What Color Space Do I Use (Part 2)

[Continued from Part 1]
In the previous entry in this blog, I discussed some of the theory involved in choosing a color space. Let's look at my current workflow as an example.

My Choices
I choose to use an AdobeRGB (camera)>sRGB (convert to sRGB in Photoshop)>sRGB (add an sRGB profile to send to print) workflow for what I believe are sensible reasons based on my long experience in digital imaging.

I capture in AdobeRGB for a few reasons:

*I have a high-bit digital image sensor that captures at least 12-bits -- or 16 times the number of colors captured in 8-bit images. With 16 times the number of colors as 8-bit, most or all of the 8-bit sRGB colors will be captured If a few are not, I’ll never know.
*The added range may come in handy at some point when technology becomes enhanced and if not, conversion to 8-bit RGB for output should not create much unusable color.

On the other hand, I work in sRGB as a working space for several reasons:

*I like the concept of working with color in ranges that can be properly displayed on my monitor.
*I seldom output to CMYK, but instead use light-process (LED/color laser) printing.
*The process and service I use all the time requests sRGB files, and tests with AdobeRGB have proven the service’s request to be right--for this closed system.
*sRGB is a broadly-used 'default' color standard, that even in systems where profiling fails to make a good translation, the results are within a predictable range. AdobeRGB images where the profile is dropped will usually desaturate drastically. I don't want that problem for the small potential benefit.
*I am not sure that I can define it as a benefit when "better images" would mean NOT matching what I see on screen...I'd have to define it as luck.

I print to light process as it is more efficient than using ink, and the results are closer to what I see on my monitor, as well as more durable.

My closed process (closed, meaning I just about always do the same thing) ending with a need for RGB dictates most of the rest of the workflow, and my decided preference for seeing all the color I work on, solidifies the outline. One of the keys to any successful workflow is testing, which means taking an image and trying to process it both ways, and seeing if the result is better either way. "Better" to me can only be defined by the ability to match the screen...and that really eliminates AdobeRGB as a benefit, as if I can't see the colors that Adobe RGB can produce, any benefit of additional color – beyond what I see on screen -- would naturally not match.

All that said, if you are more adventurous than me and don't mind working on color that you will not see on your monitor, an AdobeRGB workflow may be adopted and used with success mostly in a closed workflow where results go to a CMYK printer. However, should the AdobeRGB workflow be adopted, you will need to be diligent about following the process and being sure the profiles are not dropped, or the result will be a sometimes serious desaturation and compression of dynamic range. This happens because when a profile is dropped (or if it is not included on save), devices will likely assume an sRGB profile, or something very close, and remap the colors in the image: the 'broader' range of colors is mashed down into the 'smaller' space and the result is less impressive than just starting with sRGB and sticking with it. Also, images with AdobeRGB profiles posted to the web either using browsers that do not recognize profiles, or which drop profiles as part of processing will result in the same desaturation and loss of dynamic range.

Why Do I choose This?
My conclusion to this point is that I can certainly get an AdobeRGB workflow to produce results, but I am not convinced that these are 'better' – and I am not convinced that the added risk of color trouble is worth the potential gain. AdobeRGB images may be brighter in print, and in some cases may show a difference, but that surprise may not be accurate in the sense that what you see on your monitor is NOT what you get in print. Things may change in the future, but now, with the broad popularity of the RGB workflow (having shifted with the advent of digital cameras and inkjet printing conversions), sRGB seems a more stable and reliable flow. That may change at some time in the future.

Your Choices
If you have read all the way through this entry and the last, hopefully the sense of this comes through. You can get results with either color space –- or other color spaces not mentioned. But what you choose to use needs to make sense to you, to where your images originate, the processes you choose, and those choices need to blend with your workflow rather than being considered as independent. My considered opinion is that my workflow is best –- for ME. Yours may be different, but hopefully you have made your choices for good reason. If you have not calibrated your monitor, have no real concept of how to make the best corrections to your images, and don’t make other sensible choices in your digital imaging, don’t be quick to blame your color space. There is more to making good images than choosing a color space.

Those are all considerations for a latter blog entry.

Postscript
If you have enjoyed this entry or found it useful, you might like my new book The Adobe Photoshop Layers Book. It will be out in July of 2007!

Calibrating My Home Printer

Question:
I am struggling a lot with thee idea of color management and how it is best to approach it. I am not completely happy with my home printing results. I think I need printer profiling. I can have a printer profile made for $40 each, but I've also considered packages like X-Rite that cost about $1,000. What is the best route to take?

Answer:
Short Answer: I wouldn't do either.

One of the strangest things occurred to me several years ago when I was asked about how I process my images. At the time I was working on my fourth book, after years of doing digital processing and even working pre-press. I had a calibration device, gave people advice, made prints for shows...and my main workstation didn't even have a printer connected to it. In fact, I had a printer or two still in boxs that I never bothered to open. It may seem downright unnatural, but to me there is no need for a printer.

Now, that may seem strange at first, but there is a good reason why I don't have any printing equipment running. I am in the habit, and I think it is a good one, of sending my work out to be printed at a service. To me this has many advantages, not the least of which are cost, convenience, and consistency. These three C's may be a little different than the way most people look at them who are considering working with printers at home, but hear me out.

I use a service for image output and forgo the color profiling for the printer, printer cost, paper expense and maintenance entirely. I save time conceptually and actually not having to worry about issues of profiling for specific paper types, calibrating the monitor, and maintaining the additional software/hardware. I get to print on the most expensive equipment around (these are machines you would never buy for the home) for virtual pennies, and I lose all of the headache that goes with having my own printer, buying and maintaining supplies, potential for maintenance and repair, and finding a place to put it in my office. As long as I go with a good service (that calibrates regularly and uses top-notch equipment, processes, materials, and is responsible for mistakes), my result should be better than I could ever achieve at home.

If you look at cost alone in the proposed scenario, I save $1000 on the X-Rite, another $500 on a top notch home printer, more on paper and inks...and with a few inexpensive tests I can upload images to my service via ftp with confidence in the results, and have far more flexibility for sizing and format than I would at home. In other words, the $1500+ budget for my printer and supplies is something I spend directly on prints instead, without the hassles and headaches, and responsibility for keeping the equipment at peak performance. I am also not fussing with shopping for paper sales, and keeping a stock on hand. I don't have to have a paper cutter...and I am not limited to a smaller size print.

Each print may cost a little more if you look at it as materials alone (paper and ink--though the machines I print on don't use ink). The actual difference is pretty slight. But let's not forget the difference in equipment costs between using a service and printing at home in this scenario: $0 and $1500. It would take me a while to spend that $1500+ dollars in prints, and meanwhile it is earning extra money in interest, or I can invest it in other equipment. At the same time, I might never match the quality of the prints I get at the service, where I get beautiful, digital LED photographic prints on quality photographic paper. I am never longing to upgrade to the next better printer that comes down the pike, I don't have to read articles about home printer technologies, and I can rely on the service to absorb those periodic equipment upgrade expenses.

So, while I am probably fully qualified to run a printer at home and coulkd probably get good results, working without a printer, I can focus on what I do best -- working with my images and focusing on the capture and editing process.