Color profiles and working on Television images

Hello all,

I normally use Photoshop to do images for TV graphics ( on-screen graphics, etc). Most all of this work is done from scratch. I never use color profiling because TV graphics are not color-managed.

However I'm doing a project right now and the source images are JPGs with color profiles. I need to convert these images for TV res, and I don't know what to do with the color profiles. I get 3 options: "Use", "Convert", and "Discard".

I want the images to be reproduced as faithfully as possible, and I'm not sure which option does that. I have not seen the "originals" so I can't compare. Which option is the best choice for reproducing them faithfully?

Any suggestions?

~Hanford

The ideal color space for television is SMPTE-C, which is the spec used. Since it is virtually identical to sRGB in gamut and gamma, you can pretty much use them interchangeably. For those images that you get which are tagged, make your decision based on what those tags actually are. If the tag is sRGB, then use that. If its something else, then you'll have to convert to sRGB or SMPTE-C RGB. Make sure that you have a well calibrated monitor to judge your color on.

Peter,

Thanks for the info. I've never delt with color management before, so this is all new for me. I'll check it out.

~Hanford

Peter,

is the TV color space in Europe and in USA the same ?

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

Gernot,

I don't know, but I don't think the televisions themselves are any different, other than tuning capabilities.

The film and video pros in Hollywood have always asked for SMPTE-C, so that's what I give them. Recently, I took a SMPTE-C file and assigned sRGB and saw no visible change on screen, so I have to assume that they are pretty close, close enough to interchange even if they aren't exactly the same.

Yes, PAL is a little different.