Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [282]
Reducing the opportunities for error
When you adopt an RGB space such as ProPhoto RGB as the preferred workspace for all your image editing, you must take into account how this might cause confusion when exchanging RGB files between your computer (which is operating in a color managed workflow) and that of someone who is using Photoshop with the color management switched off. When sending image files to other Photoshop users, the presence of a profile can help them read the image data correctly, so long as they have the Photoshop color settings configured to preserve embedded profiles (or convert to the working space) and their computer display is calibrated correctly. They will then see your photographs on their system almost exactly the way you intended them to be seen. The only variables will be the accuracy of their display calibration and profile, the color gamut limitations of the display and the environment in which it is being viewed. Configuring the Color Settings is not so difficult to do, but the recipient does have to be as conscientious as you are about ensuring their display is set up correctly. The situation has not been helped either by the way the default color settings have shifted about over the last nine versions of the program. The default settings in Photoshop CS5 use Preserve Embedded Profiles, but prior to that we had settings like ‘Web Graphics’ in which color management was switched off. Consequently, there are a lot of Photoshop users out there who have unwittingly been using sRGB as their default RGB workspace and with color management switched off. Even where people do have the color management switched on, the displays they are using may not have been profiled in months or are being viewed in a brightly lit room!
Playing detective
How you deliver your files will very much depend on who you are supplying them to. I often get emails from readers who have been given the runaround by their color lab. One typically finds that the lab may be using a photo printer such as the Fuji Frontier™ which does not read incoming profiles and is simply calibrated to expect sRGB files. So far so good. As long as you send an sRGB file, you shouldn't have any problems. But if the color lab operator has Photoshop color management switched off, they will not know how to handle anything other than an incoming file that is in sRGB. If you then supply them with an Adobe RGB file they may not read the profile. The colors will end up looking different in the final print and then they blame the customer!
It helps to do a little detective work to ascertain the skill level of the recipient. The first thing you need to know is what color settings are they using? This will help you determine which RGB space they are using and whether the color management is switched on or off. The other thing to ask is ‘do you have your computer display calibrated and profiled?’ And if the answer is yes, then ask how often they calibrate and profile their display. The answers to these questions will tell you quite a bit about the other person's system, how you should supply your files and also how accurate their computer display is at displaying colors. Basically, if you have any doubts, the safest option is to convert to sRGB before sending.
It is important to be aware of these potential problems because it is all too easy for the color management to fail once an image file has left your hands and been passed on to another Photoshop user. With this in mind, here are some useful tips to help avoid misunderstandings over color. The most obvious way to communicate what the colors are supposed to look like is to supply a printed output. In fact this is considered routine when supplying images to a printer. If you are sending a file for CMYK repro printing, it is sensible