Help with Color management setup

[cdavid]

Hi everyone I need some guidance as to how to set this up.  I am not sure if I have a problem or not?  I am on a Mac running snow leapord OS 10.6.8, My Canon Camera uses the Adobe RGB color space.  I have my Mac monitor calibrated and in photoshop I use Adobe RGB as the working color space and my outputs are set to work with my specific printers, etc.  I proof in sRBG for image to be posted on the web.  Now....

in pixinsight my monitor profile is set to the "monitor calibrated profile" which shows up automatically as the default as expected.  But under the default profiles for RGB and Grayscale the pulldown list is quite limited.  I see my monitor profiles but NO sRGB or Adobe RGB?  Is there something wrong or is this the way it is supposed to function.  I have left it set to keep embedded profiles, but what of untagged images.....I have never heard of assigning my monitors profile to an image that is untagged, etc...does anyone know what the correct settings would be for this?  Currently I have it set to not manage color in these images.

Similarly under the proofing options....again I am limited to mainly my monitors profile and a few others I do not recognize.  Why is there no sRGB or Adobe RGB options?  And in the global settings box??  No idea what to do here.

Anyone on a Mac who can share their settings or educate me if I am totally off here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone
Cheers
Carlos

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Carlos,

My Canon Camera uses the Adobe RGB color space.

If you are shooting in a raw format, then any color management topic is (should be) meaningless for raw data. Digital raw images are just matrices of numeric values proportional to accumulated charges during the exposure time. If these values were referred to a particular color space --and in the case of Adobe RGB, to a nonlinear space--, they would be no raw data at all.

Once you have stretched your image, you can opt to continue working in a color space of your choice, such as Adobe RGB, sRGB, etc. However, please note that when you start with linear raw data, no nonlinear color space has any physical meaning. This is especially true for astronomical images, mainly due to the nature of the objects represented (their light is mostly beyond the capabilities of the human vision system), and even much less when narrowband filters are used. The default color space for color management in PixInsight is sRGB for the sake of compatibility with other applications, including web applications. I personally recommend you use it.

in pixinsight my monitor profile is set to the "monitor calibrated profile" which shows up automatically as the default as expected.  But under the default profiles for RGB and Grayscale the pulldown list is quite limited.

The list of profiles corresponds to the ICC profiles currently installed on your machine, and the monitor profile shown is the profile currently associated to your monitor on your Mac. PixInsight adheres to standards on each platform. In the case of Mac OS X, available color profiles are those stored on one of the following folders:

System-wide profiles:
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

User profiles:
~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

Network profiles:
/Network/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

So if you want to use Adobe profiles, you have to download and install them manually. Go to this page:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4074

and download the zip file. Then uncompress the zip file and install the profiles by right-clicking them, etc. If you want to do it manually, just copy the profiles to your /Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder if you want to provide system-wide access to them (you'll need administrative rights), or to your ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder for your private use.

As for the sRGB profile, if you don't have it you can download it at the ICC website:

http://www.color.org/srgbprofiles.xalter

Personally I recommend you download and install version 2 ICC profiles (scroll down to the bottom of the page above) instead of version 4 ones.

Hope this helps.

[cdavid]

Thank you Juan!

I had responded to your post but I don't see it....maybe I forgot to send. Anyways, forgive my rambling...of course the camera setting is irrelevant in RAW....my brain lapse.

I figured out what was going on....my system/ColorSync folder has all the icc profiles, but my user/ ColorSync folder was empty hence pixinsight had such limited options. I have transferred them to my user folder and now can pick them in pixinsight.

One question....what would be the preferred or recommended or even most common choices for the default RGB and Grayscale choice be?    ....I currently have them set to adobeRGB and my proofing choice to sRGB since most of my images are for the web. Not sure if this is the best choice or are others recommended.

Thanks again, I am really enjoying learning this wonderful software!

Cheers
Carlos

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Carlos,

Thanks a lot for your nice words, and sorry for the delayed answer; I am very busy these days working on a new version of the Core application, bug fixes, new website, new projects, ...

I figured out what was going on....my system/ColorSync folder has all the icc profiles, but my user/ ColorSync folder was empty hence pixinsight had such limited options. I have transferred them to my user folder and now can pick them in pixinsight.

This is the correct procedure. PixInsight looks for ICC profiles on the following folders on Mac OS X:

/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
/Network/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

There is another folder, namely:

/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

that PixInsight does not use. This limit has been imposed by design, based on Apple's official documentation:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn2035/_index.html

On the above document, jump to section "Profiles in Mac OS X". Excerpted from this section:

ColorSync profiles are primary stored here:
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

If you are in a network environment, and your network administrator has stored profiles on the network for network devices, these can be stored in:
/Network/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

Lastly, users can store their own personal profiles in their home directory:
~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/

The same document also states:

There is a special location within the Mac OS X System folder for profiles:
/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/
This is where ColorSync stores profiles it uses internally for critical operations, should others be mistakenly lost or damaged.

So in my opinion, this system folder should never be used by applications for ICC profile storage or retrieval, since it has been reserved for other critical system tasks. It seems that the other application you're using is storing some private profiles on this folder, which is a bad practice in my opinion. Unless somebody explains me how this reasoning is wrong, I won't change PixInsight's profile search strategy.

One question....what would be the preferred or recommended or even most common choices for the default RGB and Grayscale choice be?    ....I currently have them set to adobeRGB and my proofing choice to sRGB since most of my images are for the web. Not sure if this is the best choice or are others recommended.

Adobe RGB(1998) is usually a good choice. It is a large gamut color space where you can take advantage of PixInsight's 32-bit processing capabilities. Other options include Apple RGB, ColorMatch, CIE RGB or even Adobe's Wide Gamut. With a wider space you can achieve more color saturation with less stress of your data (in the numerical sense), and hence with less noise. However, bear in mind that when you convert your image to a smaller color space, such as sRGB or a printer's profile, you easily may get out-of-gamut colors, that is, colors that can't be reproduced by the output space or device. The need to reproduce your image on limited gamut devices is what actually limits you, irrespective of the size of your working color space. This is why color proofing is very important to control what your image will look like when you print it or deploy it to the web.

Another good option is working in the default sRGB space. sRGB is not so bad after all, and has the advantage that you get just what you can afford in a natural way Even if working in the sRGB space, color proofing is necessary if you intend to print your image (you need your printer's ICC profile).

Hope this helps.

[cdavid]

Thank you Juan!  This is great info I really appreciate it.  I guess since I like the images to look the same on the web I may try sRGB for a time and see how it works out.  Just one thing....for Grayscale default do you use the same choice, for example sRGB, or is there some specific gray scale space that is supposed to be used such as in Photoshop the "dot gain 20"

Thanks again for your time and efforts.
Cheers
Carlos