CMS blues
CMS blues
- Subject: CMS blues
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 10:29:55 -0800
Hello all,
Thanks to everyone for freely sharing their experience. It's a very cool
thing to see.
I've been reading postings and replies on the list for some time. While I'm
a little better informed, I still can't quite get my head around some things
regarding color management. I am employed by a newspaper, and have been
tasked with research and implementation of a color management solution. I
have purchased ProfileMaker Pro 3.1 and a Spectrolino/Spectroscan. I have
read the Postscriptum on color management that came with it. While I have
great respect for the authors, the reading and digestion I found to be
somewhat difficult. Perhaps a product of my ignorance or maybe the apparent
difference between European English grammar and US English grammar. At any
rate I have some questions which I think are very basic, but still I'd like
to ask.
1) Is there a documented standard for usage of rendering intents in a
newspaper environment? I think I would want to use Absolute Colorimetric
for my inkjet proofing, and Perceptual for conversion of images destined for
the press. Problem is I can't find anything that says basically "if you are
printing the images here then use this rendering intent, if you are printing
images there then use that rendering intent.....". Sort of a flow chart for
rendering intent usage if you will.
2) I used the Measure tool to calibrate one of my monitors and then
ProfileMaker to create a profile for it. It was pretty slick. I selected a
D50 white point and a gamma of 1.8 for newsprint based on the
recommendations in the ProfileMaker documentation. Now I have a bunch of
monitors (50+) to calibrate, and I'm getting nervous. I believe that if I
use the measure tool to calibrate all the monitors then I should have a
consistent start point for them all and can create my profiles for each and
apply them. At that point they should all be displaying color as
consistently relative to each other as is achievable.
Prior to the purchase of the profiling products we have been "visually"
calibrating the displays. We used a combination of the Adobe Gamma control
panel for white point, gamma and rgb gun settings, and the "Knoll Gamma
control panel" to make a gamma and white point tweaks which was then loaded
at start-up. My question then is this... after I have calibrated the
monitor should I no longer use the Adobe Gamma created profile as the system
profile, or the Knoll gamma control panel as a global adjustment? I'm
pretty sure the answer is no, and I think I understand why. Here's the
thing that confuses me though. Our monitors were set up (pre color
management) by another person who I believe knew what he was doing, although
I've never met him. Problem is he used a white point of D65 and I don't
know why. I am not comfortable with changing all the monitors without first
hearing that what I believe I've learned is correct.
3) I have a gamut for inkjet proofing and a different one for press. Will I
need to convert my images twice then, once for the proofer and once for the
press? If so, should I be doing the color space conversion in the print
dialog from quark where I can use different rendering intents and profiles
rather than in PhotoShop?
4) I am hoping to find a definitive book on color management which is
written fairly clearly. I have found so far many documents, but nothing
which gives a "clear defined path" to implementing color management. For
instance I've see rendering intent definitions, but not clear
recommendations for usage. Yeah I know to some degree it is image
dependant, but I won't have the luxury of trying out the different intents
on every image to see which best suits it. So to put it bluntly, is there a
color management guide written for the sub 160 IQ crowd?
Apologies for the very windy post.
best regards and thanks,
Mark Busby
Color Lab Manager
San Diego Union-Tribune
email@hidden
619-293-2465