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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-18-2012, 09:58 PM
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Keeping score in color management is tough enough, so it helps to keep the vocabulary accurate here. Image files are assigned color spaces; devices have profiles.
Actually your first ruleout was probably more accurate. Windows Explorer is not color managed. If your monitor was profiled by a calibration device, then you should maintain that profile all the time. A color-managed application, like LR, will convert values on the fly to work with the monitor. An sRGB image file will work more often than pretty much anything else on other people's systems, regardless of their specific monitor profile.
The sRBG monitor "profile" that came with your monitor should not be trusted out of the box; it may be accurate to some engineer at the manufacturer's "lab," but your particular environment is different (I assume) :) Saving an image with the "profile" of a monitor is inside out.
M
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-13-2012, 10:08 PM
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First, what application are you using to view and evaluate the "original?" Without a calibrated profile your default is more or less arbitrary.
If using Firefox, to what degree did you enable color management? It is more than activating a single gfx setting in about:config. This discusses the gfx.color management.display and the implications.
Gfx.color management.display profile - MozillaZine Knowledge Base
There is also an add-on that may solve your problems. This stuff is not intuitive nor easy for most mortals. Until it gets as easy as say cropping an image, I'd say that digital photography is still fairly immature as a process.
M
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-13-2012, 03:37 PM
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That Dell stuff is just marketing hoo ha. A monitor has to be calibrated and profiled to one's particular working environment. This includes ambient lighting and how illuminated the monitor is set for. Most monitors out of the box are way too bright-- it's analogous to how music is perceived to be better if turned up to 11. 110-120 cd/m2 is a good starting point.
M
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-13-2012, 01:39 PM
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Spyder4 is a very good calibrator that should meet most users' needs. The xrite i1 Display Pro is notably superior as it manages ambient light better. The inherent software works fairly well too. It's somewhat pricier. You are actually purchasing both the hardware device and the calibration software.
There is superior third-party software that will work with either of these devices. Checkout Argyll color management as well as the DispcalGUI front end. Less user friendly but more accurate.
Don't strip off any sRGB data. Some systems and browsers are wrongly configured to use an inappropriate profile that will serve as a default. If you rely on LR for image export, choose sRGB and let it be.
M
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-11-2012, 11:03 PM
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OK, thanks for providing the background information. Reaching your goal is best served by keeping things simple. Few browsers are color managed out of the box, fewer people know how to configure color management in their browser, or anywhere really. Most people use cheap TN monitors aimed at gamers. Most laptop monitors are lousy. Most people will view your compressed Facebook images on small phone screens. That's a part of the problem faced by photographers who care about how their images are viewed online.
If you are shooting RAW (DNG), the in-camera color space setting is irrelevant. Lightroom will deal with the pictures in its internal hybrid of Melissa and ProPhotoRGB. When you export jpegs, I suggest you simply use the sRGB color space for the web and for friends. That's a more or less accepted baseline for better or worse.
I only know one person who can calibrate his monitor by eye, and this is a gifted artist whose skills help sell $100 million airplanes. Certainly get a good hardware calibrator for your nice new IPS monitor. It's a bit like being lucky enough to have a beautiful sweetheart, but then you buy her chintzy clothes. 'Nuff said.
M
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