Hi,

On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 15:01 +0100, Leonardo Canducci wrote:

In attempt to get better color fidelity when watching, editing and printing (not myself) photos from my slr camera, I downloaded from manufacturer support site an .icm file for my monitor and I loaded it as "monitor profile" in preferences|color management. 'Mode of operation' is set to 'color managed display' and 'rgb profile' is set to 'none'.
I'm quite concerned because now jpegs from my camera look brighter and less colored (in a wolrd: worse) than before. Since I'm going to edit a lot of them, and the result is going to be different whether I'm loading or not icm monitor profile, what is the right way to go for better color accuracy? Should I load icm profile or not?

The display of colors on a monitor depends a lot on the settings (brightness, contrast, color temperature) of your monitor and also on ambient lighting. Thus it does not make much sense to use a monitor profile from the manufacturer. If you are serious about this, you need to calibrate your monitor in your viewing conditions. You need a colorimeter to do this.

Sven

Leonardo Canducci wrote:

2008/11/28 Mogens Jæger :

Leonardo Canducci skrev:

I don't plan to buy a device for monitor calibration. They're not cheap nor supported on linux, and they look like overkill for my purpose: getting acceptable color consistency across different pcs, web galleries and lab prints. I just thought that loading the specific icm profile for my lcd monitor (obtained
from the manufacturer) was better than nothing. Of course I also changed lcd osd settings - with almost no ambient light - according to some test charts and images found on the internet. Since pictures looked really different before and after loading the icm profile I don't get what's better for my workflow. Anyway I don't get why it shouldn't make sense using this profile. Shouldn't I get an better result with that?

Thanks!

I've got a Spyder2 colorimeter, and I have it working under Linux - in my case Suse 10.3 and 11. - have a look at Argyll.

Some of your correspondence hasn't appeared on the gimp-user list - I also have a Spyder2 colorimeter but haven't had it working under Linux. Can you give some more details and/or links?

Many thanks,

Doug

< snip >

I've got a Spyder2 colorimeter, and I have it working under Linux - in my case Suse 10.3 and 11. - have a look at Argyll.

Second - A manufacturer profile can be better than just using the monitor as-is, but you get a false feeling of correctness. It can still be far apart from 'reality'.

I'm sure that's the way to go if you're serious about color consistency, but again
my question was: what's best for the casual photographer whose workflow is: camera -> gimp editing -> printing in a shop or publish in a web gallery I'd better get and use an icm/icc profile or not?

I am a casual photographer and, as far as I am concerned, I am content to take my images from the camera, convert the raw images using Ufraw and adjust them with Gimp. My monitor is set in the default setting and I both print and, from time to time, put an image on a site such as meetthegimp.org and I have rarely had a complaint about colour. I intend to try getting a profile for my printer because it seems to me to be worthwhile trying to control the printing. Perhaps I am not critical enough.

Norman

my question was: what's best for the casual photographer whose workflow is: camera -> gimp editing -> printing in a shop or publish in a web gallery I'd better get and use an icm/icc profile or not?

as a casual photographer, what i did is this :

print a RGB color disc selecting R(FF000000)G(00FF00)B(0000FF) from GIMP that gives an idea how your printer will show the full colors. Now compare the print colors with the monitor colors, i trusted my eye. Change the brightness/contrast/gamma value of the monitor manually to suit the print colors.

after this not so professional method, i took a few prints of my pictures. I m pretty happy!

If i need exhibit quality prints, i take the image to a nearest photo print guy ask him to do the necessary adjustments and then print it.
I am satisfied :)

pls note! this is the very very crude method i followed..

Thanks, Akshay

My apologies, I gave the wrong reference for where I post some of my images, it should have been www.23hq.com/littletank. There are lots of classifications on www.23hq.com and meetthegimp is one of them.

Norman

doug skrev:

Some of your correspondence hasn't appeared on the gimp-user list - I also have a Spyder2 colorimeter but haven't had it working under Linux. Can you give some more details and/or links?

Sorry - yes I have a bad habit just hitting the Reply button, and not checking who I am writing to.

First of all, you need to have the Argyll installed: http://www.argyllcms.com/ If it's not a part of your distribution, you can follow the link given, on what to do after download of the program.

Then you can follow the instructions given in "On Line Documentation". Scroll down and click the 'Spyder 2' link.

Here you click the 'spyd2en' link. The program spyd2en is part of the Agryll installation. Note that the installCD from DataColor must be accessible.

On one of the former pages, there is a link to some tutorials, describing typical usage: http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/Scenarios.html

That should do it - I now have a working ICC profile, that I can load into GIMP, but how to make it work 'all over' on the desktop, is still to come. I have it installed on my desktop, using 2 monitors, and regarding the page: http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/Installing_Linux.html it should be no problem, just I have not yet figured out how. I am running a Suse 10.3 with GIMP 2.4.6 where I can install the ICC-profile to be used on the specific screen within GIMP, but not generally.

I have additional an small laptop with a Suse 11.0 on. It comes with a GIMP 2.6.1, and here I can load the profile generally, so I can set the GIMP to show colors with printer ICC-profile simulation.

I my opinion, that should give the best result for printing purpose - screen calibrated to give correct(ed) colors, and 2' with simulation to fit my printers 'behavior'.

If I'm wrong - please tell me.

My desktop is not yet a Suse 11.0, because it's a 64 bit CPU, and I will not accept having to run all in 32 bit, just so I can reach my bank (java-problems) - I have it working in Suse 10.3, but all the dependencies problems in the 11.0 makes me wait. I guess I will have to install a 32 bit on the laptop, and use that for banking-needs. Not good - but acceptable.

Sincerely Mogens Jaeger