Colour temperature

in article 40f3a718$0$1280$,
Derek Fountain at wrote on 7/13/04 2:13 AM:

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB. I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does it matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

—
I believe that 6500 is the "ideal" recommendation. I run at 7500, higher than that is a bit blue for me.
I think that a properly profiled monitor will account for this setting.

MSD

From: Derek Fountain

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB.

Most monitors should work best at 6500 or 5000, usually 6500. sRGB isn’t a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does it
matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

9300 looks pretty blue to most of us but if it works for you, go for it …

Bill Hilton wrote:

sRGB isn’t
a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

Yes, odd that. The monitor OSD says "sRGB – See manual". I’m almost inclined to dig out the manual just to learn what the heck it means…

I always thought that the idea of Adobe Gamma was to allow a user to set up the monitor to a standard point, making my calibrated monitor the same as
e.g., yours. I don’t know why I thought that. I’m now somewhat suspicious
it’s garbage. :o}

Most monitors should work best at 6500 or 5000, usually 6500. sRGB isn’t a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

True, but the color temperature is for the whitepoint, so the color temperature does really matter. I normally use 6500 as most color applications are based on that. On paper, 5000 is the default (approx. white point of "normal" paper).

Waldo

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

Bill Hilton wrote:

sRGB isn’t
a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

Yes, odd that. The monitor OSD says "sRGB – See manual". I’m almost inclined to dig out the manual just to learn what the heck it means…
I always thought that the idea of Adobe Gamma was to allow a user to set up the monitor to a standard point, making my calibrated monitor the same as e.g., yours. I don’t know why I thought that. I’m now somewhat suspicious it’s garbage. :o}

Adobe Gamma is not a very good tool to use for calibration. The reason for this is that it relies on the way "you" see color, so what you think is good skin tones my eyes might see as to warm or too cool. What you see as white I might see blue tones, etc. The only way to get a good calibration setting is to use one of the spyders.
—
"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking." –P. J. O’Rourke http://www.bobhatch.com

"Waldo" wrote in message

True, but the color temperature is for the whitepoint, so the color temperature does really matter. I normally use 6500 as most color applications are based on that. On paper, 5000 is the default (approx. white point of "normal" paper).

The whitepoint of paper is not 5000 – the whitepoint of a neutral paper is close to the whitepoint of the light source which is illuminating it. 5000 is a commonly used temperature for proofing light sources, so that’s why 5000 is commonly associated with printing. 🙂

Now, to throw a spanner into the works, some say that a monitor at 6500K actually matches a 5000K proofing lamp better than if the monitor is set to 5000. ;^)

Greg.

Actually, that is quite arguable. Sure, spiders are good. But if you go through decent training (which doesn’t take much time), your eyes can become much more precise than any high or low-end spider out there.

It also has to be noted that the training in question is usually associated with understanding how our eyes work rather than enhancing its capabilities, which are quite fit for the job anyway.

Also, Adobe Gamma cannot do a decent calibration because the targets it uses (for black point and gamma) are unfit for the purpose. You may still acquire good targets (there are a few of them on the internet) and use them as a desktop background while using Adobe Gamma.

Regardless of what you think of Timo, there is a collection of very accurate gamma targets on his site.

"Bob Hatch" wrote in message

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

Bill Hilton wrote:

sRGB isn’t
a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

Yes, odd that. The monitor OSD says "sRGB – See manual". I’m almost inclined to dig out the manual just to learn what the heck it means…
I always thought that the idea of Adobe Gamma was to allow a user to set up the monitor to a standard point, making my calibrated monitor the same as e.g., yours. I don’t know why I thought that. I’m now somewhat suspicious it’s garbage. :o}

Adobe Gamma is not a very good tool to use for calibration. The reason for this is that it relies on the way "you" see color, so what you think is good
skin tones my eyes might see as to warm or too cool. What you see as white I
might see blue tones, etc. The only way to get a good calibration setting is
to use one of the spyders.
—
"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking." –P. J. O’Rourke http://www.bobhatch.com

The whitepoint of paper is not 5000 – the whitepoint of a neutral paper is close to the whitepoint of the light source which is illuminating it.

5000

is a commonly used temperature for proofing light sources, so that’s why 5000 is commonly associated with printing. 🙂

😉

I thought that the original whitepoint was about a piece of metal that was heated to a certain temperature (like 5000 K). I can’t remember a light source being involved…

Now, to throw a spanner into the works, some say that a monitor at 6500K actually matches a 5000K proofing lamp better than if the monitor is set

to

5000. ;^)

Aha,. that’s indeed interesting, 5000 K on my screen was so red that I can’t work with it. That is actually also a reason to stick to 6500 K, although some people prefer 8500 or 9300.

Waldo

Waldo wrote:

The whitepoint of paper is not 5000 – the whitepoint of a neutral paper is close to the whitepoint of the light source which is illuminating it. 5000 is a commonly used temperature for proofing light sources, so that’s why 5000 is commonly associated with printing. 🙂

😉

I thought that the original whitepoint was about a piece of metal that was heated to a certain temperature (like 5000 K). I can’t remember a light source being involved…

That is the definition of ‘color temperature’. The definition of color temerature has little to do with the actual white point of a piece of paper (or anything else).

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Colour temperature of the monitor suggests the display can be calabrated to match a given light source. 6500 Kelvin is the miday light under average conditions. I have never experienced an average day that equaled this light temperature!

Sometimes I see a warm look to my monitor, other times it gets colder and this is all due to the ambient light interfering with my colour judgment. A very good calibration – if you cannot get a spyder to do the work is to turn off all the lights and close the curtains. Use Adobe gamma then. The results should be close enough for all but dedicated professionals who ought to have a spyder anyway. Once you have it right, don’t fix what isn’t broken!

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB. I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does

it

matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

That is the definition of ‘color temperature’. The definition of color temerature has little to do with the actual white point of a piece of paper (or anything else).

Okay, finally I remember something correctly 😉

Waldo

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work?

What Photoshop work are you doing?

If you are doing work for print, use 5000 or 6500K. If you are doing work for the Web…well, it doesn’t really matter, because what you see on your screen ain’t never gonna match what other people see on their screens, and there ain’t much you can do about it.

If you are used to looking at uncalibrated monitors, you’ll probably find that setting your white point to 6500K makes everything look really yellow to you. This is because 9300K isn’t white–it’s blue.

Once you get accustomed to working at 6500K–which will, by the way, make it far easier for you to get what you see on your screen to approximate what you see in print–then you’ll probably never want to go back to 9300K, because it’ll no longer look white to you; it’ll be a harsh, glaring blue. (In fact, once you get used to working at 6500K, you’ll be able to spot a monitor set to 9300K from clear across the room.)

—
Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: Derek Fountain

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB.

Most monitors should work best at 6500 or 5000, usually 6500. sRGB isn’t a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does it
matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

9300 looks pretty blue to most of us but if it works for you, go for it …

Many Sony trinitron monitors do not have a 6500 temperature setting. Instead, they provide a slider to choose a temperature on a scale between 0 and 100. There is no explanation what 0 and 100 stand for (5000 and 9300?), and whether the scale is linear. On these monitors, how do you set a 6500 temperature?

"Waldo" writes:

The whitepoint of paper is not 5000 – the whitepoint of a neutral paper is close to the whitepoint of the light source which is illuminating it.

5000

is a commonly used temperature for proofing light sources, so that’s why 5000 is commonly associated with printing. 🙂

😉

I thought that the original whitepoint was about a piece of metal that was heated to a certain temperature (like 5000 K). I can’t remember a light source being involved…

Not a piece of metal, an ideal absorbing surface (perfect flat black). It turns out that an ideal absorber is also a perfect emitter. This is called "black body radiation". And guess what happens when you heat anything up to 5000K or so? It becomes a light source. Normal incandescent lamps run between 2500K and 3000K, and look "warm" to us. The illumination of the sun, filtered through a clear atmosphere, resembles about 5000K blackbody radiation. But it’s a bit different because it’s really the result of filtering the sun (around 5800K, as I recall) through the atmosphere. 6500K is close to illumination from the clear sky, as I recall. Anyway, these have been standardized as illuminants D50 and D65, respectively, by the CIE, whose sole concern is color, illumination, and appearance.

As others have pointed out, the color of the illumination becomes the white point: it’s the color of a hypothetical surface that reflects equally at all wavelengths.

Now, to throw a spanner into the works, some say that a monitor at 6500K actually matches a 5000K proofing lamp better than if the monitor is set

to

5000. ;^)

Aha,. that’s indeed interesting, 5000 K on my screen was so red that I can’t work with it. That is actually also a reason to stick to 6500 K, although some people prefer 8500 or 9300.

Well, if you had D50 illumination in the area, it might look more normal. This is customary, for example, in Color and Trim departments at car companies, where they need to match colors every day. More common is a special viewing booth with controlled D50 illumination.

This all gets into the area of color appearance and how it is affected by illuminant; that’s an area of active research.

—
-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.

writes:

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: Derek Fountain

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB.

Most monitors should work best at 6500 or 5000, usually 6500. sRGB isn’t a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does it
matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

9300 looks pretty blue to most of us but if it works for you, go for it …

Many Sony trinitron monitors do not have a 6500 temperature setting. Instead, they provide a slider to choose a temperature on a scale between 0 and 100. There is no explanation what 0 and 100 stand for (5000 and 9300?), and whether the scale is linear. On these monitors, how do you set a 6500 temperature?

Get a device and measure. Sony is just being honest that that monitor really isn’t adjusted accurately to any standard. On a GDM-W500, we were pleased and surprised that the 5000K setting actually matched the 5000K fluorescents we were trying to match. I suspect that lower-priced monitors leave it to the user to set things up, if accuracy is needed.

—
-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.

"Waldo" wrote in message

Aha,. that’s indeed interesting, 5000 K on my screen was so red that I

can’t

work with it. That is actually also a reason to stick to 6500 K, although some people prefer 8500 or 9300.

For what it’s worth, when I calibrate my monitor to D50 (5000K) with a colorimeter (the Eye One Display),
I find that it looks quite ok. Yes, immediately after having used D65 for a while, it does look slightly yellow,
but it doesn’t take long for my eyes to adjust. And when I look back and forth between the D50
monitor and some paper held under my D50 (give or take) proofing desk lamp, the monitor still
looks "white" – it doesn’t look at all yellow.

Greg.

Once you get accustomed to working at 6500K–which will, by the way, make it far easier for you to get what you see on your screen to approximate what you see in print–then you’ll probably never want to go back to 9300K, because it’ll no longer look white to you; it’ll be a harsh, glaring blue. (In fact, once you get used to working at 6500K, you’ll be able to spot a monitor set to 9300K from clear across the room.)

OK, it seems 6500K is the way to go. I read that in a book (which is why I asked here whether it’s important). I’ve switched – I expect I’ll get used to it. I ran Adobe Gamma again as well.

It does lead to another question though. This Mitsubishi 2060 monitor has a "Color" setting on it’s OSD. This gives 3 sliders, Red, Green and Blue, which can be set to any percentage. They are currently set to 62%, 50% and 41%, although I don’t know where those figures came from. The manual talks about setting them to "what is pleasing". Hmmm. What should I do with those?

Also, the strange "sRGB" setting the monitor has appears to fix the monitor at a predetermind level. Set that and you can’t change the brightness, contract, colour temperature. Sounds like a bad idea, especially given that the monitor is a couple of years old.

From: Derek Fountain

OK, it seems 6500K is the way to go.

It does lead to another question though. This Mitsubishi 2060 monitor has a "Color" setting on it’s OSD. This gives 3 sliders, Red, Green and Blue, which can be set to any percentage. They are currently set to 62%, 50% and 41%, although I don’t know where those figures came from. The manual talks about setting them to "what is pleasing". Hmmm. What should I do with those?

Maybe time to invest in a colorimeter, like the Spyder from Colorvision or the Monaco or, if the price is acceptable, the Gretag Eye-One?

Anyway, those sliders let you customize the white balance for the best possible custom match (as opposed to using presets) in all the software packages mentioned. At 100% for all three (or close to it) on a new monitor you should be getting close to 9300 K. To switch to say 6500 you drop the blue and, to a lesser extent, the green. 5000K and you drop them even more.

Why they are set to 62/50/41 is a bit of a mystery to me, after having calibrated several monitors with the Sypder. Typically you set the white balance and then check to see if the luminance is in the right range, and if it’s too low you bump the sliders back up higher. On my calibrated monitor right now I’m reading R 97%, G 89%, B 87% for example, with the luminance set to the optimal point. On an older monitor the B was in the mid-70’s. On a worn-out one even with R 100% I had to drop the blue so far to get a good white point that the luminance was too low and out of spec. I’d guess that your much lower readings mean things are a bit dim, but maybe your monitor is just that much different than the ones I’ve used.

At any rate, try to calibrate using Adobe Gamma and use those sliders to set the separate RGB channels per the instructions. Then see if the percentages are still that low … but you get a better match using a colorimeter since the key measurements are done by the puck rather than by eyeballing them.

Also, the strange "sRGB" setting the monitor has appears to fix the monitor at a predetermind level. Set that and you can’t change the brightness, contract, colour temperature. Sounds like a bad idea, especially given that the monitor is a couple of years old.

Ah, so it’s a preset for ALL the settings … I was wondering what you meant in the first post about sRGB as a color temperature … this clears it up.

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

Also, the strange "sRGB" setting the monitor has appears to fix the

monitor

at a predetermind level. Set that and you can’t change the brightness, contract, colour temperature. Sounds like a bad idea, especially given

that

the monitor is a couple of years old.

Ah, so it’s a preset for ALL the settings … I was wondering what you

meant in

the first post about sRGB as a color temperature … this clears it up.

I guess even if the sRGB setting was only for the colour temperature, that would not be totally
non-sensical, because sRGB mandates a colour temperature of 6500K. So, that would have
meant "6500K", although I agree that it did seem confusing, and yes, the fact that the "sRGB"
setting locks everything makes a lot more sense. (I wonder whether there is a way to "edit"
the sRGB setting, to compensate for aging effects that Derek is concerned about)

Greg.

Why they are set to 62/50/41 is a bit of a mystery to me, after having calibrated several monitors with the Sypder. Typically you set the white balance and then check to see if the luminance is in the right range, and if
it’s too low you bump the sliders back up higher. On my calibrated monitor right now I’m reading R 97%, G 89%, B 87% for example, with the luminance set
to the optimal point. On an older monitor the B was in the mid-70’s. On a worn-out one even with R 100% I had to drop the blue so far to get a good white
point that the luminance was too low and out of spec. I’d guess that your much lower readings mean things are a bit dim, but maybe your monitor is just that much different than the ones I’ve used.

It looks dim at the moment, but I’ve just switched from 9300K to 6500K so it’s hard for me to be objective. I noticed that when I moved those percentages on the OSD the colour temperature reverted to "custom". When I switched that custom setting back to 6500K, the percentages jumped back to 62/50/41. Obviously these things are preset in the monitor. Without a Spyder thing I’ll have to trust it.

I also note that 62/50/41 is kind of in proportion to your settings of 97/89/87. I turned my values up to match yours to see what it looked like and the screen was glaringly bright! I think my monitor is just a bit different to the one’s you’ve used.

At any rate, try to calibrate using Adobe Gamma and use those sliders to set
the separate RGB channels per the instructions. Then see if the percentages are still that low …

The sliders in Adobe Gamma don’t have any effect on the percentages in the monitor’s OSD. Or do I misunderstand your point?

"Stephen H. Westin" wrote:

writes:

Bill Hilton wrote:

From: Derek Fountain

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB.

Most monitors should work best at 6500 or 5000, usually 6500. sRGB isn’t a ‘color temperature’, it’s an abstract working space.

I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does it
matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

9300 looks pretty blue to most of us but if it works for you, go for it …

Many Sony trinitron monitors do not have a 6500 temperature setting. Instead, they provide a slider to choose a temperature on a scale between 0 and 100. There is no explanation what 0 and 100 stand for (5000 and 9300?), and whether the scale is linear. On these monitors, how do you set a 6500 temperature?

Get a device and measure. Sony is just being honest that that monitor really isn’t adjusted accurately to any standard. On a GDM-W500, we were pleased and surprised that the 5000K setting actually matched the 5000K fluorescents we were trying to match. I suspect that lower-priced monitors leave it to the user to set things up, if accuracy is needed.

By "device", do you mean a monitor calibrator like Colorvison Spyder? When calibrating with a Spyder, it asks you to select a monitor temperature and gamma. The question is: with the trinitrons that do not have a 6500 setting as described above, how do you select 6500 before running the Spyder?

On my DELL P1110, sRGB tab of color settings tells me to set brightness to 29 and contrast to 88 (out of 100 for both). Unless I do this, my monitor will not be true sRGB. The black point of my monitor is at brightness level 23, BTW.

"Greg" wrote in message

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

Also, the strange "sRGB" setting the monitor has appears to fix the

monitor

at a predetermind level. Set that and you can’t change the brightness, contract, colour temperature. Sounds like a bad idea, especially given

that

the monitor is a couple of years old.

Ah, so it’s a preset for ALL the settings … I was wondering what you

meant in

the first post about sRGB as a color temperature … this clears it up.

I guess even if the sRGB setting was only for the colour temperature, that would not be totally
non-sensical, because sRGB mandates a colour temperature of 6500K. So, that
would have
meant "6500K", although I agree that it did seem confusing, and yes, the fact that the "sRGB"
setting locks everything makes a lot more sense. (I wonder whether there is
a way to "edit"
the sRGB setting, to compensate for aging effects that Derek is concerned about)

Greg.

In article
<40f5e3ca$0$1305$>, Derek
Fountain wrote:

It does lead to another question though. This Mitsubishi 2060 monitor has a "Color" setting on it’s OSD. This gives 3 sliders, Red, Green and Blue, which can be set to any percentage. They are currently set to 62%, 50% and 41%, although I don’t know where those figures came from. The manual talks about setting them to "what is pleasing". Hmmm. What should I do with those?

The R, G and B phosphors in your monotor tend to fade with use. The "natural" color for a monitor is about 9300K, so at lower Kelvins you’re driving the red and (to a much lesser extent) green electron guns harder than the blue. So the red gets dimmer and dimmer.

ColorVision’s OptiCal calibration utility comes with PreCal, which allows you to rough-tune the monitor’s RGB controls using the monitor’s own controls. You then run OptiCal with the Spyder for the final tune-up.

Your monitor’s 62% – 50% – 41% settings were undoubtedly set at the factory to adjust the monitor to spec before shipping it. If you’ve owned it awhile, those settings are no longer right.

OptiCal or other calibration utilities use a hardware device to read colors from your monitor and compare them to an absolute standard. The resulting ICC profile tells the computer "change the display to match what a perfect monitor would display." It’s substituting one color for another, not really ramping one electron gun up or down.

As long as the guns can produce the desired color, the effect is the same. But if the voltage to one of the guns is not sufficient, you have to re-adjust the monitor controls. It’s like listening to a fading radio station. You can put your ear closer and closer but eventually you have to turn the volume control up.

Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

From:

By "device", do you mean a monitor calibrator like Colorvison Spyder?

Yes.

When calibrating with a Spyder, it asks you to select a monitor temperature and gamma. The question is: with the trinitrons that do not have a 6500 setting as described above, how do you select 6500 before running the Spyder?

These are your chosen targets for gamma and temp. When you do the actual calibration this is what it gets set to with the cal steps.

In theory even if you started with the monitor set to 9300 K and G 1.8 and your target was, say, 6500 K and 2.2 G you would still get there if you do the steps right. Not a bad idea to repeat the steps (re-cal) with the new settings as your starting point, but generally you’ll find almost nothing moves on the second cal, indicating you got it right the first time thru. At least that’s my experience, limited to the Sypder and several ViewSonic Pro monitors.

Bill

From: "Branko Vukelic"

On my DELL P1110, sRGB tab of color settings tells me to set brightness to 29 and contrast to 88 (out of 100 for both). Unless I do this, my monitor will not be true sRGB. The black point of my monitor is at brightness level 23, BTW.

If this is a CRT I’d assume these are the settings they recommend using when the monitor is new, but since the phosphors shift over time I can’t see how it would be accurate for very long?

At any rate, try to calibrate using Adobe Gamma and use those sliders to set the separate RGB channels per the instructions.

From: Derek Fountain

The sliders in Adobe Gamma don’t have any effect on the percentages in the monitor’s OSD. Or do I misunderstand your point?

I haven’t used Gamma in several years but IIRC there was a step where you tried to select one of three grey patches as the best ‘neutral gray’ and there was an option to expand this to work on the R G B channels separately. Changing these separately is where you’d typically make use of the separate R G B control sliders in your monitor software, trying to get them balanced for the best possible gray. In other words, you use the monitor software to get a better match in Gamma … you seem to be thinking that moving the Gamma sliders changes the percentages, but it’s the other way round, you change the percentages to get a better gray patch match in Gamma.

As I said, I haven’t used Gamma in a while but I think this is still in there ….

Bill

On my calibrated monitor right now I’m reading R 97%, G 89%, B 87% for example, with the luminance set to the optimal point.

From: Derek Fountain

I also note that 62/50/41 is kind of in proportion to your settings of 97/89/87. I turned my values up to match yours to see what it looked like and the screen was glaringly bright!

This could be because of the contrast and brightness settings too, which the Spyder workflow has you set prior to setting the white balance with the individual RGB guns. FWIW (not much, since the monitors are no doubt so dissimilar 🙂 for the above RGB settings my Contrast is 93 and Brightness setting is 84 … on a different monitor by the same company (Viewsonic Pro series) the numbers are somewhat different. If you are at 100% on Brightness and Contrast I’d expect a much brighter screen.

I wonder if using 9300 K (very blue) is what’s causing the excessive red in some of your prints?

Bill

That’s a good point.

"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

From: "Branko Vukelic"

On my DELL P1110, sRGB tab of color settings tells me to set brightness to
29 and contrast to 88 (out of 100 for both). Unless I do this, my monitor will not be true sRGB. The black point of my monitor is at brightness level
23, BTW.

If this is a CRT I’d assume these are the settings they recommend using when
the monitor is new, but since the phosphors shift over time I can’t see how it
would be accurate for very long?

Bill Hilton wrote:

From:

By "device", do you mean a monitor calibrator like Colorvison Spyder?

Yes.

When calibrating with a Spyder, it asks you to select a monitor temperature and gamma. The question is: with the trinitrons that do not have a 6500 setting as described above, how do you select 6500 before running the Spyder?

These are your chosen targets for gamma and temp. When you do the actual calibration this is what it gets set to with the cal steps.
In theory even if you started with the monitor set to 9300 K and G 1.8 and your target was, say, 6500 K and 2.2 G you would still get there if you do the steps right. Not a bad idea to repeat the steps (re-cal) with the new settings as your starting point, but generally you’ll find almost nothing moves on the second cal, indicating you got it right the first time thru. At least that’s my experience, limited to the Sypder and several ViewSonic Pro monitors.
Bill

Let me make sure I understand. If a monitor does not have a 6500 temperature setting, I can set it at 5000, or 9300, or some estimate on the slider before calibrating with a Spyder. I will then enter 6500 and gamma 2.2 as targets at the Spyder dialog box and calibrate. So the Spyder’s instruction to set the monitor temperature and gamma is really not necessary (and confusing).

I notice that the color temperature setting on a monitor influences the setting of black and white points during calibration, i.e. different contrast/brightness settings for different color temperatures.

I’ve just finished reading one of Bruce Frasiers books where he recommends 6500. He also suggests gamma 2.2, but does add the caveat that there are other experts who argue different settings for different reasons.

HTH

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

What colour temperature should I be using for Photoshop work? My monitor offers 9300, 8550, 5000 or sRGB. I feel most comfortable with 9300. Does

it

matter as long as Adobe Gamma is set correctly and running?

I wonder if using 9300 K (very blue) is what’s causing the excessive red in some of your prints?

Yes, that’s the exact reason I’m labouring the point. I’ve continued to read up on the subject and using a colour temperature of 9300K is where I tend to differ from all published advice. Switching to the recommended 6500K makes the screen look redder, and maybe it’ll match the output of my printer better now. I’ve not had chance to experiment as yet. I’m using 6500k now and I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve also found a lab in the city who have Fuji Frontier 370 machine, so I’ll be dropping a couple of images into them on Monday. (See earlier thread.)

I will get the bottom of all this if it kills me. And if I have to take a couple of the members of this newsgroup down with me, well, they’ll just be collateral damage. ;o)

Derek…
I’ll give you instructions on fixing your Epson problem if you promise not to take others in this group "down with you"… OK?

1. Open the printer properties via the ‘start’ ‘settings’ ‘printers’ ‘properties’ dialogue.

2. Go to colour management tab. Here you must delete all profiles associated with the printer and click the ‘manual’ setting. Close the dialogue ensuring there is nothing in the profiles window the printer driver could use …a blank.

3. Follow (to the letter) Adobe’s Gamma setup instructions by using the wizard. Save the profile you create. Open the properties of your display (right click on the desktop) and go to ‘settings’ ‘advanced’ and associate the newly created profile with your monitor. Adobe gamma helps create a gamma of 2.2 in all the colour channels so in the end, your selection of a wildly wrong 9500k will only serve to produce insufficient adjustment to reach this goal… Go to 6500k or thereabouts.

4. Start up Photoshop and go to ‘edit’ ‘colour settings’. Tick the advanced box. Choose your working space, RGB as Adobe RGB (1998) and Grey Gamma of
2.2. Under Color management all three should be preserve embedded profiles
and tick all 3 boxes underneath too. In Conversion options, use Adobe engine and (most important) Relative colorimetric.

5. close down Photoshop and open it again. Open a test image which has not been altered from the camera. If you are presented with the question: Assign profile? Choose the printer profile which matches your printer and tick "and then convert document to working space".
Alternatively… Just discard the embedded profile and use the working space profile. Then before you go any further, open ‘image’ ‘mode’ and assign the printer profile to the image – *NOT* convert it.

6. In the printer’s dialogue "printing preferences". click the advanced button and choose the printing method as "ICM" with *NO COLOR MANAGEMENT*.

In case you haven’t grasped all this, Photoshop is not being allowed to manage your printing with your current setup.Your monitor profile is a miss-match and instead of using the proper profiles in the proper order you are more than likely attempting to use a off-set printing press profile and it just colours everything with a red cast.

What happens when you follow my instructions is that what you see on the screen will be (pretty much) what you get from your printer. The variables you cannot control are in your monitor. If you have followed all this faithfully this far, you should see an image straight from your camera which "looks" right and prints just like you see it.

You absolutely *MUST* abandon your idea of using your own invention of correct monitor colour and use one which matches what your software vendor intends you to have. Adobe gamma is not perfect but it certainly is better than guessing and will get you in the ball park.

On the subject of "taking down" people who genuinely tried to help you… All the posters offering you help from the beginning have considerable experience in their particular field. Any advise or suggestions they offered you were given in good faith. It would have been nice if the advice had been specific and precise too but that is the nature of Usenet advise. Sometimes it is correct but lacking detail and other times it is wrong because the OP doesn’t cough up the full story. It wasn’t untill quite late in the saga you pop the statement of monitor colour temprature out of the norm.

Agro?
Nah, just angry at the world for laughing at me!
________________-

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

I wonder if using 9300 K (very blue) is what’s causing the excessive red in some of your prints?

Yes, that’s the exact reason I’m labouring the point. I’ve continued to

read

up on the subject and using a colour temperature of 9300K is where I tend to differ from all published advice. Switching to the recommended 6500K makes the screen look redder, and maybe it’ll match the output of my printer better now. I’ve not had chance to experiment as yet. I’m using 6500k now and I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve also found a lab in the city

who

have Fuji Frontier 370 machine, so I’ll be dropping a couple of images

into

them on Monday. (See earlier thread.)

I will get the bottom of all this if it kills me. And if I have to take a couple of the members of this newsgroup down with me, well, they’ll just

be

collateral damage. ;o)

On the subject of "taking down" people who genuinely tried to help you… All the posters offering you help from the beginning have considerable experience in their particular field. Any advise or suggestions they offered you were given in good faith. It would have been nice if the

That "taking down" line was a joke. I meant absolutely no disrespect to anyone.

Thanks for your point by point instructions – I’ll try them tomorrow and post another reply in this thread. This post is just to get the paragraph above in before I switch the computer off.

From: Derek Fountain

I will get the bottom of all this if it kills me.

Speaking from experience, it won’t kill you but it *might* make you poorer 🙂

Agro – your step 5 seems very backwards to me. Have you tried this? Maybe I’ve misinterpreted your objective but this will not communicate the camera’s color to the printer correctly. I’d be interested to hear your reasoning behind the method.

Every digital camera that I know of will embed an sRGB profile into an image, unless your camera is able to shoot in the AdobeRGB space, or you are shooting RAW. The only time you’d come across an untagged image straight from a camera:
1) You’ve got a really old camera
2) You’ve set your camera to Adobe RGB (which in most cases, the camera won’t assign Adobe RGB for you, it is up to the user).

If the objective is to bypass the monitor, then the workflow is to USE the embedded profile then convert to the printer profile. Be sure to check the printer driver to make sure that all color management settings are OFF (no color adjustment for the Epsons). And then print.

In both of the examples you seem to think that assigning a printer profile to an image shows you what will print. What you are actually doing by assigning the printer profile is falsely saying "this is how the camera interpreted the colors".

Your suggestions:
Untagged image: assign printer profile > convert to working space Tagged Image: Discard profile > assign Adobe RGB > assign printer profile

My suggestions:
Untagged Image: assign profile that describes what the camera saw (most likely sRGB or Adobe RGB) > convert to printer profile

Tagged Image: convert to printer profile

Thoughts?

"Agro?" …

5. close down Photoshop and open it again. Open a test image which has not been altered from the camera. If you are presented with the question: Assign profile? Choose the printer profile which matches your printer and tick "and then convert document to working space".
Alternatively… Just discard the embedded profile and use the working space profile. Then before you go any further, open ‘image’ ‘mode’ and assign the printer profile to the image – *NOT* convert it.

A most cogent and logical procedure. Thank you!

It appears that’s a procedure for WinXP or other OS as my Win2000 Start-Settings-Printers dialog box has the Properties selection grayed out.

I’m using Win2k. PS7 and a bunch of other things.

Any ideas?

DaveinFLL
==========================
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity!
==========================
(..Think the humidity’s bad?
You should watch us vote!)

Many thanks for your workflow instructions. Here’s the report:

2. Go to colour management tab. Here you must delete all profiles associated with the printer and click the ‘manual’ setting. Close the dialogue ensuring there is nothing in the profiles window the printer driver could use …a blank.

I did this, then tried a test print. No difference from what I normally see. So at least that’s one question answered, and I have a reference print. It also suggests that changing from 9300K to 6500K made no difference.

3. Follow (to the letter) Adobe’s Gamma setup instructions by using the wizard. Save the profile you create. Open the properties of your display (right click on the desktop) and go to ‘settings’ ‘advanced’ and associate the newly created profile with your monitor. Adobe gamma helps create a gamma of 2.2 in all the colour channels so in the end, your selection of a wildly wrong 9500k will only serve to produce insufficient adjustment to reach this goal… Go to 6500k or thereabouts.

OK, my eyeballs are now used to 6500K and I’ve double checked the the profile of my display. That profile was already associated with my monitor in the display settings.

4. Start up Photoshop and go to ‘edit’ ‘colour settings’. Tick the advanced box. Choose your working space, RGB as Adobe RGB (1998) and Grey Gamma of 2.2. Under Color management all three should be preserve embedded profiles and tick all 3 boxes underneath too. In Conversion options, use Adobe engine and (most important) Relative colorimetric.

OK. The Camera puts out images tagged as sRGB, but I switch the Adove RGB as you suggest. Grey Gamma as 2.2.

5. close down Photoshop and open it again. Open a test image which has not been altered from the camera. If you are presented with the question: Assign profile? Choose the printer profile which matches your printer and tick "and then convert document to working space".

I get an embedded profile mismatch dialog. My options are to use the embedded profile (sRGB), convert to working space (Adobe RGB) or discard embedded profile. No option for choosing a printer profile. Er…

Alternatively… Just discard the embedded profile and use the working space profile. Then before you go any further, open ‘image’ ‘mode’ and assign the printer profile to the image – *NOT* convert it.

OK, I chose this route. Discarded the profile and the image opened. I immediately assigned the printer profile and the image turned green. Things don’t look right, but I’ll try a print run anyway.

6. In the printer’s dialogue "printing preferences". click the advanced button and choose the printing method as "ICM" with *NO COLOR MANAGEMENT*.

Um, my options are ICM /or/ no colour management. I don’t understand your workflow so don’t know which to choose. It looks pretty horrible on screen, so unless that’s intentional in some way I think it’s going to look terrible on paper anyway.

Following on from Scott’s reply to your post, I had a go at his idea, which, for my sRGB tagged image was to convert to printer profile. I did that and the image looked slighter brighter on screen. When I printed it, it was (as close as I could tell) identical to my reference image: too dull and too much red. In other words, the usual problem which I’ve seen with this printer since I’ve had it.

It seems to me that there’s lots of ways of achieving the same printed result from Photoshop – lots of ways of balancing the same set of parameters. I’ve tried all the ones I’ve found or had suggested to me so far, and they all produce consistent results: rather dull images with too much red saturation. The consistency suggests I’m doing things correctly. I no longer think my problem is with my configuration; it’s either my monitor profile or my printer profile. Unless anyone has any further ideas…

If you assign a printer profile to an image, all it should do is marginally alter the tone/colour of the image to compensate for slight differences between screen and printer. NO EPSON PRINTER marketed as a Photo printer will significantly deviate from what you see on a correctly profiled monitor.
________

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

Many thanks for your workflow instructions. Here’s the report:

2. Go to colour management tab. Here you must delete all profiles associated with the printer and click the ‘manual’ setting. Close the dialogue ensuring there is nothing in the profiles window the printer driver could use …a blank.

I did this, then tried a test print. No difference from what I normally

see.

So at least that’s one question answered, and I have a reference print. It also suggests that changing from 9300K to 6500K made no difference.

___________

The point here is to stop the printer using a profile not assigned to it in Photoshop.
__________

3. Follow (to the letter) Adobe’s Gamma setup instructions by using the wizard. Save the profile you create. Open the properties of your display (right click on the desktop) and go to ‘settings’ ‘advanced’ and

associate

the newly created profile with your monitor. Adobe gamma helps create a gamma of 2.2 in all the colour channels so in the end, your selection of

a

wildly wrong 9500k will only serve to produce insufficient adjustment to reach this goal… Go to 6500k or thereabouts.

OK, my eyeballs are now used to 6500K and I’ve double checked the the profile of my display. That profile was already associated with my monitor in the display settings.

4. Start up Photoshop and go to ‘edit’ ‘colour settings’. Tick the advanced box. Choose your working space, RGB as Adobe RGB (1998) and

Grey

Gamma of 2.2. Under Color management all three should be preserve

embedded

profiles and tick all 3 boxes underneath too. In Conversion options, use Adobe engine and (most important) Relative colorimetric.

OK. The Camera puts out images tagged as sRGB, but I switch the Adove RGB

as

you suggest. Grey Gamma as 2.2.

5. close down Photoshop and open it again. Open a test image which has

not

been altered from the camera. If you are presented with the question: Assign profile? Choose the printer profile which matches your printer

and

tick "and then convert document to working space".

I get an embedded profile mismatch dialog. My options are to use the embedded profile (sRGB), convert to working space (Adobe RGB) or discard embedded profile. No option for choosing a printer profile. Er…

________

Image shot as Adobe RGB and then imported into photoshop will prompt you for assigining a printer profile. Otherwise you have to CONVERT the image to the working profile and then ASIGN your printer’s profile to it. The image may change colour/tone slightly but if it changes to your "pretty horrible" image, something is wrong. Try assigning other EPSON profiles to the image. In particular download the ICC profiles for EPSON papers here: http://tech.epson.com.au/downloads/product.asp?id=stylusPhot oR310&platform=all&submit=Search+%3E%3E
and assign the appropriete profile for the paper you are using. ________

Alternatively… Just discard the embedded profile and use the working space profile. Then before you go any further, open ‘image’ ‘mode’ and assign the printer profile to the image – *NOT* convert it.

OK, I chose this route. Discarded the profile and the image opened. I immediately assigned the printer profile and the image turned green.

Things

don’t look right, but I’ll try a print run anyway.

6. In the printer’s dialogue "printing preferences". click the advanced button and choose the printing method as "ICM" with *NO COLOR

MANAGEMENT*.

Um, my options are ICM /or/ no colour management. I don’t understand your workflow so don’t know which to choose. It looks pretty horrible on

screen,

so unless that’s intentional in some way I think it’s going to look terrible on paper anyway.

_________

DO NOT LET THE PRINTER MANAGE COLOUR
_________

Following on from Scott’s reply to your post, I had a go at his idea,

which,

for my sRGB tagged image was to convert to printer profile. I did that and the image looked slighter brighter on screen. When I printed it, it was

(as

close as I could tell) identical to my reference image: too dull and too much red. In other words, the usual problem which I’ve seen with this printer since I’ve had it.

________

You are still letting the printer manage colour…
________

It seems to me that there’s lots of ways of achieving the same printed result from Photoshop – lots of ways of balancing the same set of parameters. I’ve tried all the ones I’ve found or had suggested to me so far, and they all produce consistent results: rather dull images with too much red saturation. The consistency suggests I’m doing things correctly.

I

no longer think my problem is with my configuration; it’s either my

monitor

profile or my printer profile. Unless anyone has any further ideas…

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I get an embedded profile mismatch dialog. My options are to use the embedded profile (sRGB), convert to working space (Adobe RGB) or discard embedded profile. No option for choosing a printer profile. Er…

________

Image shot as Adobe RGB and then imported into photoshop will prompt you for assigining a printer profile.

Correction: It will prompt you to assign a WORKING profile. Your working profile is usually NOT the same as your printer profile. Assign sRGB or AdobeRGB and work in that. If you want to print, use soft proofing to know what you are doing.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Correction: It will prompt you to assign a WORKING profile. Your working profile is usually NOT the same as your printer profile. Assign sRGB or AdobeRGB and work in that. If you want to print, use soft proofing to know what you are doing.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

————–
Correction: Photoshop CS will prompt you to assign a printer profile and continue working in the selected workspace if your image is shot in Adobe RGB which co-incidently is a good method of getting a wider gamut out of a ..jpg image and goes a long way towards avoiding blown out highlights.

Try it your self Johan… Shoot Adobe RGB instead of sRGB. You’ll be surprised at what Photoshop does when it discovers you’ve shot a pic with the working profile!

Douglas

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

________

Image shot as Adobe RGB and then imported into photoshop will prompt you

for

assigining a printer profile.

Correction: It will prompt you to assign a WORKING profile. Your working profile is usually NOT the same as your printer profile. Assign sRGB or AdobeRGB and work in that. If you want to print, use soft proofing to know what you are doing.
—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

____________________

Just to clarify my statement which Johan incorrectly corrected me on… Here is the mystery message he doesn’t seem to be able to generate. http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg

Douglas

"Derek Fountain" wrote in message

It seems to me that there’s lots of ways of achieving the same printed result from Photoshop – lots of ways of balancing the same set of parameters. I’ve tried all the ones I’ve found or had suggested to me so far, and they all produce consistent results: rather dull images with too much red saturation. The consistency suggests I’m doing things correctly.

I

no longer think my problem is with my configuration; it’s either my

monitor

profile or my printer profile. Unless anyone has any further ideas…

_________________

Give it another try Derek…
When you are ready to print your image, use "Print with Preview". The screen you get should match this one (except for the paper/printer choice). http://www.technoaussie.com/images/print-profile.jpg
If it doesn’t, make the changes and do it again. Right at the start someone told you the problem – you are using Photoshop AND Epson to manage colour. Kill the Epson colour management and have PS manage it.

Douglas

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

Correction: Photoshop CS will prompt you to assign a printer profile and continue working in the selected workspace if your image is shot in Adobe RGB which co-incidently is a good method of getting a wider gamut out of a .jpg image and goes a long way towards avoiding blown out highlights.
Try it your self Johan… Shoot Adobe RGB instead of sRGB. You’ll be surprised at what Photoshop does when it discovers you’ve shot a pic with the working profile!

Read my answer to your other remark. You clearly have no idea whay you are doing, don’t you? That message only comes up if your camera does not EMBED a color profile. It has nothing to do with the fact that you shot in AdobeRGB or sRGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Correction: It will prompt you to assign a WORKING profile. Your working profile is usually NOT the same as your printer profile. Assign sRGB or AdobeRGB and work in that. If you want to print, use soft proofing to know what you are doing.
—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

____________________

Just to clarify my statement which Johan incorrectly corrected me on… Here is the mystery message he doesn’t seem to be able to generate. http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg

Don’t worry, I *AM* able to create that message if I want to. It’s just that YOU don’t understand what it means. What it means is exactly what is says: Your image is not EMBEDDED with a color profile. It means that, although you may have shot it in AdobeRGB or sRGB, your camera did not embed a profile, so Photoshop does not know which color space to use. You have to manually tell it to use AdobeRGB or sRGB. It does NOT mean that you should assign your printer profile, which you INCORRECTLY show here as the option you use. Do *NOT* set Stylus Photo R300 here! Your camera does not shoot in Stylus Photo R300 color space, it shoots in sRGB or AdobeRGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Johan, how come you don’t have a clue on how to fix the problem yourself? Like many before you, you jump in with critisism and never advise. If you took the time to learn instead of huff on about what you know, you might actually get a clue or two yourself.

My advise to the OP came directly from Epson’s head of printer research and Development. Quite the opposite from you, he does have a clue or two on how to make an Epson printer reproduce accurate results.

Go here and download the Epson RGB print guide for Windows and learn about what you critisize me for providing. Maybe you might just get a clue yourself, eh? Or are you just a bloody minded bigot?

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Correction: It will prompt you to assign a WORKING profile. Your

working

profile is usually NOT the same as your printer profile. Assign sRGB

or

AdobeRGB and work in that. If you want to print, use soft proofing to know what you are doing.
—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

____________________

Just to clarify my statement which Johan incorrectly corrected me on… Here is the mystery message he doesn’t seem to be able to generate. http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg

Don’t worry, I *AM* able to create that message if I want to. It’s just that YOU don’t understand what it means. What it means is exactly what is says: Your image is not EMBEDDED with a color profile. It means that, although you may have shot it in AdobeRGB or sRGB, your camera did not embed a profile, so Photoshop does not know which color space to use. You have to manually tell it to use AdobeRGB or sRGB. It does NOT mean that you should assign your printer profile, which you INCORRECTLY show here as the option you use. Do *NOT* set Stylus Photo R300 here! Your camera does not shoot in Stylus Photo R300 color space, it shoots in sRGB or AdobeRGB.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

Johan, how come you don’t have a clue on how to fix the problem yourself?

I don’t have a problem, because my DSLR does embed color profiles. But if it didn’t, I would know how to fix it. Besides, I always shoot in RAW format, but I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything to you.

Like many before you, you jump in with critisism and never advise.

If so many jump in with critisism, it’s maybe because you say something wrong! I did give you advice, but you refuse to accept it. I wonder if you even read it. But if you did, you certainly did not understand it. Let me try one more time:

1. Your camera shoots in sRGB (or AdobeRGB, but in your case I bet it will be sRGB).

2. When Photoshop opens the image, it needs to know this. That is what profiles are for! So, when your camera embeds a profile, Photoshop will know what to do and will not bother you with that dialog.

3. Unfortunately, your camera does NOT embed a profile. Many consumer cameras do not. Consequently, Photoshop does not know which color space to use, so it asks you through that dialog.
READ WHAT THE DIALOG SAYS, PLEASE!!!!

4. Try to understand that this dialog has nothing to do with your printer! You would even get this dialog if you had no printer at all. It is the result of your CAMERA not embedding a profile.

5. What you should do is "Assign sRGB", if that is what your camera has used. You could convert to your working space (which is set to AdobeRGB), but that is not really necessary. You won’t gain anything if you convert from sRGB to AdobeRGB, it only takes time. If your camera has used AdobeRGB, you should assign that.

6. From here, you can use the ‘soft proof’ setup with the Epson R300 profile to see what the image would look when you print it. If you do print, you should use ‘Document’ as source space and ‘Epson R300’ as print space, with ‘black point compensation’ turned on and ‘Perceptual’ as intent.

7. Alternatively, you could CONVERT your image to the Epson R300 color space first (using the ‘Convert to Profile’ menu in Photoshop). In that case, you use ‘Same as source’ as print space. That is probably what this Epson guy (see below) tried to explain to you.

My advise to the OP came directly from Epson’s head of printer research and Development. Quite the opposite from you, he does have a clue or two on how to make an Epson printer reproduce accurate results.

So you speak Japanese and called Nagano? I’m sure he knows. But you clearly misunderstood him. He definitely did NOT tell you to ASSIGN the Epson profile to images that come fresh out of your camera. That would be utter nonsense. He may have advised you to CONVERT them in Photoshop to the Epson color space when you want to print them, but that is another matter (and another dialog).

Go here and download the Epson RGB print guide for Windows and learn about what you critisize me for providing.

Read it again, and try to understand the difference between the color space of the input (the image that comes out of the camera) and the output (the image sent to the printer). You may also read the manual and the help files that come with Photoshop.

Maybe you might just get a clue
yourself, eh? Or are you just a bloody minded bigot?

As a professional photographer and writer of many Photoshop workshops and guides, I know exactly what I’m talking about, thank you. It’s my job to know, and I know my job.

Your attitude stinks. You start calling me names for the simple reason that I tell you you’ve made a mistake and you don’t like to be told you’re wrong. As far as I’m concerned, this is the end of this discussion. I have no desire to waste any more time on you.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

If you assign a printer profile to an image, all it should do is marginally alter the tone/colour of the image to compensate for slight differences between screen and printer. NO EPSON PRINTER marketed as a Photo printer will significantly deviate from what you see on a correctly profiled monitor.

I wouldn’t assign a printer profile!!! Assign a wider color space, like Adobe RGB. A printer profile is – in general – smaller. The printer profile comes in the final stage, when printing. For proofing on screen, set your printer profile to the Epson profile, but *DO NOT* use the Epson profile as working space!

Waldo

Waldo wrote:

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

If you assign a printer profile to an image, all it should do is marginally alter the tone/colour of the image to compensate for slight differences between screen and printer. NO EPSON PRINTER marketed as a Photo printer will significantly deviate from what you see on a correctly profiled monitor.

I wouldn’t assign a printer profile!!! Assign a wider color space, like Adobe RGB. A printer profile is – in general – smaller. The printer profile comes in the final stage, when printing. For proofing on screen, set your printer profile to the Epson profile, but *DO NOT* use the Epson profile as working space!

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Douglas, but he doesn’t listen. Besides, there is a major difference between *assign* a profile and *convert to* a profile. You ONLY assign a profile if you know the color space, but somehow the image isn’t tagged with a profile of that color space. If you want to change the color space of an image, you should not *assign* a new profile, but use the *convert to profile* menu.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas, as Johan has pointed out, in this case it is completely incorrect to assign a printer profile to an untagged image from a digital camera and then convert to the working space. If an image is untagged then you should assign a profile that describes the color information as seen by the capture device (i.e., the camera’s profile). Output is not a concern yet! If you were to edit this image after the correct camera profile were assigned then you should convert to a working space such as Adobe RGB, sRGB. What you have said about Adobe RGB vs. sRGB is correct – Adobe RGB is a larger space

Also, if those in the group do not understand the differences between assigning, and converting, please read up on the terms before offering advice to others. The terminology needs to be straight-forward when explaining these things, otherwise no progress can be made.

You can assign profiles to images all day long. Assigning does not change the data of the image. It describes the color numbers to the color management system within Photoshop and becomes a source for conversions. It is tough to figure out a route from New York City to Los Angeles if you didn’t know that you’re in NYC to begin with! You need to know the source and the destination. Converting uses the information in the assigned profile and translates the color information to the new profile (the destination). The purpose of a conversion is to preserve the appearance of an image as dictated by the assigned profile.

Scott

Douglas MacDonald wrote:
Image shot as Adobe RGB and then imported into photoshop will prompt you for assigining a printer profile.

Just to clarify my statement which Johan incorrectly corrected me on… Here is the mystery message he doesn’t seem to be able to generate. http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg

Douglas

You pass judgment on too many things Johan
You have no knowledge of what cameras I have or for that matter what I do for a living yet you have already decided my camera(s) captures sRGB images. You are quite wrong. They could but they don’t. The gamut is too narrow for my use.

The advise you tried to give me is wrong, why then would I take it? How about you offer some clear, step-by-step instruction on how you fix(ed) the problem. What’s that? You don’t have the problem? Oh? How come you can tell us how to fix it then?

Did you even bother to read the Epson instructions I linked to? – part of which I gave the OP. Seemingly not. Did you understand the printer preamble of print with preview in the link I posted to the screen grab? Did you see or comprehend that the image being sent to the printer was already tailored for the printer and the paper type?

I waste my time on replies to your stupid remarks which have no backup to fact.

Douglas
______________
"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

Johan, how come you don’t have a clue on how to fix the problem

yourself?

I don’t have a problem, because my DSLR does embed color profiles. But if it didn’t, I would know how to fix it. Besides, I always shoot in RAW format, but I’m sure that doesn’t mean anything to you.

Like many before you, you jump in with critisism and never advise.

If so many jump in with critisism, it’s maybe because you say something wrong! I did give you advice, but you refuse to accept it. I wonder if you even read it. But if you did, you certainly did not understand it. Let me try one more time:

1. Your camera shoots in sRGB (or AdobeRGB, but in your case I bet it will be sRGB).

2. When Photoshop opens the image, it needs to know this. That is what profiles are for! So, when your camera embeds a profile, Photoshop will know what to do and will not bother you with that dialog.

3. Unfortunately, your camera does NOT embed a profile. Many consumer cameras do not. Consequently, Photoshop does not know which color space to use, so it asks you through that dialog.
READ WHAT THE DIALOG SAYS, PLEASE!!!!

4. Try to understand that this dialog has nothing to do with your printer! You would even get this dialog if you had no printer at all. It is the result of your CAMERA not embedding a profile.
5. What you should do is "Assign sRGB", if that is what your camera has used. You could convert to your working space (which is set to AdobeRGB), but that is not really necessary. You won’t gain anything if you convert from sRGB to AdobeRGB, it only takes time. If your camera has used AdobeRGB, you should assign that.

6. From here, you can use the ‘soft proof’ setup with the Epson R300 profile to see what the image would look when you print it. If you do print, you should use ‘Document’ as source space and ‘Epson R300’ as print space, with ‘black point compensation’ turned on and ‘Perceptual’ as intent.

7. Alternatively, you could CONVERT your image to the Epson R300 color space first (using the ‘Convert to Profile’ menu in Photoshop). In that case, you use ‘Same as source’ as print space. That is probably what this Epson guy (see below) tried to explain to you.

My advise to the OP came directly from Epson’s head of printer research

and

Development. Quite the opposite from you, he does have a clue or two on

how

to make an Epson printer reproduce accurate results.

So you speak Japanese and called Nagano? I’m sure he knows. But you clearly misunderstood him. He definitely did NOT tell you to ASSIGN the Epson profile to images that come fresh out of your camera. That would be utter nonsense. He may have advised you to CONVERT them in Photoshop to the Epson color space when you want to print them, but that is another matter (and another dialog).

Go here and download the Epson RGB print guide for Windows and learn

about

what you critisize me for providing.

Read it again, and try to understand the difference between the color space of the input (the image that comes out of the camera) and the output (the image sent to the printer). You may also read the manual and the help files that come with Photoshop.

Maybe you might just get a clue
yourself, eh? Or are you just a bloody minded bigot?

As a professional photographer and writer of many Photoshop workshops and guides, I know exactly what I’m talking about, thank you. It’s my job to know, and I know my job.

Your attitude stinks. You start calling me names for the simple reason that I tell you you’ve made a mistake and you don’t like to be told you’re wrong. As far as I’m concerned, this is the end of this discussion. I have no desire to waste any more time on you.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Like Johan, you seek to offer how much you know and demonstrate how little you can help. Somehow you both seem to think it is I who produced these instructions when it was Epson’s own developer of the profiles for Photoshop who wrote them. All I did/do is offer my customers and anyone else having a problem with Epson Photo printers, the advise on how to fix the problem.

You, Johan and as many self styled Photoshop experts as care to do so, can tell me I got it wrong. You can tell Epson they got it wrong too but at the credits line I can list 16 professional Photographers I sell printers and supplies to who will tell you how much trouble they had and that it was fixed by applying Epson’s instructions… The same instructions I offered the OP.

You are correct that you can assign as many profiles as you like to an image and it will remain the same in it’s working space. It is when you follow the whole of the instructions and take away colour management from the printer, you can then see how assigning a profile at the beginning has no effect until it goes to print.

I also question why, when Adobe RGB has a considerably wider gamut than sRGB, would you not use Adobe RGB for digital camera capture if you had the choice? If you use a DSLR and must use RGB capture, it is good practice to capture as much detail as is possible. Hence when you open an image captured as Adobe RGB you are greeted with a different offer to when you open one captured with sRGB.

You may well be quite knowledgeable, how would I know? We have never met. Johan may have a clue now and then too but to seek to shoot the messenger is achieving nothing… Rome will still burn. You (and Johan) have overlooked the purpose of this thread and the one which prompted it… It is to get an Epson printer to print without a magenta colour cast.

Along the way the OP discovered his monitor must have close to balanced colour to fix the first problem. My step by step instructions are based on those provided by Epson at a technical seminar held for Epson repair technicians. So far… It’s 28 fixes out of 30. From where I sit, this is as good as it gets so how do you fix the problem? Oh, don’t have it? God, not another one!

Douglas
________
"Scott Southerland" wrote in message

Douglas, as Johan has pointed out, in this case it is completely incorrect to assign a printer profile to an untagged image from a digital camera and then convert to the working space. If an image is untagged then you should assign a profile that describes the color information as seen by the capture device (i.e., the camera’s profile). Output is not a concern yet! If you were to edit this image after the correct camera profile were assigned then you should convert to a working space such as Adobe RGB, sRGB. What you have said about Adobe RGB vs. sRGB is correct – Adobe RGB is a larger space
Also, if those in the group do not understand the differences between assigning, and converting, please read up on the terms before offering advice to others. The terminology needs to be straight-forward when explaining these things, otherwise no progress can be made.
You can assign profiles to images all day long. Assigning does not change the data of the image. It describes the color numbers to the color management system within Photoshop and becomes a source for conversions. It is tough to figure out a route from New York City to Los Angeles if you didn’t know that you’re in NYC to begin with! You need to know the source and the destination. Converting uses the information in the assigned profile and translates the color information to the new profile (the destination). The purpose of a conversion is to preserve the appearance of an image as dictated by the assigned profile.

Scott

Douglas MacDonald wrote:
Image shot as Adobe RGB and then imported into photoshop will prompt

you

for assigining a printer profile.

Just to clarify my statement which Johan incorrectly corrected me on… Here is the mystery message he doesn’t seem to be able to generate. http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg

Douglas

I never suggested you should use a printer profile as working space. I said to assign a printer profile and continue using the working space. If I had said to convert the image to the printer profile I would have been wrong. Do you know the English language descriptions of Assign and convert? In case you don’t, to assign something is to attach it. To convert something is to change it.

Douglas
_______________________-
"Waldo" wrote in message

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

If you assign a printer profile to an image, all it should do is

marginally

alter the tone/colour of the image to compensate for slight differences between screen and printer. NO EPSON PRINTER marketed as a Photo printer will significantly deviate from what you see on a correctly profiled monitor.

I wouldn’t assign a printer profile!!! Assign a wider color space, like Adobe RGB. A printer profile is – in general – smaller. The printer profile comes in the final stage, when printing. For proofing on screen, set your printer profile to the Epson profile, but *DO NOT* use the Epson profile as working space!

Waldo

I never suggested changing the working space of the image only assigning a printing profile to it which comes into use when the image is sent to the printer. Perhaps English not being your first language make it hard to understand what I write?

Douglas
__________________
"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Waldo wrote:

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

If you assign a printer profile to an image, all it should do is

marginally

alter the tone/colour of the image to compensate for slight

differences

between screen and printer. NO EPSON PRINTER marketed as a Photo

printer

will significantly deviate from what you see on a correctly profiled monitor.

I wouldn’t assign a printer profile!!! Assign a wider color space, like Adobe RGB. A printer profile is – in general – smaller. The printer profile comes in the final stage, when printing. For proofing on screen, set your printer profile to the Epson profile, but *DO NOT* use the Epson profile as working space!

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Douglas, but he doesn’t listen. Besides, there is a major difference between *assign* a profile and *convert to* a profile. You ONLY assign a profile if you know the color space, but somehow the image isn’t tagged with a profile of that color space. If you want to change the color space of an image, you should not *assign* a new profile, but use the *convert to profile* menu.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Douglas MacDonald" wrote in message

I never suggested you should use a printer profile as working space. I

said

to assign a printer profile and continue using the working space. If I had said to convert the image to the printer profile I would have been wrong.

Do

you know the English language descriptions of Assign and convert? In case you don’t, to assign something is to attach it. To convert something is to change it.

Douglas

Although English is not my native language, I do know the meaning of those two different terms, but in your post I read "If you assign a printer profile to an image" and I just wanted to point out that you should never do that.

If that was not what you meant, I am sorry for this misunderstanding.

Waldo

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I never suggested you should use a printer profile as working space. I said to assign a printer profile and continue using the working space.

Which is the same as saying "From now on I’ll only speak French, but I’ll continue to speak English". You cannot "assign a profile and continue to work using another color space". A profile *is* a description of your color space and you can only have one color space at a time.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Johan W. Elzenga" wrote in message

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I never suggested you should use a printer profile as working space. I

said

to assign a printer profile and continue using the working space.

Which is the same as saying "From now on I’ll only speak French, but I’ll continue to speak English". You cannot "assign a profile and continue to work using another color space". A profile *is* a description of your color space and you can only have one color space at a time.
________________

Well no you have it wrong Johan and still refuse to see light when the sun is shining.

Look here : http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg I’ll tell you what it says in English.
"Assign" the profile Stylus Photo R300 R310 Series to the image and then "convert" the image to the working RGB space. Once again you are confussing assign with convert. The relevance of this action is lost on you Johan and on Waldo too it would seem.

This proceedure assigns the printing profile for an Epson r300/r310 to the image and allows you to work on the image in a colour space managed by Adobe Gamma. Basically it assures you can print what you see, all other things being equal. Everyone who says you cannot assign printer profile and still work in another, managed work space are wrong. Simple as that. It’s not rocket science, I can’t understand why you can’t see this.

If you don’t get this offer when you load an image, it’s because the camera’s profile is usually sRGB. Change that profile to widen the gamut by choosing Adobe RGB in the camera and you will be offered the opportunity to assign a profile and convert to the working space in one hit. If you just convert to the working space, you will have to assign a printing profile at some stage or the image will go to the printer with miss-matched colour and produce a magenta cast on Epson Printers.

Douglas

"Douglas MacDonald" wrote in message
SNIP

Look here : http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg I’ll tell you what it says in English.
"Assign" the profile Stylus Photo R300 R310 Series to the image and

then

"convert" the image to the working RGB space. Once again you are

confussing

assign with convert. The relevance of this action is lost on you

Johan and

on Waldo too it would seem.

It is on me as well, because it makes no sense unless the file was converted to the printer profile before, and it got stripped somehow.

This proceedure assigns the printing profile for an Epson r300/r310

to the

image and allows you to work on the image in a colour space managed

by Adobe

Gamma.

Yes, but nobody is questioning that. What IS being questioned is that the colors are correct. The capture device most likely has a color space that is different from the output device’s colorspace. It is therefore nonsense to attach the output profile to the input data (unless they have identical colorspaces).

Basically it assures you can print what you see, all other things being equal.

Yes, but you will see that the colors are wrong, and usually need a huge attempt to approach realistic colors. The color corrections are usually too complex to do it by hand, that’s why we have color management to do it for us.

Everyone who says you cannot assign printer profile and still work in another, managed work space are wrong.

Of course you can, but it will give the wrong results, so you shouldn’t. That is what most people have been telling you, and they are correct.

Simple as that. It’s not rocket science, I can’t understand why you

can’t see this.

Maybe because you are assuming too many things based on your particular setup (assuming an sRGB camera, an sRGB workingspace, and an sRGB printer would produce predictable colors)?

If you don’t get this offer when you load an image, it’s because the camera’s profile is usually sRGB.

The only way you will get the dialog you linked to, is if the file DOES NOT HAVE AN EMBEDDED COLOR PROFILE.
If the camera did have a profile tag embedded, you can get a different dialog offering to, amongst others, convert the embedded one to your working space (if the preferences are set-up like that).

So you either convert from whatever is embedded to your working space, or if nothing is embedded then you can assign a profile of choice, optionally followed by a conversion to your working space (or output space, but that’s a bad thing to do if you still have to edit the image).

Change that profile to widen the gamut by choosing Adobe RGB in the camera and you will be offered the opportunity to assign a profile and convert to the working space in one hit.

No, if the camera did embed a profile tag, it requires a mismatch with the working space to trigger any dialog.

If you just convert to the working space, you will have to assign a

printing profile at

some stage

Normally done when printing the image : -O

or the image will go to the printer with miss-matched colour and produce a magenta cast on Epson Printers.

Obviously, yes.

Bart

"Douglas MacDonald" wrote in message
[snip]

Well no you have it wrong Johan and still refuse to see light when the

sun

is shining.

[snip]

I don’t know how many people you need to agree with Johan before you will believe him, but for what it’s worth, I feel that Johan is, and always has been spot on in his advice, and no words need to be added to what he’s said.

[snip]

Look here : http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg I’ll tell you what it says in English.
"Assign" the profile Stylus Photo R300 R310 Series to the image and then "convert" the image to the working RGB space. Once again you are

confussing

assign with convert. The relevance of this action is lost on you Johan and on Waldo too it would seem.

[snip]

To do this is just plain *wrong*. Don’t do it. Digital cameras do not produce
images in a printer’s colour space.

Greg. (who uses colour management, and gets a very good match between scanner, monitor, digital camera, and printer)

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

Look here : http://www.technoaussie.com/images/mystery-q.jpg I’ll tell you what it says in English.
"Assign" the profile Stylus Photo R300 R310 Series to the image and then "convert" the image to the working RGB space. Once again you are confussing assign with convert. The relevance of this action is lost on you Johan and on Waldo too it would seem.

Don’t worry, I understand exactly what that dialog means and what you are doing here. That is not the point. The point is that you assign the wrong profile.

This proceedure assigns the printing profile for an Epson r300/r310 to the image

Correct. It assigns that profile. However, since this is an image that comes fresh out of your camera, that is the wrong profile. What you are doing here is saying: "this image is in my printer color space". How can that be? Did you shoot the image with your printer? You should assign the *camera profile*, which is either sRGB or AdobeRGB (or a camera specific profile if you have that).

and allows you to work on the image in a colour space managed by Adobe Gamma.

Adobe Gamma is a monitor calibration utility. It does not manage colour spaces for you, Photoshop does. Adobe Gamma only manages the way you see it on your monitor. The rest you understood correctly: Converting the image to your working space will indeed convert your image to AdobeRGB. Unfortunately, the color shifts you introduced by assigning the wrong profile, will remain during that conversion.

Basically it assures you can print what you see, all other things being equal. Everyone who says you cannot assign printer profile and still work in another, managed work space are wrong.

You can assign a printer space and then *convert* to another space. That you can. You can not assign a printer space and work in another space at the same time. That is simply impossible, just as it is impossible to be in Melbourne and Sydney at the same time.

If you don’t get this offer when you load an image, it’s because the camera’s profile is usually sRGB.

Sigh… Look at what that dialog is telling you! It is plain English. The title is "Missing Profile". Now what would that mean?… And the first sentence reads: "The RGB document does not have an embedded color profile". This means exactly what it says: it means that your camera did not embed a color profile! Why don’t you believe what Photoshop is telling you? If your camera *did* embed a profile, you would not get this dialog for the simple reason that the profile would not be missing in the first place. But it doesn’t matter what profile that is. If it’s AdobeRGB, you won’t get this dialog either because the profile would also not be missing.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I never suggested changing the working space of the image only assigning a printing profile to it which comes into use when the image is sent to the printer.
Perhaps English not being your first language make it hard to understand what I write?

Wait a minute! Now I understand what you are trying to do! You are not into color management at all. What you are really after is becoming the next Iraqi Minister of Information! You are just getting some practise… 😉

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Douglas MacDonald" …

Like Johan, you seek to offer how much you know and demonstrate how little you can help. Somehow you both seem to think it is I who produced these instructions when it was Epson’s own developer of the profiles for Photoshop who wrote them. All I did/do is offer my customers and anyone else having a problem with Epson Photo printers, the advise on how to fix the problem.

My purpose of posting in this thread was to stop you and others from posting wrong and/or misleading information. If the information you got from Epson was to assign printer profiles to any image to make pretty color then I question both you, and this developer that you speak of. The PDF file that Epson distributes disagrees with you and your developer friend. My advise to fixing this problem is to follow the directions here:
http://support.epson.ru/upload/library_file/13/icc_macosx.pd f This is for OS X but the important parts of the procedure are identical to Windows.
Please Douglas, point out where it says to assign a printer profile to your image and I will happily consider this a lesson learned.

You are correct that you can assign as many profiles as you like to an image and it will remain the same in it’s working space.

Stop right there. That is not what I said. The image does not remain the same when you assign different profiles. Converting, however, will try to maintain the appearance of the image. Assigning profiles to an image can drastically change the look of an image. Pllease realize that as soon as you assign a profile to an image, that becomes your working space. Your range of available colors is confined to the profile that is assigned to the image.

I also question why, when Adobe RGB has a considerably wider gamut than sRGB, would you not use Adobe RGB for digital camera capture if you had the choice?

Yes, if you have a choice between Adobe RGB and sRGB then Adobe RGB would often be a wiser choice. This does mean that you should assign Adobe RGB to images that were captured by the camera in sRGB!

If you use a DSLR and must use RGB capture, it is good practice to capture as much detail as is possible. Hence when you open an image captured as Adobe RGB you are greeted with a different offer to when you open one captured with sRGB.

I don’t see your point. The dialog boxes that you see are dependent on the image and your color settings, not how much detail you’ve captured or what kind of camera you’ve used.

Johan may have a clue now and then too but to seek to shoot the messenger is achieving nothing… Rome will still burn.

Yes, but you can still jump the guy that is carrying the burning torch.

Along the way the OP discovered his monitor must have close to balanced colour to fix the first problem. My step by step instructions are based on those provided by Epson at a technical seminar held for Epson repair technicians. So far… It’s 28 fixes out of 30. From where I sit, this is as good as it gets so how do you fix the problem? Oh, don’t have it? God, not another one!

I don’t doubt your training. I doubt your terminology and your methods based on the information you’ve posted here. I’m honestly curious to hear how assigning a printer profile on opening an image (regardless of source?) will prevent the magenta cast.

"Greg" wrote in message

To do this is just plain *wrong*. Don’t do it. Digital cameras do not produce
images in a printer’s colour space.

Greg. (who uses colour management, and gets a very good match between scanner, monitor, digital camera, and printer)

So if we listen to Johan and the 4 people who agree with him, we must then say that the information developed and provided by Epson to get a brilliant photograph printed on their Photo inkjet printers is all wrong. Don’t do it and do not believe the people providing the printers or the information on how to set them up?

I give up.
Douglas

"Douglas MacDonald" wrote in message

I give up.

If it’s any consolation, I’m quite a technical person, but it did take me an embarrasingly long time
to really come to terms with colour management. It now seems so easy and clear to me, but I remember
having trouble for quite a while.

I encourage you not to give up, and instead, go back over the earlier posts, and try to understand them,
and ask (politely) for help about the aspects you don’t understand.

Greg.

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

"Greg" wrote in message

To do this is just plain *wrong*. Don’t do it. Digital cameras do not produce
images in a printer’s colour space.

Greg. (who uses colour management, and gets a very good match between scanner, monitor, digital camera, and printer)

So if we listen to Johan and the 4 people who agree with him, we must then say that the information developed and provided by Epson to get a brilliant photograph printed on their Photo inkjet printers is all wrong.

No, we must say that you do not fully understand that information. MOST of what you do makes perfect sense. It’s just that the first step, where you assing a printer profile to an input file, is wrong. Epson has never told you to do that and they do not have official documentation where it says you should do that. Give me a direct link (not just some general directions) to a document that proves otherwise and I’m happy to change my mind.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I never suggested changing the working space of the image only assigning a printing profile to it which comes into use when the image is sent to the printer.

Douglas,

I’m beginning to understand why you make this mistake and why you insist it’s correct. You seem to think that a profile is something like an instruction set. So you think that if you tag an AdobeRGB (or sRGB) image with the Epson profile, you’ll have an AdobeRGB image with Epson printer instructions. That’s why you say "I never suggested changing the working space of the image, only assigning a printing profile to it". You do not realize that this is a contradiction.

A profile *is* a color space, in the sense that it is the description of that colour space. If you assign a profile to an image, you tell Photoshop to consider the color space of the image to be the color space of the profile. So you *do* change the working space! And since your camera does not produce images in the color space of your printer, that is not the correct way to work with profiles. Go back to my message with the seven steps to read what is the correct way.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/

"Douglas MacDonald" …

So if we listen to Johan and the 4 people who agree with him, we must then say that the information developed and provided by Epson to get a brilliant photograph printed on their Photo inkjet printers is all wrong.

Douglas, check out my post here:
http://tinyurl.com/4h9u4
I think you may have missed the link to the PDF I posted from Epson. It sounds like the tech you spoke with at Epson may have been confused or just not on his game that day. The instructions from their website are sound when followed correctly.