Introduction

If you are lazy or not interested in theory, or just want to get on with it, this article is for you. This is "Color Management Lite", with a minimum of explanations and tips. The discussion is workflow oriented.

Why Color Manage?

• For predictability. What you see on your monitor is what you get from your printer or any other image medium
• To save time and materials
• To simplify image sharing.
• To lower your blood-pressure by taking out the guesswork otherwise involved with producing color prints that look right.

For best results with color management and to maximize flexibility you should be shooting RAW/NEF images with your camera and archiving these.

Step by Step

1. Use a wide gamut monitor if you can manage the cost. This usually means native Adobe RGB color space. You can make do with the usual sRGB monitor and everything following still applies.
2. Calibrate your monitor. This is essential. Calibration makes the appearance of your monitor consistent with internationally recognized standards for color work. A calibrator like Spyder Elite makes it all easy but you can do a fair job with "eyeball" calibration. Caution: Not all instrument based calibration systems can calibrate a wide gamut monitor so inquire into the properties of a potential purchase. (Spyder 3 Elite can accommodate wide gamut units.)  Paintshop Pro has a very good built in software assist for calibration and there are others. For instrument calibration, use the monitor's Custom settings. For eyeball, you may be better off using sRGB or aRGB (if available) option. You will want to achieve the following, at least:
   
   
   • Color temperature = 6500K. Tough to do by eyeball but choosing the monitor's sRGB or aRGB option should get you close barring any manufacturers defect.
   • Gamma = 2.2. Eyeball with software assist works reasonably well. Norman Koren has a handy chart you can download from the middle of THIS PAGE.
   • Brightness = 100cds. You can get within 20% using your camera as described HERE. Most unadjusted monitors are way too bright for photo work.
   • Save a profile based on calibrated settings to become the default loaded for the monitor by the Operating System. Software assists like Paintshop can do this based on eyeball calibration. Spyder and other complete packages automate the process.
   • For new monitors, re-calibrate every few days until the unit burns-in. The time depends on use. Give it a month, at least. Thereafter, re-calibrate once a month.
     
     

Launch your image editing software. Let's say it is Photoshop CS5.

4. Go to Edit/Color Settings ...

5. Choose Color Working Space. If you will be preparing images for the Internet, choose sRGB. If preparing images for fine prints or other other quality media, choose the monitor's default profile. Remember to switch when your objectives change!

6. In Policies choose Preserve Embedded Profiles and "Ask" for all 3 checkboxes. There are good reasons for choosing other options, depending on circumstances but remember ... this is a "nutshell".

7. Intent ... Perceptual. These settings can now be saved under a name of your choosing or leave them under "Custom". They will remain as defaults.

8. From now on, when you load an image and there is a color space mismatch you will be asked whether to discard, convert or use the image color space. It depends on your objectives. Take a look at Step 5 above and decide. The way I have structured this approach to CM suggests "Convert" will usually be the option you want.

9. Edit the image, if necessary, and save under a new name (always keep originals).

10. Launch/open your printing software - suppose it is QImage (recommended) - or the printing facility in your image editor. Choose having print color management handled by the image editing/printing software. From the drop-down list of printer profiles, choose the one that matches your paper. If you are using an Epson 3800 printer with Premium Glossy Photo Paper the correct printing profile is Pro38PGPP.

11. Open the printer utility. It's usually found in Control Panel by clicking on the printer icon. You may have to turn on the printer for the utility to become available. The method varies and there's more than one way. You are supposed to know this ;-) Select appropriate paper dimensions and type. Turn off color management by the printer drivers. This is vital. CM is being done by the printing software - remember?

12. You are now ready to print. If your were preparing the image for Internet you were done after completing Step 8, apart from re-sizing, re-sampling. If printing with QImage, the authors of that package recommend you leave all re-sampling and re-sizing to them. Just drag the image into the print template. They claim they do a better job than if you re-sample and re-size in your imaging software. In my experience, they are right. Otherwise, re-sample to some multiple (or sub-multiple) of the printer's native resolution (720 or 360 dpi for Epson) and choose bicubic algorithm along with required print dimensions.
    

Note: The first time through all of this takes the longest. After that, most settings will be remembered by software and used as defaults. It's still a good idea to check before beginning a new image preparation session.