My designer sees different colors on his screen

Robert Wilde · #8 10-15-2007, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David_Buzzard

Don't get me started on graphic designers and digital photos. I had one guy I worked with all the time at a good sized design house who was always getting colours off. I asked him when the last time he profiled his monitor, and he didn't even know what I was talking about. I went over and did a profile on his monitor, and that fixed things a lot.

Possible problems are that either you or him have an incorrectly profiled monitor, he might have converted the image to CMYK, and that's caused a colour shift, the colour spaces are different, maybe he's got a big bank of flourescent lighting in his office that's screwing up what the monitor looks like. The list is endless. My advice would be to go his office and look at the image on his monitor, and go from there.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

David, you scared me. A designer with an uncalibrated display?

I'll ask him about the difference in color interpretation. I sent the images in PSD in ProPhoto color space, so maybe he is looking at them in Adobe RGB 1998.

Well, I can't go into his office, as he's 2000 miles away.

The CMYK conversion is actually a little bit colder than my original, and I actually like it. But, on the other hand, this is CMYK viewed on my monitor... and my Photoshop is still "in the mail", so I can't open it properly.

He would also be in charge of the printing, as he has a printer he trusts...

What do you do to actually profile a monitor? Can you do that with a Eye One Display 2?

Robert Wilde · #9 10-15-2007, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luke_Miller

Photoshop will strip out the colorspace info in some save modes. Even if the colorspace info is present Photoshop can be configured to ignore it. You might want to discuss this with your designer.

This is good to know.

I will, from now on, alway write an aside about what color space the images are in.

Robert Wilde · #10 10-15-2007, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DierkHaasis

Calibration is for individual monitors, to get the best out of them in a specific setting.

Profiling is needed to ensure a photo will look as close as possble over a number of [calibrated] monitors.

Did you contemplate that your designer does not have a calibrated monitor? Or that its calibration is months old, his CRT [if one] too old? It could even be that you have set a different WB [i.e. a little warmer] than him [he will most likely have set to 6500 K but ask him].

Eventually it can simply be that you and him use different monitors; if hey are not calibrated side by side they will most likely look differnt.

A softproof is not the same as a hardproof, only the latter - on the correct material with the exact printing machine settings for the final print - will show the colours as they will be printed.

This sounds like a recommendation to print with a printer, that can hand you a hard copy.

I tried that, and came across so many printers that couldn't even show me proper samples of printed photography.

The good thing is that the designer has worked for photographers before, and is very knowledgeable about papers to print on.

Well, I will definitely address the WB, the CRT, monitor profiling and calibration question.

DougAxford · #11 10-15-2007, 02:28 AM

I always send a hard copy photo that is exactly to what I see, just in cases like this. I've found that images will indeed look different on monitors that are both calibrated. It's just life. It can also be caused by viewing conditions in his or your area near the monitor. For the cost of a hard copy, it's worth it.

Doug

Robert Wilde · #12 10-15-2007, 04:02 AM

I found out what happened.

My designer saw it differently, because we both looked at different interpretations of the photo.

The reason of this was a little accident, when I migrated from old computer to the new one. For some reason, the original file I sent to the designer, got lost, destroyed, I don't know how it happened.

I always keep a folder of shots I sent out, and I could recreate that file from that exported file.

It's my turn now, to turn the tint of my own, personal face's white balance all the way to the right, so I can see a healthy pink, when I look into the mirror.

Digital photography is wonderful, because you can explore an image in different ways. I had about fifteen virtual copies of that shot. I had one chosen interpretation going towards more greener tones, and one chosen interpretation going towards greener and bluer tones.

The bluer file somehow disappeared.

I can't explain how that bluer interpretation got lost, disappeared out of the collection folder AND from the library. It was a virtual copy, and from now on I will ALWAYS copy the settings to the original raw file, if a copy is THE ONE. It looks like, virtual copies can get lost more easily than raw originals.

I feel the sweat trickling down my back, because I had almost ruined the photo with the lesser, greener interpretation.

Was still a great experience, that thread, and thanks everybody for taking part.

Charles_Matter · #13 10-18-2007, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Wilde

I found out what happened.

My designer saw it differently, because we both looked at different interpretations of the photo.

The reason of this was a little accident, when I migrated from old computer to the new one. For some reason, the original file I sent to the designer, got lost, destroyed, I don't know how it happened.

I always keep a folder of shots I sent out, and I could recreate that file from that exported file.

It's my turn now, to turn the tint of my own, personal face's white balance all the way to the right, so I can see a healthy pink, when I look into the mirror.

Digital photography is wonderful, because you can explore an image in different ways. I had about fifteen virtual copies of that shot. I had one chosen interpretation going towards more greener tones, and one chosen interpretation going towards greener and bluer tones.

The bluer file somehow disappeared.

I can't explain how that bluer interpretation got lost, disappeared out of the collection folder AND from the library. It was a virtual copy, and from now on I will ALWAYS copy the settings to the original raw file, if a copy is THE ONE. It looks like, virtual copies can get lost more easily than raw originals.

I feel the sweat trickling down my back, because I had almost ruined the photo with the lesser, greener interpretation.

Was still a great experience, that thread, and thanks everybody for taking part.

Still.. unless both monitors are calibrated and profiled the same.. and set to the same color balance and gamma......

I'm always amazed at how many graphic designers labs, and art directors work on monitors blasting out whatever at 9300K. under bright flourescent lighting Printers? I understand.. but .. at least by now you'd think that a graphic designer would know better... ??

Noel_Carboni · #14 10-18-2007, 04:33 PM

Trouble is it's practically impossible to objectify and quantify color, short of using a calibraiton device. And even then, a lack of understanding of basic things such as how color spaces work (and thus how to set preferences), or even which applications support color spaces, all add to the mystery.

One basic initial test I like to advise people to do is to display this site, choose something like 2.20 (which is what I use), and see if the bars look more or less uniform gray.

AIM: Gamma Evaluation

-Noel

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