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Old 1st June 2019, 13:51   #11
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Originally Posted by Phil View Post
Can you convert the colour space without loss or change of colour?
As AdobeRGB has a wider colour space than sRGB, you will lose colour, how noticeable it can be is hard determine. I can say, that printing AdobeRGB in a 'regular' print shop - Jessops, Tesco etc will leave the prints flat and washed out. As you are viewing/editing on a laptop with an LED or LCD monitor, it will be less noticeable. A monitor emits light, whereas a print absorbs it, which is why you will see a greater difference in the print and not the screen (your screen will likely not be able to display AdobeRGB correctly)

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Before it’s printed, ensure your monitor is using the correct colour gamut and proof the image using the print companies ICC profile for their acrylic.
^this, however when I worked in Jessops, I tried to find out what space the printers used in our store (Fuji Frontiers 330 and 350 - if I recall). No one could tell me, even the engineers didnt know, as the software could vary between stores and companies! I found Fuji colour spaces for the printers, and installed them into photoshop (pre Lightroom days). They failed each time, with sRGB being the best. I concluded that due to the volume of 'everyday printing', that sRGB was utilised as this is what most people's cameras use. Unless you plan to use a specialised firm for this, I would stick with sRGB right from capture.

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Thank you. I don't have a calibration device yet. All of my editing is done on a laptop, which I know isn't ideal. I don't know if it is worthwhile trying to calibrate a laptop monitor?? The image looks different depending on the angle of the screen.

The acrylic printing is done off site at their factory in Cardiff so I don't think I will be able to proof the image before it's printed, but I will ask them.
You should be able to add an external monitor which you would be able to calibrate. There are a few online sites that guide you through calibration. For important images you want to get right, on a laptop, I would calibrate before I started editing, and be aware of ambient lighting, trying not to move the laptop.

I remember reading reviews of THIS company many years ago, and I wonder if they are the ones dealing with your print. If it is, you could try contacting them directly. asking their advice.
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Old 1st June 2019, 20:47   #12
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Thank you for that.
I've had a look online and it seems I've been doing it all wrong since I started!
Apparently I should always convert to SRGB after editing... I never knew how to convert, but now I do.. Thank you so much!
Hopefully that should solve this problem! I actually had it printed as a test today, to see how it came out on the shop printer. (not acrylic) and I was quite disappointed. It was dark and quite blue. The shop assistant couldn't explain it either...

Anyway, now in SRGB!
Porthcawl, Wales.. by Philip Davies, on Flickr
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Old 1st June 2019, 22:41   #13
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Thank you for that.
I've had a look online and it seems I've been doing it all wrong since I started!
Apparently I should always convert to SRGB after editing... I never knew how to convert, but now I do.. Thank you so much!
Hopefully that should solve this problem! I actually had it printed as a test today, to see how it came out on the shop printer. (not acrylic) and I was quite disappointed. It was dark and quite blue. The shop assistant couldn't explain it either...
I would always recommend that you keep your workflow the same all the way through.Shoot sRGB -> process sRGB -> print sRGB or shoot AdobeRGB -> process -> AdobeRGB -> print AdobeRGB.

The problem with editing in AdobeRGB, will be the display. To maintain the workflow, even to convert after, you will need to have a monitor capable of displaying AdobeRGB. Add to that, for online display, most website (if not all - I am not sure how it works) will not display AdobeRGB, and force drop various colour tones. You have seen what can happen with the prints. The same happens with an online display. It will be less noticeable on a monitor because of the optical difference of emission (monitor) and absorption/reflection of light (print). Even by converting after you have edited, even with an AdobeRGB monitor, to sRGB, you could be throwing away some of your efforts.

So think of your workflow, even if you shoot in AdobeRGB, edit in a photo editor capable of utilising an AdobeRGB palette, but your monitor is not capable of displaying in AdobeRGB, you could be editing colour shifts into a shot that may shift further again when it comes to printing (dont worry about online display etc, as most instances it will be very subtle and not normally visible).

The sRGB version and original version of the shot, when viewed in my windows picture viewer look so very similar, however when I open in PS(which is capable of displaying AdobeRGB, as is my currently uncalibrated monitor), the whites of the lighthouse are a little brighter in the sRGB version, however, in the Adobe version, there is more subtlety to the shadows in it, but it is slightly duller for it. (I dont know how much this variance is down to your conversion, or if there was any bastardisation of the colours via the web host - the metadata was intact, hence the warning).

Like most things digital, there is a similar process in film, if you shoot colour neg film, you develop in a c41 process. Shoot slide you process in e6. (commonly). It is still quite common to cross process these two c41 film in e6 or e6 in c41. (it is different with black and white/colour etc) I am not a fan.

There are further considerations, many of which I never tried to understand, or look to far into. One that sticks in my mind that was an issue for me at the time, was gamma (2.2 and 1.8). I cannot recall any of it, but seem to rem something about 2.2 was the Windows preferred gamma figure, whereas Macs used 1.8, and this would be an issue when using a monitor from a pc onto a mac, and the gamma wasnt corrected.

After a long time experimenting and reading up, I used to enjoy the technical side of it, but started to become obsessed with it, I started to lose interest in taking photographs so I gave up, and settled onto sRGB. It was more than capable of satisfying my images, and when I did get AdobeRGB prints done professionally (and I even bought an A3 printer capable of it), there was a little difference to me, and no difference when shown to others. Shoot in sRGB, get it right in camera, and maybe make it sparkle in the edit. this will mean that you can spend more time enjoying photography, whilst sharing it with others, either by print or online.

when I mentioned in an earlier post about being able to calibrate an external monitor, I should clarify, that you should be able to calibrate a laptop screen, however as you know as it moves, this calibration would change, whereas an separate monitor will be easier to maintain a constant state of calibration. (most stand alone monitors will have a wider dynamic range too, this is particularly important for wedding gowns - think of looking at a wedding dress on one device, but seeing so much more detail when viewed on another)
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Old 2nd June 2019, 15:24   #14
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Thank you for the detailed information, I really appreciate it.

I shoot in RAW from the camera so I can't set the camera to shoot in Adobe RGB or SRGB.

I have since changed my settings (now I know how to) on photoshop and now it will save all files as SRGB.

So, as the print shop printed it at Adobe RGB without converting it, is it likely that now its set as SRGB, I will get better results if I try to print it again? Or, is it a case of trying it to see?

I found online that "Smugmug" photo printing site state that irrespective of what file type you send them, they will always covert to SRGB before printing as that's what their printers are set up for.
https://help.smugmug.com/choosing-co...es-r1X8llPy4Bf


Interestingly enough, I had two photos printed yesterday. Both set to Adobe RGB and this one came out exactly as I wanted it to...
Rest Bay, Porthcawl, Wales... by Philip Davies, on Flickr
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Old 2nd June 2019, 16:13   #15
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I shoot in AdobeRGB and I do my post production on a 27” Mac with Retina display, generally what I see on the screen is how it comes out on print.
That said, I use two printers and one I use only for A3 and A2 photo prints and the other I use for other media. I have the ICC profile from the guy at ProTradePrinting and the other is SAAL Digital, the latter of which have an individual ICC profile for every print media they sell. Simply load these into Lightroom and you can proof everything very easily before sending to print.

During my degree I had to produce numerous printwork for exhibitions, as well as magazines and books, and the single most important aspect of producing your own work is definitely colour management.
Irrespective of what RGB colour space you shoot with, most printers only speak CMYK, so how can you be absolutely certain that the RGB colours in your images are reproduced as closely as possible in CMYK?
It’s an art in itself but once understood, it completely removes all the print anxiety.
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Old 2nd June 2019, 18:47   #16
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Originally Posted by Canonite View Post
I shoot in AdobeRGB and I do my post production on a 27” Mac with Retina display, generally what I see on the screen is how it comes out on print.
That said, I use two printers and one I use only for A3 and A2 photo prints and the other I use for other media. I have the ICC profile from the guy at ProTradePrinting and the other is SAAL Digital, the latter of which have an individual ICC profile for every print media they sell. Simply load these into Lightroom and you can proof everything very easily before sending to print.

During my degree I had to produce numerous printwork for exhibitions, as well as magazines and books, and the single most important aspect of producing your own work is definitely colour management.
Irrespective of what RGB colour space you shoot with, most printers only speak CMYK, so how can you be absolutely certain that the RGB colours in your images are reproduced as closely as possible in CMYK?
It’s an art in itself but once understood, it completely removes all the print anxiety.
Thank you.
I will have to speak to the print shop again and ask if they can give me the print profile.
Is CMYK a fixed colour space or is it variable?

I am really amazed at how complicated it is.
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Old 2nd June 2019, 19:23   #17
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Thank you.
I will have to speak to the print shop again and ask if they can give me the print profile.
Is CMYK a fixed colour space or is it variable?

I am really amazed at how complicated it is.
So basically cameras and monitors etc use an RGB colour space, the size of that gamut varies hugely. For example when you shoot a RAW image and then compress it into a jpeg, the colour space compressed down too.
Printers don’t use RGB, their colour space is made of CMYK so the ICC profiles are vital to ensure the perfect colour match is achieved.
Think of the red colour scheme of Coca-Cola of the purple colour of Cadbury, it’s vital those iconic brand colours are accurately reproduced.
I think there are some newer RGB printers but even so, they still require an accurate ICC profile for that media and the output monitor would have to be calibrated correctly too.
Some high end Nikon’s can shoot a 24 bit colour gamut, but it’s invisible to the human eye, even if you have a monitor that’s capable of displaying it all. Lol
It’s quite a deep subject really
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Old 2nd June 2019, 19:36   #18
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Originally Posted by Canonite View Post
So basically cameras and monitors etc use an RGB colour space, the size of that gamut varies hugely. For example when you shoot a RAW image and then compress it into a jpeg, the colour space compressed down too.
Printers don’t use RGB, their colour space is made of CMYK so the ICC profiles are vital to ensure the perfect colour match is achieved.
Think of the red colour scheme of Coca-Cola of the purple colour of Cadbury, it’s vital those iconic brand colours are accurately reproduced.
I think there are some newer RGB printers but even so, they still require an accurate ICC profile for that media and the output monitor would have to be calibrated correctly too.
Some high end Nikon’s can shoot a 24 bit colour gamut, but it’s invisible to the human eye, even if you have a monitor that’s capable of displaying it all. Lol
It’s quite a deep subject really
Thank you, I need to get my head around this! Using the camera is only half of it!

So the print shop should easily be able to tell me the print profile?
I may be being unfair to them in saying this, but I imagine they won't know.
Is there a way I can help them find it?

They couldn't explain why my wave photo didn't print like the previewed image they showed me before committing to print.
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Old 2nd June 2019, 20:19   #19
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Any reputable print shop should happily email you the ICC for the media to be printed so you can proof it on your own machine before paying for/wasting the print.
That’s why I use the Retina display as the colour calibration is pretty damn accurate straight out the box. So if I proof a batch of images for a book for example using the printers profile, if there’s any issue with the outcome being too dark or with skewed colours, I can be sure it’s their problem and not mine.

When I displayed my panel of images for my LRPS distinction, they had to be bang on. I lost sleep over the details.
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Old 2nd June 2019, 20:27   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Canonite View Post
So basically cameras and monitors etc use an RGB colour space, the size of that gamut varies hugely. For example when you shoot a RAW image and then compress it into a jpeg, the colour space compressed down too.
Printers don’t use RGB, their colour space is made of CMYK so the ICC profiles are vital to ensure the perfect colour match is achieved.
Think of the red colour scheme of Coca-Cola of the purple colour of Cadbury, it’s vital those iconic brand colours are accurately reproduced.
I think there are some newer RGB printers but even so, they still require an accurate ICC profile for that media and the output monitor would have to be calibrated correctly too.
Some high end Nikon’s can shoot a 24 bit colour gamut, but it’s invisible to the human eye, even if you have a monitor that’s capable of displaying it all. Lol
It’s quite a deep subject really
Quote:
Originally Posted by Canonite View Post
Any reputable print shop should happily email you the ICC for the media to be printed so you can proof it on your own machine before paying for/wasting the print.
That’s why I use the Retina display as the colour calibration is pretty damn accurate straight out the box. So if I proof a batch of images for a book for example using the printers profile, if there’s any issue with the outcome being too dark or with skewed colours, I can be sure it’s their problem and not mine.

When I displayed my panel of images for my LRPS distinction, they had to be bang on. I lost sleep over the details.
Thank you again.

I will ask for it and see what they say.

Actually, we are looking at getting a desktop computer after the house sale is completed.
Perhaps I should look at an Apple. I would prefer to stick with Windows but I understand Apple is much better for photography.
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