@marthadimeoExpand Your Understanding of Color Management
The end of the year brings a plethora of end-of-year lists. You know them: Best Movies of the Year, Best Songs of the Year, Best Books of the Year, Top News Events of the Year. And, in the digital realm we have Google’s Top Searches of the Year, Best Tweets of the Year, and Most-Shared Stories—to name a few.
Not to be left out of this year-end ritual, I compiled my own list for the graphic design and photography community on color management. Instead of looking back, I offer my list of 10 things every graphic designer needs to know about color management and color reproduction to help you achieve more consistent and predictable color results. Some tips will be a review; some may be new information. In either case, I hope they help expand your understanding of color reproduction and color management and contribute to achieving superior color results moving forward in the new year.
Ten Steps to Achieve Accurate, Predictable, and Repeatable Color
1. Monitor Calibration: A calibrated and profiled monitor is the first step in a color-managed workflow. It’s your window to your artwork. If your monitor is not calibrated and profiled you are essentially working with a blind-fold over your eyes.
2. Device Stability Is Essential: A color profile—whether for a monitor, printer, camera, or scanner—is only as accurate as the stability of the device. If device performance fluctuates, color management may appear to fail when the real issue is inconsistent hardware or process control.
3. Calibration Must Be Done Regularly: Even stable devices change as they age. Therefore, profiling and calibration are not one-time task. They need to be done on a regular basis.
4. Honor Embedded Profiles: An embedded profile communicates the intended color appearance. When opening a file, always preserve the embedded profile.
5. The Working Space settings—the first options in the Color Settings dialog box—are applied when opening images without embedded profiles (referred to as “untagged” images) and when creating new files. Best practice is to set RGB to Adobe RGB (1998) and CMYK to the color profile recommended by your commercial printer.
6. More on CMYK Working Spaces: Each CMYK working space represents a specific combination of press, ink, and paper conditions. This setting comes into play when soft-proofing in Photoshop and when converting images to CMYK. If you are unsure which profile to use, consult with your print vendor.
7. Printing from Photoshop: A printer profile describes the printer, driver, and ink and paper combination. Change any one of those variables and you will need a different profile.
8. Gamut Differences: Adobe RGB (1998) has a wider color gamut than sRGB. Therefore, depending on image content, converting images from Adobe RGB (1998) to sRGB may result in clipping of colors that fall outside the sRGB gamut. This brings us to Tip 9.
9. Workflow Best Practice: Keep a master file in Adobe RGB (1998) or ProPhoto RGB. Then, make media-specific copies of the image converted to the color space for the media where the image will be used–i.e web, video, print.
10. Color Management Is Not Color Correction: If a photo’s color is off, a color-managed workflow will faithfully preserve the incorrect color. To learn more about the difference between color correction and color management, read the blog post Color Management is not Color Correction.
Takeaway
As a graphic design professional, it is not necessary to become a color management expert, but it essential to become a color management practitioner. Follow these ten steps, and you’ll be well on your way to achieving consistent and predictable color.
© Martha DiMeo—All Rights Reserved
More on Color Management
> Color Perception: Discover how our eyes trick us. Perception & Our Environment
> Color management’s goal is to maintain color appearance. Color correction is about changing color. Learn more in this blog post Color Management is not Color Correction.
Color Management Consulting Services
Want to learn more about color management? I work one-to-one with graphic designers and photographers. Visit the Services page for information on my color management consulting services and to schedule a time to chat.
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