With my photography becoming more and more serious of a hobby, and shooting almost exclusively digital, I figured it's about time I begin to learn about color management so I can make prints that match the image I have recorded and edited.
I understand the importance of monitor calibration, and my attempts using images have not been sucessful. On backorder right now is a new Monaco Systems OPTIX XR Hardware profiling bundle from Adorama photo. This will get my (parents) monitor calibrated so I know exactly what I can expect when editing my photos.
The other, more mysterious side of this coin is color space and how that all plays a roll in the actual printing of images. If it looks great on my newly calibrated monitor, I would expect it to look great on a printer. Not necessarily the case. This part is a bit fuzzy for me, so I decided it's time to learn. Thanks to the foums as nikonians, I came across the following articles to read:
Introduction to color management
The great sRGB vs Adobe RGB Debate
Posted by doug at October 18, 2006 12:49 PMI refuse to acknowledge that there's anything to know about printing. I just send it off to shutterfly or photoaccess, and trust they know what they're doing (as long as I've properly cropped the photos ahead of time).
Posted by: John Flinchbaugh at October 19, 2006 10:35 AMI highly doubt they are doing any color correction or color space matching of the images they get via the web. I need much higher consistency than "just hoping", so I will take the time to learn it.
Posted by: Doug at October 19, 2006 10:55 AMIf you're going to be worrying about all this print stuff, what kind of crazy hardware (printers, inks, etc) are you going to need to be able to follow through and print it correctly?
You're going to have a Fuji mini-lab in your basement, aren't you?
Posted by: John Flinchbaugh at October 19, 2006 11:12 AMNo. I don't want to print myself, at least not at this point. The lab I use does a great job, but making sure the color spaces match up for that is just as important, if not more.
As far as printing at home, the professionals that I know who print their own stuff use large format epson printers. Epson has garnered quite a reputation for their inkjets.
Posted by: Doug at October 19, 2006 11:17 AM