profiles
sRGB and aRGB installed on your computer. Do so via your computer's
display settings \ color management. If you do not have them, you
can locate them on Adobe's download site.

There is a lot on the web that covers this. I spent months trying to
get my pictures looking similar to the image on the screen, you will
never get them exact :) I consistantly get prints that look like the
pictures I view on my monitor but I still re-calibrate it every few
months to make sure they stay that way. It is an on-going process as
the monitor ages and levels change. Even changing the ink catriges in
the printer might mean a re-calibration to get it right :)

Have a read at these sites for some ideas.

http://www.poynton.com/notes/brightness_and_contrast/index.html

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

http://www.oceanlight.com/html/about_color.html

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/match_prints_to_screen.html

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/329/329486.html
--
Don`t Worry, Be Happy

Sandy