Need major help with color managment, Apple users

[Xen]

Hey everyone, I'm a longtime reader of L.L. but I have never posted on the forums.  Let me give a little bit of history to put my problem in perspective.  I have been shooting for about 2 years.  I started shooting when I bought my PowerBook G4, and have never used any other computer monitor to view my photos.  Until a few weeks ago, as it is a hobby and not a profession to me, I had never seen my photos actually printed out!  That's when the panic set in, many of my photos look quite different on paper than they do on my computer screen.  Also, I just recently started shooting RAW, so most of these photos I'm referring to are JPGs off my camera.

So I started doing some research and came across the article on L.L. about ProPhoto RGB.  It made a bit of sense to me, but not much, since I never even knew what a color profile was until recently.  Regardless, I switched photoshop's workspace to ProPhoto as the article said I should.  But I still have a few very important questions.

1.  In apple system preferences, under Displays, in the color tab, what Profile should I be using?  Just switching from Color LCD, to Generic RGB profile, to Adobe RGB (1998), changes my photos (being viewed in Preview) a whole lot!  From way to dark, to way too washed out.  What is the profile I should be using for my monitor?

2.  Does the profile I select for my monitor affect the colors in Photoshop?

3.  When I go to into Photoshop and open one of my photos, I get a box that pops up saying this:
'Missing Profile' The RGB document " " does not have an embedded profile.  What do you want to do?
I then I have 3 options:
A Leave as is (Dont color manage)
B. Assign working RGB: Pro Photo
C. Assign Profile: (then there is a drop down box with a bunch of profiles)

soo..what am I doing wrong?  Should my photo be embedded before I open it in photoshop?  If so, how?

4.  Lets say I'm doing this right, and I open the photo using the second option (As I think the L.L. article was saying I should) The photo looks COMPLETELY different when opened in Photoshop as it did when I viewed it in 'Preview'.  The colors are all fluorescent almost.

5.  If I use the 3rd option and click assign profile, the photo comes out like it does in Preview.  But is that an accurate portrayal of what it will look like when I print it? or even an accurate portrayal of the photograph?  Also, when using the third option, there is a clickable option under it that says (and then convert document to working RGB) should that be checked or unchecked?

6.  Lastly, should I only print at place that uses the profile ProPhoto RGB?  What do you do about that?



I just want thanks so much to anyone that takes the time to try and explain this all to me!  I am lost for words and scared all my photos thus far are all off on color!  Any other helpful info would be a great help.

[Mark D Segal]

I recommend that you buy an elementary book on Color Management and digest it thoroughly. It will answer all these questions and more. There is more to this you should know about than one can reasonably cover in a post. A good book to begin with is "Color Confidence" by Tim Grey. Affordable and approachable  - check it out on Amazon.com if you have access to that service from wherever you are. As well, if you do a web-search on Google using keywords such as "color management" "assign profile" "convert to profile" you will get hefty amounts of free information in the form of well-written articles that may avoid buying anything altogether.

[Xen]

thanks for the title.  I will go to Border tomorrow and pick it up!  I really appreciate it.

[digitaldog]

1.  In apple system preferences, under Displays, in the color tab, what Profile should I be using?  Just switching from Color LCD, to Generic RGB profile, to Adobe RGB (1998), changes my photos (being viewed in Preview) a whole lot!  From way to dark, to way too washed out.  What is the profile I should be using for my monitor?

2.  Does the profile I select for my monitor affect the colors in Photoshop?

3.  When I go to into Photoshop and open one of my photos, I get a box that pops up saying this:
'Missing Profile' The RGB document " " does not have an embedded profile.  What do you want to do?
I then I have 3 options:
A Leave as is (Dont color manage)
B. Assign working RGB: Pro Photo
C. Assign Profile: (then there is a drop down box with a bunch of profiles)

soo..what am I doing wrong?  Should my photo be embedded before I open it in photoshop?  If so, how?

4.  Lets say I'm doing this right, and I open the photo using the second option (As I think the L.L. article was saying I should) The photo looks COMPLETELY different when opened in Photoshop as it did when I viewed it in 'Preview'.  The colors are all fluorescent almost.

5.  If I use the 3rd option and click assign profile, the photo comes out like it does in Preview.  But is that an accurate portrayal of what it will look like when I print it? or even an accurate portrayal of the photograph?  Also, when using the third option, there is a clickable option under it that says (and then convert document to working RGB) should that be checked or unchecked?

6.  Lastly, should I only print at place that uses the profile ProPhoto RGB?  What do you do about that?

[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

1. The profile you build for that display! All the good instrument basec packages will select this for you automatically. You don't need to mess with this area of the OS.
2. Yes.
3. Missing profiles are BAD. You've got RGB mystery meat. Photoshop doesn't know the color space so it can't preview the numbers correctly (it just takes a wild guess). Don't accept untagged documents!
4-5.Assigning a profile doesn't change the numbers, it changes the meaning of the numbers so the preview changes.

Read this:

The Role of Working Spaces in Adobe Applications
[a href=\"http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf]http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/phscs2ip_colspace.pdf[/url]

6. Ideally you want an output profile that describes and defines the printer.