Table of Content:
- Working Spaces
- Monitor RGB
- Monitor Profiling
- sRGB
- ProPhoto RGB
- Adobe RGB
- Colour Management Policies
- Preserving embedded profiles
- Convert to Working RGB
- Conversion Options
- Perceptual
- Saturation
- Relative
- Absolute
Take a stroll into the local TV sales department store and have a look at a row of identical TVs. Usually you'll find that the picture they're displaying (even when tuned to the same channel) looks slightly different. Each seems to have its own colour cast. So which one is displaying the correct image? We have this same quandary on the web.
No two computer monitors are identical. Well they might look that way on the outside, but switch them on and you'll see that they simply don't display colour the same way. Why is this? Well each monitor is manufactured slightly differently. This poses a bit of a problem: If Joe Bloggs's monitor has a slightly bluish tinge and yours doesn't, then when you design an image for the web, whatever you do will look slightly blue on his monitor. Tough for Joe? Well not necessarily. Photoshop has a built in system for overcoming this problem, it's called Colour Management. In this article we're going to work out how to use Colour Management to ensure that the images that we use are displayed the same way on everyone's screen.
Gavin Cromhout lives in Cape Town, South Africa, where he works as a new media designer and digital photographer. He studied art at the University of Cape Town and now co-runs the Web Agency http://www.lodestone.co.za. He's worked on a number of books (New Masters of Photoshop, Photoshop 7 Professional Photographic Techniques, Photoshop Face to Face, Photoshop Elements 2 Face Makeovers, Photoshop Elements 2 Tips N Tricks, Digital Photography with Adobe Photoshop Elements,Photoshop 7 Zero to Hero, Photoshop 7: Trade Secrets )