[Leica] Colour Management ?????

[jonathan at openhealth.org (Jonathan Borden)]

Douglas M. Sharp wrote:

>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Help!! This is probably a question that would be of interest to anyone 
> starting scanning, posting and printing.
> It also serves as a criticism of the manufacturers of  scanners and 
> printers, they all seem to assume that we are already experts
> when we buy their products. The "Just load the software, plug it in, 
> and then of course you know what you are doing, or you wouldn't
> have bought it" mentality of Handbook authors.
>
> The more I read about it the more confused I get.
> What should  the colour management parameters for the following  
> conglomeration of equipment be ?
> 1) Monitor (at present TFT, a CRT is on the shopping list)
> 2) Nikon V ED 35mm scanner
> 3) Canon 9900F Flatbed
> 4) HP Photosmart Printer
>
> My intention is , rather obviously, to get prints, and images for the 
> web, with identical colours, contrast and brightness as the slides I'm 
> scanning.
>
> There are so many options for each piece of equipment and the 
> corresponding software that it's so easy to get totally lost.
> Are Nikon or Canon profiles compatible/identical  with Adobe PS 
> Elements 2.0 or Arcsoft Photostudio 5 ? is  sRGB some kind of  general 
> setting  that serves all other RGB profiles ?
> Am I confusing  Color Spaces and Color Profiles ?
>
First, I gave up trying to use PS Elements because it doesn't *do* 
color management -- and I could never make good prints until I bit the 
bullet and got the stuff to do proper color management.

1. I calibrate my monitor with a Spyder (hardware device)-- it creates 
a monitor profile -- huge improvement over trying to eyeball it.
2,3. I scan with Vuescan and generally use the builtin profiles, but 
you can also create custom scanner profiles with IT3 targets.
4. Rather than purchasing custom printer profiles (I use the Epson 
2200), I got the ImagePrint RIP which comes with excellent profiles for 
almost any paper you want. You pretty much need this if you want to get 
good B/W prints in any case, and if you add the cost of a few custom 
profiles, it's a pretty good investment. ImagePrint does give great 
shadow separation.

Colorspaces: I scan and edit in 16 bits/48 bits (Photoshop CS) and 
consequently use either ProPhoto (very wide gamut) or Adobe RGB -- you 
do need ProPhoto to capture the whole gamut of color slides, although 
you can't represent these colors on paper. After editing I downconvert 
to Adobe RGB and then downsample to 8 bits/24 bits and 360 dpi before 
sending the TIF to the ImagePrint RIP.

Thats how I do it, and there are others that you can read about.

Jonathan