Color management allows you to get the results you expect from your press printed coffee table book.
Whether you are making a parent album that you want to look like your ink jet printed flush mount album, or your fine art coffee table book to look as close as possible to what you see on your screen, using a color managed workflow will give you the results you expect.
There are several aspects to color management:
- Monitor calibration
- Soft proofing in Photoshop
- Calibration JPEG
- Sample prints
Monitor Calibration
The first step is to calibrate your monitor. There are several products that consist of a spectrophotometer and software that guides you through the process of calibrating your monitor. Expect to pay $190 to $250 for the package. If you want go fully color manage your workflow from your camera and scanner input devices, computer display, and your own ink jet printer output deveice expect to pay $500 to $1000 in hardware and software to calibrate your entire workflow.
There are several products to choose from. Here's a few suggested products:
Tip: Team up with friends from your local photography club and go in on a calibration system.
Soft Proofing in Photoshop
Offset printing uses the CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow Black) color space, which does not have as wide a gamut, or, or amount of color that can be represented, as the RGB color space used by monitors. The software that translates the RGB to CYMK color space makes it's best attempt to duplicate the color on the printed page as you see on your monitor. Some images will have a very accurate representation, other images will shift the colors enough that you would notice it comparing the images side by side, although many clients might not.
To eliminate surprises you can "soft proof" your image in Photoshop, which allows you to see a representation of what the printed result will look like. You can download the
SharedInk ICC color profile in order to soft proof your images.
To install the ICC profile in Windows, unzip the file, right-click on it, and select "Install Profile" from the context menu.
To install on a Mac, unzip the file and move it to the following folder:
OS 10.4 and up: Library > Colorsync > Profiles
OS 9: System Folder > Colorsync > Profiles
If you have Photoshop running, restart Photoshop to be able to use the newly installed profile.
To softproof in Photoshop:
- Select: View > Proof Setup > Custom
- In "Device to simulate", select "SharedInk 2011".
- Your profile is now loaded. Select: View > Proof Colors to get a representation of what your image will look like when printed.
Select "View > Gamut Warning" to see colors in your image that are outside the CMYK color space and will be approximated on the digital offset press.
Calibration JPEG
To verify your soft proofing process, you can get a printed calibration image from SharedInk customer support and download the calibration JPEG used to create the printed image. Comparing your calibrated image to the printed piece will give you confidence that what you view on your computer monitor will represent the final printed book page.
Sample Prints
You can always order samples prints from SharedInk at a modest fee to eliminate any chance of surprise. To order sample prints you can create one or more book pages, upload them to SharedInk, and order samples prints.
Please contact customer support if you have any questions.
We've only scratched the surface of color management in this article. Here is some suggested articles for more information:
This is a pretty good summary article on color management.
This is a detailed Adobe technical paper that describes a complete color managed process.
This photo.net article discusses the theory and practical aspects of monitor calibration. It is part of a 4 part color management series of articles.
