Another RAW thread...but please bare with me!

DavidUK

DavidUK

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Hello all.

I've been considering this post for some time, whilst reviewing all the other RAW posts from people experiencing similar problems to me.

I've recently started to get back into my photography and need to brush up on digital workflow and post processing.

I wiped my computer recently due to a hard disk failure, so I'm back on a vanilla XP build with only a demo version of Photoshop CS3 which runs out soon. I've bought myself a new monitor too, a nice 22" widescreen.

My question with regard to RAW processing is centered around colour management.

I've been playing with the RAW processing engine in PS CS3. I've found, like others, that my landscapes are flat, colourless and lifeless...though I've been able to put a bit of colour into my pictures by applying maximum 'vibrance'.

I work with a D70, this is set to RAW and has the colour mode of II (AdobeRGB) selected. I believe I did this sometime in the past after reading about colour management, and am not sure if it is correct. The default mode for the D70 is Ia (sRGB) but there is also a IIIa (sRGB).

I have PS CS3 set to it's defaults, so not sure if changes in the colour profiles need to be made there.

There are also ICC profiles for my printer, an Epson R800.

In terms of colour management, some years ago I bought the Spyder2 tool to calibrate my monitor, but Im warey to use it on my new monitor incase I send the colour management completely to c*ck!

Can anyone help bring a little order to my turbulent colour management world! :bonk:
 
Colour management is all about translation, a bit like languages.

The image uses one language (the working space such as sRGB or AdobeRGB) and your monitor, printer, etc. all use their own language (profiles). Colour aware programs such as Photoshop handle the translation between the languages so that the results are consistent when displayed on different devices.

At any point if you have the wrong language then the results will be wrong. If you don't have the correct profile for your monitor the software will still do the translation but it might be doing english to french when it should be doing english to german.

The first thing you need to do is get the monitor calibrated using your spyder. Photoshop will then pick up on the profile and start translating properly.

Next look at working space. AdobeRGB doesn't have more colours, it has more saturation for certain hues than sRGB but it comes at a price. If you're working in 8bit colour you only have 256 shades of red, green or blue to play with. Normally 255,0,0 would be full saturated red but how saturated that is depends on the working space you use. 255,0,0 in sRGB might translate to around 220,0,0 in AdobeRGB. In order to get the extra saturation AdobeRGB has to "skip" steps in tonality because you've only got the 8bits to play with but there's more than 8bits worth of saturation available. This can lead to banding in fine gradients so it's a toss up between more saturation or banding.

To make matters worse you also need to consider the output device, can it handle the extra saturation of the working space? If not then there's no point in using it in the first place because you won't see the extra saturation but still get the banding.

Generally, the best advice is to stick to sRGB unless you're a) working in 16bit and outputting to a device that fully supports 16bit (most printer drivers don't) and b) the image really needs the larger space in the first place.
 
Thanks for the information folks :)

I'll change my D70 back to it's default colour mode and use the Spyder to calibrate my monitor and see how I get on.
 
I had mahoosive problems a short while ago with my colour profiles. I have since set everything back to sRGB and everything is spot on. Thanks to pxl8 who helped me too :LOL:
 
R8JimBob88 said:
I had mahoosive problems a short while ago with my colour profiles. I have since set everything back to sRGB and everything is spot on. Thanks to pxl8 who helped me too :LOL:
Click to expand...

I've just put my D70 back to it's original sRGB setting and am installing the Spyder calibration software as we speak! :D
 
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