> I get the distinct impression that some people are hoping that a magic ICC > profile will answer all of their problems? > > They're going to be very disappointed. A good CMYK profile will give the > equivalent of an automated machine print at best.
It strikes me that there are two points under discussion here: 1) What is the best initial colourspace to develop RAW files to? 2) How do we supply files to clients to get the best practicable result under the circumstances? As far as the answer to 1) goes, I think it sensible that - the chosen colour space has a gamut at least as wide as that of the camera itself, so that no original data is lost - that your RAW file converter can actually develop directly to that colourspace - that it becomes your standard archival colourspace so that you're not constantly saving master files in different formats. So, of all the spaces I'm aware of, BestRGB, ProPhoto RGB and ECI RGB seem to be the main contenders. Not that I necessary understand the subtleties of this stuff, but from what I've read ECI RGB is both wide enough to accommodate the output of your average DSLR and encompasses that gamuts of most commercial printing processes, so looks to be a good bet for those of us mostly shooting for publishing. Please correct me if I'm wrong. As for 2), here's an example. I'm currently shooting for a Japanese magazine, printed by what looks like web offset. The magazine's producers are actually a large multinational printing firm which has diversified into full-service provision for its clients. I happen to know that the designer puts everything together on an iMac running some version of OSX, an unknown version of Photoshop (perhaps running in OSX, perhaps in Classic) and Quark 4.x running in Classic. Before I knew this I was supplying Adobe 1998 files and wondering why they were looking like crap when printed. Via a Japanese speaker I contacted the designer, who seemed entirely unaware of colour management. I then sent a test file in three versions: ARGB, sRGB and Apple RGB. I was told that the sRGB file looked the best at the other end, so for the latest issue I sent everything in sRGB. However, this issue of the magazine still doesn't look great so I think I'll send the next lot converted to Japanese web offset CMYK. Why? Well, obviously neither the client or printer give a monkeys and the designer clearly knows nowt. However, if I can make the pictures look a bit better by supplying bog-standard Photoshop conversions into the likely target colourspace I can please myself and have better-looking tearsheets. I regard this as an attempt to get the best *practicable* result under the circumstances, as opposed to the best theoretically possible. Good enough, as someone else said. Also, if I do this and the printed results consistently look better than simple RGB files then my client might subliminally notice and I get to be in a stronger position than the Johnny-come-lately digisemipro we've all been bellyaching about. Best regards Paul Ellis Mamatus Limited | http://www.mamatus.com Photography - Interactive Imaging - Apple Macintosh consultancy Tel +44 20 8341 9788 Mobile +44 7930 312554 Member of The Association of Photographers =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
