Working Spaces - Which to use?

[Dinarius]

Most of my work entails shooting with a Gretag Macbeth CC included in at least one of the shots - and they'll all be shot under the same lighting in a given shoot, either way.

So, if I'm aiming for particular RGB values off the colour checker - such as the A1998 values, for example - is there any real point in selecting the Monitor Profile in CS2's Color Settings menu?

Doesn't this save me having to convert to Adobe 1998 before saving the file for burning to CD?

Thanks.

D.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Using a monitor profile as an RGB editing space is one of the more retarded things one can do in color management. Monitors tend to have fairly small color gamuts, and change constantly with use, so using a monitor profile for editing is extremely pointless.

But selecting your current monitor profile (generated from colorimetric measurements of your monitor) to tell Photoshop the characteristics the display device you are using is absolutely critical, or Photoshop won't know how to display colors on your monitor properly. If you don't do this, all the time and effort spent profiling your monitor is wasted.

Regarding RGB working/editing spaces, ProPhoto is prefered, but Adobe RGB is fine for images that fall completely within its smaller color gamut. But that has nothing to do with your monitor profile.

[Dinarius]

But selecting your current monitor profile (generated from colorimetric measurements of your monitor) to tell Photoshop the characteristics the display device you are using is absolutely critical, [a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=74851\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I thought it was obvious that this is precisely what I meant by my question.

And you miss the fundamental point of my question. If you are in the position of being able to include a Gretag CC in every shot, then you are aiming for specific numbers NOT a specific look/feel/interpretation, call it what you will. You may be looking for both, in which case profiling the monitor is essential. But..........

Thanks for the reply.

D.

[Jonathan Wienke]

What you're really looking for is a good profile for your RAW converter, so that all you need to do is set the correct WB and exposure adjustments in the RAW converter, and all of the RGB color numbers will fall into place automatically. The  Tom Fors ACR calibrator script we discussed in a previous thread does a pretty good job of accomplishing this, at least with the hue/saturation components of colors (LAB A and B channels), and the luminance deviations can be solved with the Curve adjustment in ACR.

Your monitor must be properly profiled for there to be any meaningful relationship between what you see on-screen and the RGB color numbers in your files. Even if you're trying to color correct by-the-numbers, having a good monitor profile configured in Photoshop will eliminate a lot of unpleasant surprises when printing your images; you'll be able to accurately see what you'll get in print (at least with in-gamut colors) on-screen. Color correcting by the numbers can be done, but having a well-profiled monitor makes things a lot easier.