The supplier of my digital back is organizing a demonstration day. To make the event a little more interesting, a color-management expert has been brought in. Technical terms soon start flying, and after a fifteen-minute monologue he poses the crucial question to the audience: "Who here uses sRGB?"
A narrow escape
You could hear a pin drop; nobody is willing to stick their neck out and risk being ridiculed. Then the master provides the answer himself: apparently, using sRGB warrants the death penalty, while Adobe RGB is acceptable. What a relief for at least half of the silent people in the room. They have escaped public exposure. Yes, they have been making beautiful photographs for years with their standard sRGB profile, but according to the expert on stage that is simply impossible! They have had a narrow escape all these years. Better order a color-management course quickly.
Apparently, using sRGB warrants the death penalty
Seminars: a gold mine!
A great deal of money is made by telling other people how things should be done. Seminars, courses, digital-photography programs, and color-management training are eagerly purchased. Just as insurers like to point out all the risks in life, ‘digital experts’ bombard you with technical terms to sell you a course.
Don’t let the jargon intimidate you
When I bought my first Leaf digital back twelve years ago, I was jumping in at the deep end. I did not yet know much about digital theory or profiles, and converting from RGB to CMYK was my main concern. I soon discovered that the prepress specialists I consulted knew even less about conversion at the time than I did; the poor souls had been completely overtaken by the digital revolution. Whenever I brought them a digital RGB file, they simply experimented at my expense. The result was as costly as it was disappointing.
Calibrating a monitor
The solution came when about twenty photographers working digitally put their heads together during a series of workshops we organized ourselves. We shared our newly acquired practical knowledge and soon had enough clarity to separate the wheat from the chaff. That sense of solidarity did not last long, however; once the immediate need had passed, the whole effort collapsed and everyone went back to reinventing the wheel on their own.
In practice
Naturally, a digital photographer needs a reasonable amount of theoretical knowledge. If you start using your new equipment blindly, things will go wrong. You therefore need to do some reading, and an introductory course can also be worthwhile. In practice, however, straightforward color management is sufficient in the studio. For you, the usefulness of profiles ends at the front door, because you rarely know what will happen to your work afterward. The profile attached to the RGB file leaving your studio enables the next user to judge on a monitor or proofing system how the colors should look, but things can still go wrong if the recipient lacks the right knowledge or equipment.
My workflow
That is why I protect myself in several ways against possible mistakes by the recipient. First, I use the Adobe RGB output profile for the digital back and every computer that handles its files; it does indeed have a wider color space than sRGB. My calibrated monitor gives me a reasonably reliable impression of the colors, and my Epson print matches it as closely as is technically possible.
I measure black and white values with Photoshop’s eyedropper to avoid blown highlights and blocked shadows. The file leaves the studio with an Adobe RGB profile, but never without an Epson print. That print may not be a perfect representation of the eventual printed result, but it is an excellent reference for the prepress specialist; if the final result looks completely different, I can point to it. In addition to the RGB file, I also supply a CMYK version that I converted myself and tagged with the Euroscale Coated v2 profile. An end user without sufficient technical knowledge will choose the CMYK file, which greatly reduces the risk of serious mistakes.
Fine-tuning
Over the years, I have naturally gained a deeper understanding of the subject, so after conversion I often fine-tune my CMYK files—for example, with Selective Color in Photoshop. But even a standard conversion with the Euroscale Coated v2 profile will already protect you against major errors at the recipient’s end. For a truly exact conversion, you would need to know precisely how the work will be printed and on which equipment; every expert will tell you so, and that is what the books say. The bottom line, however, was that, at the time of publication, the prepress specialist converting your digital file did not ask for such details either. They simply used a standard profile—often ISO 12647—without asking about the intended use. If they used a custom profile, it was usually to obtain a better match with their own proofing system. Ultimately, the entire profile business is based on human color perception, yet no two people perceive color in exactly the same way. Our eyes are not precision instruments, so let’s not turn it into an exact science. You are better off concentrating on photography.
You can never know too much about color and digital technology, if only to protect yourself from people who want to profit from your fear of making mistakes. Countless books have been written about digital color. I will mention one that is reasonably useful: Real World Color Management. ISBN: 9780132777957. But the same applies here: far too many words.
