Color Management

Color Management is a very important topic for designers and photographers. Multiple aspects are necessary to consider for reproducing your digital photographs in true colors—ICC profiles, monitor calibration tools, color consistency and accuracy.

Steps to Follow

Build from the ground up. You have to understand the very basics of color management first, since it will help you get better images and have a better understanding about color and the importance about calibration and profile.

Then learn how to develop your RAW images with Photoshop or Lightroom. Follow that by learning how to work the basics in Photoshop (level, curve, mask, adjustment layer. Learn how to use a digital asset management (DAM) software or cataloging system (Lightroom, Aperture, Photo Mechanic) to keep everything organized. That same DAM software (Lightroom, Aperture) could also be used as the main piece of your workflow to develop your RAW and create almost anything you need for global adjustments (for now you still need Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for local adjustments).

Then get a book on how to produce B&W images after the concepts of calibration, raw development and basic Photoshop and/or Lightroom make total sense.

Purpose Of Color Settings

In most image-editing applications, the color settings are used for two primary purposes:

1. Establish a baseline set of standards for the application to follow when creating a new document, previewing photos lacking an embedded ICC profile, or making a color conversion (e.g. RGB > CMYK or RGB > Grayscale).
2. To draw your attention to images containing an ICC profile different from the primary profile used in your workflow, or images that do not contain an embedded ICC profile.

Color management decisions should be made by you, not by your preferences because as smart as these programs have become, they cannot serve as a substitute for your judgment. You will want to verify that the results of any color conversion represent the colors and tones in your photos as faithfully as possible.

What matters more than understanding specific settings, is understanding the color management processes in your workflow, knowing what profile is applied to your images at each stage and, in particular, making decisions when you make color conversions as a regular part of your workflow.

To help shed light on the process, let’s quickly review the key stages of your workflow, highlighting the areas where color conversions occur.

Image Capture

Most digital photographers today shoot in the camera raw format. This provides superior quality and maximum flexibility in image processing. Since camera raw files are unprocessed files as opposed to JPEG or TIFF files, they cannot use ICC-based color management. Instead, all camera raw processing applications, like Adobe Camera Raw (a part of Photoshop and Lightroom) or Capture One, use their own method of displaying color for editing and previewing purposes.

An ICC profile is only applied when you convert the unprocessed camera raw file to a processed file type (JPEG, TIFF orPSD). Some camera raw processors, like Lightroom and Aperture, allow you to select your desired ICC profile during the export process (to JPEG, TIFF or PSD). Other programs process your photos according to a set of preferences applied to all photos.

Processed images (in-camera JPEGs, most scanned images) have color management applied from the moment the digital file is created. For JPEG images created with your digital camera, the ICC profile selected in your camera’s menu options determines whether the digital file is processed into the Adobe 1998 or sRGB colorspace. For film scans, most scanning software allows you to first apply a scanner profile (either manufacturer-created or custom-built), then convert from the scanner profile to a common editing space (ProPhoto RGB, Adobe 1998 RGB) for further processing.

Image Editing

Once your image has been processed by your camera raw software, or converted from your scanner’s ICC profile, your photo should now be converted to one of the commonly used editing space profiles. Editing space profiles have several distinct advantages over printer, scanner or monitor ICC profiles. For starters, the profiles are gray-balanced, meaning equal values of red, green or blue always equal a shade of gray. Since printer, scanner or monitor profiles reflect the color characteristics of a specific device, your monitor or inkjet printer, they are not always gray balanced.