![]() Where is this image going? (What are the editing or output conditions where the image is going next? How should the colors be preserved under those conditions?).Where did this image come from? (Under what viewing conditions was this image edited?).To simplify the way you think of color management, it helps to remember that ultimately, what you're trying to do is answer a few questions about the image in front of you: Color Management Is About Answering Simple Questions Even understanding just the basic ideas of color management can give you skills that save you time and frustration when trying to get colors to reproduce consistently in many environments. Yes, color management can be a challenge to understand, but the effort is well worth it. If you think of a display and a printer as using different color "languages," you can think of a color management system as a sort of translation layer between your image and the system it's on, and profiles as language phrase books used to translate colors from one device to another. When you want to display or print image colors properly on a system with different hardware or software, as long as you have profiles that describe the hardware and software being used, the color management system can make the adjustments necessary to reproduce the image colors consistently. If you upgrade any of your equipment or send the file to someone else, the file won't look the same because it won't have been tweaked for the new equipment.Ī color management system is a much better solution because it uses standardized profiles that describe how your hardware and software reproduce color. You could try doing this manually by fiddling with your monitor and printer controls, but it would mean that your files would display and print properly only with the specific hardware and software you currently have in front of you. Ultimately, color management is about reconciling color differences. This is the problem color management tries to solve, and it does so by creating a common foundation that color hardware and software can use to make color more consistent. You may already know that colors don't look the same from camera to display to printer for all kinds of reasons, from simple production variations to the fact that some devices (like displays) use additive color and others (like printers) use subtractive color, a fundamentally incompatible conflict. But hardware and software vendors have devoted a great deal of time and resources to working color management into every nook and cranny of digital photography, so it must be important, right? Right: Color management exists because it solves a problem. With such a dry name, color management is often perceived as a technical chore to be avoided whenever possible. ![]() What Is Color Management Anyway?Ĭolor management can be an intimidating subject for photographers. If you read this chapter and find that you need more detailed information, pick up the book Real World Color Management (Peachpit Press) by color management guru Bruce Fraser, along with Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting. Writing just a chapter about color management doesn't do justice to the subject. In this chapter, we'll look at the features Photoshop offers to make what you see on the screen at least resemble, if not actually match, what you get in your printed output. In the last chapter, we broke the sad news that RGB and CMYK are very ambiguous ways of specifying color, since the actual color you get will vary from device to device. You just need to understand a few key concepts, learn where the buttons are, and use common sense in deciding when to push them. ![]() Without understanding how Photoshop handles color behind the scenes, there's no way to get great color (or black-and-white) images out of this program.Īlthough the color management system in Photoshop uses mathematics that approach rocket science, using the tools that control the system is fairly simple. If you're under the delusion that you can use Adobe Photoshop without using color management, this chapter is a must-read. We consider every topic in this book to be important, but color management is one of those subjects that can quickly make anyone feel stupid. Real World Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers ![]()
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