Re: profile spaces vs working spaces
Re: profile spaces vs working spaces
- Subject: Re: profile spaces vs working spaces
- From: Steve Upton <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:11:24 -0700
At 9:50 PM -0700 10/16/03, MSD wrote:
>
Good morning,
>
>
Can anyone tell me why it is really good to
>
move a file to a "working space" (AdobeRGB)
>
instead of just working in a capture profile or output profile (Ektaspace or sRGB).
>
>
Is there something in the code that makes something a "working space"?
>
Do conversions go better?
>
>
Why not keep a file in my scanner profile untill I convert to SWOP or sRGB.
I wrote an article about this very thing in our last ColorNews newsletter. I have included it below...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
ColorNews Issue #8
INPUT PROFILES and COLOR SPACE CONVERSION GUIDELINES
This issue's article is on the subtle but important issue of bringing files
into your workflow.
Let's say you have a great scanner profile that you took time to create with
an accurate target and it is delivering results that you love AND it saves
you tons of time.
When you bring files from your scanner into Photoshop you diligently assign
the scanner profile. Once Photoshop opens them, your scanner profile links
up with your display profile and the image you see on your display is
bright, accurate and wonderful.
Should you convert it into your working space or not? or when? or... why?
First, the similarities... let's compare an original scan file and its
embedded scanner profile to the same file after you have converted it to a
working space, say Adobe RGB (1998). Both files will have their embedded
profiles used when displaying on your screen, creating soft proofs and
printing. Even though the files contain different RGB values for each
respective pixel, the included profiles convert them to approximately the
same color so they both look good. This is all fine and dandy and the
way things should work normally.
So, you are asking... I'm several paragraphs into this article and I still
don't understand why he brought it up...
Fair enough, now with the differences.
First, the advantages of leaving your file in "scanner-space". Whenever you
convert a file, you lose accuracy. So the fewer times you convert on the way
to print, the better. It's easy to see that the scanner->print path is
shorter than the scanner-> working space-> print path. Also, scanner gamuts
are typically larger than working space gamuts. If your primary destination
is print, then the important question is how many scanner colors will print
well on the printer and not be "clipped" or otherwise altered when printed.
If you move your file through a working space you run the risk of clipping
even more colors - those that were in the scan and can print but don't fit
through the "keyhole" of your working space. This may be a good time to
graph your scanner, working space, and print profile in ColorThink to see if
you should choose a different working space...
Now that you have your head around scanner-space advantages and it seems
like a great idea, I'm afraid I'm going to turn it all around....
Converting your scan file to your working space has a bunch of advantages as
well. First, scanner profiles are filled with 3D look-up-tables (LUTs) that
are fairly large, so embedding a scanner profile can add 300-600 KB to each
file. Working space profiles are typically matrix-based so they consist of
only a few bytes of color information and are often 3-4 K in length -
negligible. On large files this may not be a big difference but if have many
files in your workflow, adding 400 KB to each file can plug things up.
Second, scanner profiles are made to convert from scanner RGB to Lab. Only.
They are a one-way trip out of scanner-land and there are no tables in the
profile to convert back (at least according to the ICC spec). If you had a
scanner RGB file in Photoshop and you wanted to paste an image from another
color space into your file, you would be unable to. If you wanted to specify a
color using Lab in the color picker you could not.
Third, scanner space is non-uniform. For example. The RGB setting
100,100,100 coming from your scanner is probably not gray. That's OK as your
scanner profile has already figured out that your scanner is actually seeing
gray when it scans RGB = 100,105,92. When your scanner profile does its job
all is fine. But lets say you want to put a gray border around the edge of
your scanner RGB-based image. You click into the color picker and specify a
nice middle gray such as 125,125,125. But as soon as you start applying this
gray in your image it looks strange - and decidedly NOT gray. This is the
same problem in reverse. 125,125,125 in scanner RGB is NOT gray and trying
to figure out what is gray is not worth the effort. If you convert your file
to Adobe RGB then 125,125,125 is gray as expected and all is fine. This gray
example is only one case of this problem. This issue exists throughout the
color space and is even tougher to figure out in other colors.
The process of converting a file from a non-uniform device space to a
uniform working space is often called "normalizing" the file. It's a bit
like running a comb through your hair in the morning, a good idea.
So it is fair to say that a file in scanner RGB is not really in a working
space at all as much of the work you might want to do is impossible.
The final benefit of converting to a working space is when people mess up
your files. If you send a scanner RGB file to someone who views in in their
web browser or (gasp!) strips the profile off the file when opening in
Photoshop it is going to look bad. Scanner RGB mistreated as monitor RGB is
not pretty (see gray problems above). A file in Adobe RGB will not look
right as monitor RGB or sRGB but it won't look as bad. I know that's little
comfort but sometimes that's what happens to our carefully created files.
Now that I have fully confused you I should give you some tasty bit of
wisdom to help you venture out in the world with this new-found knowledge.
Unfortunately this issue is like many other issues in which answers like "it
depends" rule the land.
If you are concerned about the greatest fidelity possible and will perform
minimal editing on your file, leaving your file in scanner RGB is probably
the best choice.
If, like most of us, you want to hand the file off downstream in RGB digital
form, are going to perform more than the most cursory edits, are planning on
compositing multiple images together, or just want gray to be predictable,
then conversion to an appropriate working space is a good idea. For more
information about whether or not you are using the best working space for
your workflow, look into ColorThink. 2D and 3D graphs comparing scanner,
working space and print gamuts will quickly show you what you need to know.
To subscribe, email email@hidden with "subscribe" in
the subject.
(c)2003 CHROMIX
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Regards,
Steve
________________________________________________________________________
o Steve Upton CHROMiX www.chromix.com
o (hueman) 866.CHROMiX
o email@hidden 206.985.6837
o
o ColorGear ColorThink ColorValet ColorSmarts ProfileCentral
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