Hi,

I bought a Colorvision Spyder and calibrated my monitor.
It really helped. However, I am not really sure how this
works and I fear I might be double-color-managing.

The Spyder generates an ICC profile, puts it somewhere
into windows directory and registers it with the graphics
card. On startup the ProfileChooser takes the default profile
and loads it into graphics card. That means that I am able
to see accurate colors with applications that are not
color managed - web browser, ...

What I do not understand is what happens when I edit the
photo in Photoshop Elements (I do not have the 'big' PS,
so I am not sure whether this is different there). If it
also uses the default profile taken from windows,
I get double color-managing. And I think this is really
the case - when I open the same image in the PSE and
in the default browser, it looks that the result is not
the same - there are subtle differences in skin tones.

How is this supposed to work? Is there any way to have
both the non-managed and managed applications to display
the same (i.e. let the Profile Chooser load the lookup
tables and tell the Photoshop etc. to use sRGB or whatever
the display expects when the conversion is done down
in the LUT)? Or does the PSE _always_ use the default
monitor profile, whatever that is?

Thanks
--
Stano

On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:04:53 +0100, in rec.photo.digital Stanislav Meduna
<stano@meduna.org> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I bought a Colorvision Spyder and calibrated my monitor.
>It really helped. However, I am not really sure how this
>works and I fear I might be double-color-managing.
>
>The Spyder generates an ICC profile, puts it somewhere
>into windows directory and registers it with the graphics
>card. On startup the ProfileChooser takes the default profile
>and loads it into graphics card. That means that I am able
>to see accurate colors with applications that are not
>color managed - web browser, ...

I thought this was the case as well, but was corrected by Bill Hilton. The
colors on non-managed apps will be better, but not as good as in a color
managed app.

>What I do not understand is what happens when I edit the
>photo in Photoshop Elements (I do not have the 'big' PS,
>so I am not sure whether this is different there). If it
>also uses the default profile taken from windows,
>I get double color-managing. And I think this is really
>the case - when I open the same image in the PSE and
>in the default browser, it looks that the result is not
>the same - there are subtle differences in skin tones.
>
>How is this supposed to work? Is there any way to have
>both the non-managed and managed applications to display
>the same (i.e. let the Profile Chooser load the lookup
>tables and tell the Photoshop etc. to use sRGB or whatever
>the display expects when the conversion is done down
>in the LUT)? Or does the PSE _always_ use the default
>monitor profile, whatever that is?

How do you have color management set in PSE? IIRC, by default PSE3, which
I'm using a bit, sets full color management and uses the Adobe RGB color
space. So you will see a difference . No double color management there.
What you don't want to do is double manage prints. Either use in the
application you are printing from or the print driver, but not both.
--
Ed Ruf    Lifetime AMA# 344007 (Usenet2@EdwardG.Ruf.com)
See images taken with my CP-990/5700 & D70 at
http://edwardgruf.com/Digital_Photo...eral/index.html

Ed Ruf (REPLY to E-MAIL IN SIG!) wrote:

>  I thought this was the case as well, but was corrected by Bill Hilton. Th
e
> colors on non-managed apps will be better, but not as good as in a color
> managed app.

Hmm...

> How do you have color management set in PSE? IIRC, by default PSE3, which
> I'm using a bit, sets full color management and uses the Adobe RGB color
> space.

Yes, that's how I am using this.

> So you will see a difference .

Ahhhh .. yes, you are right, it can well be that I compared
the picture that is in the Adobe RGB space - so that's why
I saw the difference.. OK, I'll repeat my tests with sRGB
picture and PSE set to sRGB space. Then the colors should
be the same in the PSE and other browsers, right?

> What you don't want to do is double manage prints. Either use in the
> application you are printing from or the print driver, but not both.

Yup. In fact I am trying to get the closest match possible
with my printer (Epson 1800) and regardless of what I am
using, I am still getting visible differences in exactly
the same colors, that the spyder touches the most.

Being a technical type, I would still like to fully understand
how the PSE, display profile and ProfileChooser play together
in this scenario - does anyone have a pointer to some technical
resources? Maybe I also try to contact Colorvision, as only
they know for sure what the ProfileChooser does.

Thanks
--
Stano

"Stanislav Meduna" <stano@meduna.org> wrote in message
news:do5t3g$1gfp$1@ns.felk.cvut.cz...
> Hi,
>
> I bought a Colorvision Spyder and calibrated my monitor.
> It really helped. However, I am not really sure how this
> works and I fear I might be double-color-managing.
>
> The Spyder generates an ICC profile, puts it somewhere
> into windows directory and registers it with the graphics
> card. On startup the ProfileChooser takes the default profile
> and loads it into graphics card. That means that I am able
> to see accurate colors with applications that are not
> color managed - web browser, ...
>
> What I do not understand is what happens when I edit the
> photo in Photoshop Elements (I do not have the 'big' PS,
> so I am not sure whether this is different there). If it
> also uses the default profile taken from windows,
> I get double color-managing. And I think this is really
> the case - when I open the same image in the PSE and
> in the default browser, it looks that the result is not
> the same - there are subtle differences in skin tones.
>
> How is this supposed to work? Is there any way to have
> both the non-managed and managed applications to display
> the same (i.e. let the Profile Chooser load the lookup
> tables and tell the Photoshop etc. to use sRGB or whatever
> the display expects when the conversion is done down
> in the LUT)? Or does the PSE _always_ use the default
> monitor profile, whatever that is?
>
> Thanks
> --
>                               Stano

Hi there.

You are, like a great many other people, getting a little mixed up between
your Monitor Profile and the Working Space Profile.

Your Monitor Profile, "Spyder"ed one, is only for showing the corrected
colours on the screen.  It adjusts the numbers from the Working Space
Profile ( Adobe RGB) to correct for any inherent errors in the colours your
Monitor would show.

Your Spyder software should have put the profile into the correct folder,
and made it the "Default" Monitor Profile.  Check this in Display Properties
> Settings >Advanced > Colour Management.  It should be the only profile
there, and it should be set as "Default".

Any problems with Colour, could be due to Adobe Gamma.  You need to remove
that from the "Start Up" Folder, because otherwise it will probably try to
adjust the Monitor Colour, Double Profiling.

You also need to get a Printer Profile, to ensure that your Printer gives
you the correct colours.

If your Scanner or Camera can not be set to "Tag" your images with Adobe RGB
as the Working Space Profile, or can not "Tag" any Profile, then they are
almost certainly working in sRGB.

The big problem with Elements is that you can not select which Profile to
use as Working Space, it just seems to
use Adobe RGB.

There will always be some differences in Colour between what you see on
Screen and what comes out of the Printer.  In the Big PS you can use "Soft
Proof" to show what it will look like using the Printer Profile for whatever
Paper  you plan to Print on.  That is much closer, but is still not exact.

Roy G

>> I thought this was the case as well, but was corrected by Bill Hilton. The 
>
> Ahhhh .. yes, you are right, it can well be that I compared
> the picture that is in the Adobe RGB space - so that's why
> I saw the difference.. OK, I'll repeat my tests with sRGB
> picture and PSE set to sRGB space. Then the colors should
> be the same in the PSE and other browsers, right?

No. Having a profiled monitor means that any application that uses
colour management "knows" what the screen looks like. That means the
application can adjust its colour output such that it can show you what
your image will look like on any other device (such as a printer)
provided the application also has access to an accurate profile for the
other device.

Your web browser doesn't take note of colour profiles. It will make no
effort to adjust its output to match PSE or any other application. It
just throws the image onto the screen. If you want to see your image the
same in Photoshop and your browser, you have to tell Photoshop that's
what you want. Then Photoshop will also "throw the image onto the
screen" without fussing over profiles. Under the full Photoshop you do
that by selecting "Monitor RGB" as your soft-proof colour space. I'm not
sure how it works under PSE.

Tesco News wrote:

> Your Monitor Profile, "Spyder"ed one, is only for showing the corrected
> colours on the screen.  It adjusts the numbers from the Working Space
> Profile ( Adobe RGB) to correct for any inherent errors in the colours you
r
> Monitor would show.

OK, maybe this is something that I don't understand. My expectation
is that first the working space (whatever that is, sRGB or Adobe RGB)
gets converted to something independent (CIE Lab), using the
Adobe RGB ICC. Then this gets converted to whatever the monitor
expects using the monitor ICC. Am I right? Or does the PSE simply
feed the display with whatever binary pixel values it currently
has, expecting the graphics card to take care of that using the
Spyder-ed data?

> Your Spyder software should have put the profile into the correct folder,
> and made it the "Default" Monitor Profile.  Check this in Display Properti
es 
> there, and it should be set as "Default".

It is not the only one (I created profiles for two displays and more
brightness settings), but it is the default one.

> Any problems with Colour, could be due to Adobe Gamma.  You need to remove
> that from the "Start Up" Folder, because otherwise it will probably try to
> adjust the Monitor Colour, Double Profiling.

Yup, did that already.

> You also need to get a Printer Profile, to ensure that your Printer gives
> you the correct colours.

The Epson R1800 has a set of profiles and various other options -
I got the best match setting the printer to 'Adobe RGB' with gamma 2.2
and using that as printer profile. Next best was the profile suplied
by Epson, applied by the PS (with color mgmt disabled in printer
driver). Something that can be downloaded from Epson as supposedly
even better profile was worse. I am using original inks, original
paper and printing mode that matches the profile.

> If your Scanner or Camera can not be set to "Tag" your images with Adobe R
GB
> as the Working Space Profile, or can not "Tag" any Profile, then they are
> almost certainly working in sRGB.

My camera allows me to choose that - I shoot with Adobe RGB + embed
profile. However, at this moment I am trying to match display
and printer - these things come later. The test image I tried
to view and print is tagged with Adobe RGB.

> The big problem with Elements is that you can not select which Profile to
> use as Working Space, it just seems to use Adobe RGB.

Aha. Does it matter for colors well within the gamut of both
the display and printer?

> There will always be some differences in Colour between what you see on
> Screen and what comes out of the Printer.  In the Big PS you can use "Soft
> Proof" to show what it will look like using the Printer Profile for whatev
er
> Paper  you plan to Print on.  That is much closer, but is still not exact.

Interesting. What exactly does this soft proof mode do (in terms
of what profile gets applied when)?

Thanks
--
Stano

> Roy G writes ...
>
>The big problem with Elements is that you can not select which Profile
>to use as Working Space, it just seems to use Adobe RGB.

Edit - Color Settings lets you pick between 'no color management',
'limited color management' (sRGB) or 'full color management'
(AdobeRGB).  I think it actually defaults to sRGB and you have to
change it to get AdobeRGB (this is with Elements 3, may be different
with 4 or 2).

Also, if you open a file in a different color space like, say,
Ektaspace, it recognizes the profile and lets you work in that space
for that file.

Bill

> Stano writes ...
>
>What exactly does this soft proof mode do (in terms
>of what profile gets applied when)?

When you print a file the RGB values get translated by the software
into different numbers for the printer, ideally so that what spits out
on the print ('hard proof') looks as close as possible to what you see
on the screen.  This translation is a basic concept behind the ICC
color managment flow, explained well here
...http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/13605.html

What 'soft proofing' does is try to emulate what the final print will
look like by changing the brightness and colors on the screen to mimic
how the final print will appear.  So you have a 'soft proof' on the
monitor and after you apply the printer profile you can make edits for
contrast and color for that particular paper/ink profile, if necessary
(usually best to put these in a separate layer set).

If you have a good monitor, accurate monitor profile and accurate
printer profiles then you can usually get 90-98% accuracy, but there
are a lot of bad profiles floating around so for many people it doesn't
work accurately.  Here's an article explaining it in more detail ...
http://www.creativepro.com/story/fe...ml?origin=story

This feature was added in Photoshop 6 and Elements typically lags
Photoshop in features by 2-3 versions, so maybe Adobe has included it
with V 4 or perhaps in V 5 (it's not in Elements 3).

Bill

"Bill Hilton" <bhilton665@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1135004024.877122.144170@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... 
>
> Edit - Color Settings lets you pick between 'no color management',
> 'limited color management' (sRGB) or 'full color management'
> (AdobeRGB).  I think it actually defaults to sRGB and you have to
> change it to get AdobeRGB (this is with Elements 3, may be different
> with 4 or 2).
>
> Also, if you open a file in a different color space like, say,
> Ektaspace, it recognizes the profile and lets you work in that space
> for that file.
>
> Bill

Thanks Bill.

That is what I originally suspected Elements was doing, but recently while
using it on my daughters machine, all her images seemed to be Tagged with
Adobe RGB.  Yet, after bringing some of them home, Ps brought up the
Untagged Dialogue when opening them.

I normally use Ps CS on my own machine, and gave her Elements 2 which I got
free with a scanner, so I am not very expert with it.

Roy G

> Roy G writes ...
>
>recently while using it (Elements 2) on my daughters machine, all
>her images seemed to be Tagged with Adobe RGB.  Yet, after
>bringing some of them home, Ps brought up the
>Untagged Dialogue when opening them.

In Elements 3 when you do a Save As (and probably 'save' as well)
there's a check box for 'Save Options - Color: ICC Profile' and if this
is checked it seems to attach the named profile, which Photoshop then
picks up.  So maybe this is unchecked on your daughter's machine or
maybe Elements 2 is different than 3 on this.

> I normally use Ps CS on my own machine, and gave her Elements 2 which
>I got free with a scanner, so I am not very expert with it.

I'm in the same boat, a Photoshop user since V 4 with several bundled
copies of Elements that came with scanners and digital cameras.  A
friend is a newbie to digital stuff and got Elements free with his
scanner so I loaded one of my copies and tried to help him learn the
basics, but I'm not very good with it either :)

Bill