Am I color managed?

[daveyburt]

I'm learning more about color spaces and conversion and wanted to throw my calibration process out there for critique - wondering if what I did is proper and if my workflow color settings should now jive.

I ended up with an Asus PA246 which has separate sRGB , aRGB, and User color modes. I'm profiling (calibrating?) with an x-rite profiler. For each monitor color space setting, I made an profile which included my adjusting of Bright/Contrast and RGB when possible depending on monitor mode.

I made a profile for each supported monitor color space setting. My camera is in aRGB. I'm using the monitor in aRGB along with the associated profile through the OS. I have photoshop set to aRGB as well.

With the pro's and cons of using aRGB aside; am I properly color managed?

ok - now tell me why i shouldn't be using aRGB. thx!!

[meinster]

Adobe RGB is the correct color setting to use IMO.

Please clarify, do you have a separate video card? What type? How many monitors? Windows 7?

Cheers

[ClintS]

Calibrating a monitor is only one step in a color managed workflow. But probably suits most people just fine. I would calibrate your monitor for only one of the two RGB color gamuts.

For some people a sRGB color workflow makes a lot of sense. High volume wedding photographers for example; set the camera to sRGB, shoot in JPEG, mange their photos in sRGB, and output their files for custom printers using their color profiles or for a web or video product of some kind. Simple, quick and easy.

For others using Adboe RGB in camera and monitor makes more since. Especially those that deal with high end printed publications where work is converted to CMYK.

Most monitors do not even display the entire gamut of sRGB well, let alone Adobe RGB. Color calibration helps with the limits of what the equipment is capable of. This includes monitors in the 600 -1100 dollar range. However color calibration does help to remove the weakest spots.

If your circumstances are similar to the wedding photographer I mentioned above, then do everything in sRGB. If you want high-end work and use your own high quality printer, use a Adobe RGB workflow. Just remember that anything you want to put on the web, video, or most print houses needs to be converted to sRGB when output.

[daveyburt]

Thanks!

To meinster - ATI radeon with default settings - 6500k. only 2 monitors, my good one on DVI. - WinXP

To Clint - good info! - I'm not high volume and have been shooting in RAW/converting to a 16bit PSD to work on. Supposedly the PA246 is 10 bit covering 100% sRGB and 98% aRGB. I chose aRGB from the camera to photoshop to retain as much as possible until final export. I figured if I end up going to print with some, aRGB will hold color better if going to CMYK. And yes, thank you for the reminder about converting to sRGB for computer display.

So, all in all, does my using aRGB and my process of setting up color management make sense?

Can I believe what I see on my screen with this setup?

Thanks!!!

[daveyburt]

bump