OK, so it sounds like I don't need to worry about it, which is the important thing!
OK, so it sounds like I don't need to worry about it, which is the important thing!
Nope, you don't need to worry about it at all. And if you decided you did need to pay attention to the issue, just using software-based correction wouldn't be enough, anyway. You'd need a colorimeter to compensate for the inaccuracies of your monitor. Color management is difficult, expensive, and almost always unappreciated by whoever you're working for.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
Yeah, the above covers it pretty well. Basically each device in the whole chain involved in the image needs to be calibrated so that the next device sees the same as all the others. When the whole process is calibrated it is called a Color Calibrated Workflow. People who are magazine editors for example have to lay out the pages and then it gets sent to a printer. Its important that the printer prints what the page editor wants. Midgard has it right when he says that these devices need to be measured. You can buy colour calibrated monitors but they are hugely expensive compared to normal and they need to be recalibrated from time to time. When you use one your supposed to sit in a room with neutral coloured walls and spectrally even lighting to stop your eyes compensating for it. All commercial printers like the Heidelberg types have a known or preset colour capability. The image stores a color calibration profile which is a kind of translation setting for the image. To go from monitor to printer you go via a color calibration transformation for which the parameters are stored in this ICC content embedded in the image. Each device has a range of colours that it is able to display / print which is called the gamut. So going via this translation can render colours from a source into another device which it is unable to display. These colours are known as out of gamut for that device. So when creating artwork on an image editor like photoshop, I believe that you can set up the colour calibration to which the image is set for and then you can draw the image and photoshop will then know which colours are out of gamut for certain devices like Heidelberg printers. If that is the case then its advisable to change that colour on the image so that the printer can print it to the same color as you require. The company Pantone produces colour inks and swatches of known colour so that when you want this exact colour you can specify the exact way the printer should print that to get that exact colour. It ought to be possible to draw an image using just pantone numbered colours and get it pro printed and the result ought to be exactly what you thought it would look like without a calibrated workflow.
Basically for us don't worry about it. Only people like Gamerprinter and people involved in the print industry should concern themselves with it. But if you ever decide to get a map commercially printed then it starts to become important or else expect that the result will look a little different from what you saw on your uncalibrated monitor. It might have a brown hue or a green hue etc. When you get a digital proof back from the printer it WILL have an ICC profile in it and you SHOULD view it with a capable viewer but even then your monitor will not be calibrated. My old nVidia card was shipped with a pantone swatch and a program to set up the color to make the swatch match on the screen. Then the screen is somewhat calibrated.
Although I know this much I am not an expert in this colour calibration field and would like to know more. I have some tools to attach and correct images by attaching some colour profiles to them.
The website shows 4 images with ICC cal data embedded into the images. The raw colour values contained in the image can be very different from monitor RGB values unless you use the standard Adobe sRGB ICC profile. This web page has images with unusually extreme ICC profiles. If the image display program understands how to translate these ICC profiles then it can get it back to standard RGB for your monitor hence if not then they look very weird.
Its a useful page to test your imaging program. Save the images and load them in photoshop and I would very much expect them to look right and very different from what you saw on your browser.
Its a veritable minefield I tell you !
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