Color Management:

Discussions related to the use of color management as a means of achieving your final goals for your photos. Examples: Workflow, working in different colors spaces, ICC profiles, problems with print colors or online posted photos vs. what you see on your screen, proofing photos etc. 

I started out taking photos happy with what I saw on my screen and liked some of them enough to go out and buy some photo paper and print some of my favorites. I was really excited with my results. Just that the fact that they looked pretty close to what I saw on my screen was enough to drive me on. After continuing for some time (at the expense of a lot of ink, that's another story) I soon realized that some came out better than others. The outcome a result of playing with printer settings and some basic editing. Throwing "bad" copies in the trash was just the price of printing yourself and hoping the next one would be better.

This works for a while until you empty your trash can and buy a few more gallons of ink. Ah, now I have it, I must need a better printer. So, I bought a better printer. In my case a Canon MP600, that was a couple years back, still have it, and it does a pretty decent job on prints up to 8.5x11 (8x10) and gets pretty good mileage with the inks. The quality of my first prints were much better but not as good as I thought they should be. Maybe I should get some Canon paper it costs more but I'll give it try. Another step in the right direction! Now I was getting somewhere. I hadn't realized the chemistry that's involved with the inks and the paper surface and how important it is with the ink leveling and drying. Some may try other brands and hit on a paper that works for them and that's fine but there is enough to talk about there for a whole other topic. Ok, back to this topic. My prints were much better but some colors matched my screen, some didn't. Some were darker, some lighter. Truth of the matter was I was getting more critical of my results with regard to what I saw after editing and what got spit out of my printer. Trust me it happens and if you've read this far you've either been there or are close to getting there. At this point a better printer and paper won't help. What will help is "COLOR MANAGEMENT". I would always try to avoid any article, blog or website that mentioned those words. To be honest I was intimidated by that phrase. So I started reading but not understanding much of it. Monitor calibration, color gamut, color space all strange to me but I started...and it has helped my prints to look much better, I waste much less paper and ink and get more consistent, predictable results. Color management will help you print better prints at home or through a commercial printer. It will help the photos that you send to others look better and improve the looks of photos you post on websites. It's not something I have learned quickly and there's so much more I need to learn. So in following posts I will try to explain to you some of the basics that have really helped me with thanks to others that have so generously shared their knowledge on their websites. It doesn't have to be learned all at once and I think every step you take towards learning and using some of the principles color management has to offer will help you yield better prints both on paper and online. Till next post...