[Leica] New Gallery - A Hush

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

> Also, what color space do you work in?  I've just left it in sRGB.

Until recently I didn't think this mattered very much, but then I started 
doing some high-end print publication work. Suddenly it mattered a lot.

Here's why.

Suppose that you are working with the image of a page that is mostly white 
(as paper is), but it has something printed on it (which is why you are 
working with it).

If you are working in a color space that is different from that of the 
printer, and you set something white, bad things might happen: when the 
printer gets the file, he must of course convert it from your working 
profile into the profile of his printing press, so that he can print it. If 
there is any significant difference between the printer's profile and your 
working profile, then the white will suddenly become light magenta or light 
yellow or pastel blue, or gray, or whatever. The translation between color 
profiles can change the overall cast of the image, and if you are working 
with printing-press imaging, you need to make sure that places that want to 
be white are actually white.

The same phenomenon affects all colors, of course, but it's easiest to see 
with the white areas, because on a printing press, white means "no ink here 
please", and if some ink gets put there, it is VERY noticeable.

As a result of this I have changed my work habits, and I now always edit 
images using the profile of the final output device as my working profile. 
Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign will of course translate that working 
profile to my display profile, so that what I see on my screen is my 
display's best ability to reproduce that color.

Until I had this epiphany, I used to edit everything in Adobe RGB 1998.

If the final output device is going to be the WWW, then I use sRGB as my 
working profile.