Why Your Photos Look Lousy… or Simple Truths About Color Management
Let’s embrace the obvious. Many photographers feel that investing time and effort into learning color management is the digital equivalent of going to the dentist. Unless you are an uber-geek, I bet that you would rather study DIY acupuncture, medieval French literature or the genome of the common fruit fly than cuddle up with a long piece on the theory of color management. Fear not. Color management is built upon simple truths. Many of which are close at hand.
Let’s start with the following. I think you’ll recognize it as irrefutable proof about why it’s important to know at least the basics of color management.
Huh? O.K. Stick with me and I’ll lay it out for you.
First, take a look at the following nothing-special-about-it-snapshot of some geraniums. While not a great photo, it is a great stepping stone towards an understanding of why your photos look lousy. Really.
The most important truth in color management - the fundamental truth that all digital photographers cannot escape - is that our eyes and brain can distinguish many more colors than our cameras can capture. The second most important truth in color management is that our cameras can capture more colors than most monitors can display. And… the third most important truth in color management is, you just guessed it, that our monitors can display more colors than our printers can print.
Let me also add, since I’m on a roll, that there’s no direct link between the cost of a printer and the range of colors that it can print. As you’ll see in the graph at the end, my Epson 3800 inkjet can print a wider range of color (say “gamut”) than a multi-million dollar commercial printing press.
A color space is like a box of crayons. It describes a gamut (think “range”) of color. Like friends, it’s important to choose your color spaces carefully. ProPhoto RGB is the huge color space into which you should be converting your RAW files when opening them with Photoshop or Lightroom. (Yes, our digital devices today can only use a fraction of the colors in ProPhoto RGB. But, converting your RAW captures into ProPhoto now will assure that you’re keeping your color options open for future technology.) Adobe RBG (1998) is a more moderate space and is the space your DSLR camera should be set to - unless it has ProPhoto as an option. sRGB is smaller still and is typical of the color gamut of most sub-$1500 monitors.
Of course, my inner-photographer wants to see these concepts as a graph. The yellow box below shows the vast range of colors in the ProPhoto color space. The blue box contains all the colors within the Adobe RBG (1998) space and the cyan box all those within the sRGB space. You’ll note that Adobe RGB (1998) and sRGB can show about the same range of reds and magentas. You’ll also see that Adobe RGB (1998) can show a few more yellows and blues and loads more green than sRGB.
If you choose to work in a color space that’s too limited (like using sRGB for capture or Adobe RGB for RAW conversion) you are literally throwing away crayons that you otherwise could have used to render subtle differences of color in your photos. Onward.
So, here is the truth about why your photos look lousy. They have colors that won’t show up on your monitor and colors that can’t be printed. Remember the nothing-special-about-it-snapshot of geranium? The green dots in the graph below represent all of the colors in that photo. The orange line represents the gamut of colors that can be displayed on my calibrated NEC 2090UXi monitor (a 20″ desktop LCD). You’ll note that there is a large blob of green dots that extend outside of the orange line at the upper-right corner… meaning that there’s a large number of red and orange shades in the photo that my monitor is not able to display. So right out of the gate, I’m not even able to see many of the colors that my camera recorded. Out-of-gamut reds and oranges with a geranium. Humm… my photo is beginning to look lousy already.
You need to plug a real monitor into your laptop. If you want your photographs to be taken seriously, you have to get a “real” monitor. Here’s a graph that compares the gamut of my stylish MacBook Pro 17 to my NEC 2090UXi. The sad reality is that my laptop monitor is worthless when it comes to making critical color decisions. It just doesn’t have enough crayons in its box. When color matters, I haul my studio monitor with me – especially when shooting for clients on location. [Look for more in an upcoming post on "Shooting Tethered Into Lightroom".]
Your printer and paper make a huge difference as well. Can your favorite printer/paper combo show all of the colors in your photo? Maybe. Maybe not. The graph below compares the gamut of my geranium photo (green dots) against the gamut of my three favorite Epson papers coming out of my Epson 3800 – Ultra-Smooth Fine Art (pink line), Premium Luster (cyan line) and Exhibition Fiber (purple line). For the geranium image, Ultra-Smooth Fine Art absolutely would be the wrong choice because most of the important reds and oranges won’t show at all (check out the large blob of green dots outside of the pink line). Premium Luster shows all but a handful of the reds (just a few dots outside of the green line). Exhibition Fiber (using the free Pixel Genius profile) is able, but just able, to show everything (all of the green dots are within the purple line). In terms of showing the full gamut of colors in the geranium photo, Exhibition Fiber would be the best Epson paper for printing this image on my E-3800 (as if I would actually want to print such a handsome image… not).
Here’s the detail from the upper right corner showing that the gamut of Premium Luster is a tiny bit smaller than Exhibition Fiber when it comes to geranium reds.
You have to be very careful with CMYK. When it comes to having your photos printed in books, magazines or catalogs, your heart will be broken again and again by the limited gamut of the commercial printer’s Cyan Magenta Yellow and blacK. (Remember CMYK is a 4-letter word.) Despite the fact that we see images printed in CMYK countless times each day, it has the smallest gamut of all the crayon boxes we’re discussing. As shown below, the vast majority of the important colors in my geranium snapshot cannot be reproduced on a commercial CMYK press (note the huge blob of green dots outside of the green line). Yes, I hear the uber-geeks shouting that there are alternative ink sets to CMYK, like Hexachrome and such. But, unless you’re self-publishing and paying the printer, you’ll be stuck with good ol’ CMY and K. If you are handing photos off to a commercial printer, your photos will greatly appreciate the time you invest in the study of color management.
My photo looks lousy and it’s not my fault! (Or is it?) There’s no arguing with the fastest thing in the universe. As Einstein may have said, “physics is physics.” I can’t make my monitor show a wider gamut of RGB than it’s capable of showing. I can’t get a redder red on a commercial CMYK press than 100% Magenta mixed with 100% Yellow. If I can’t extend the gamut of the monitor or printer, then I have to optimize my photo for the gamut in which it will live forever. For instance, when photographing a subject that has ultra-saturated colors, I know that I’m in for some extra work back in the studio – skillfully massaging pixels with Photoshop so that at least the essence of the image is portrayed in the smaller gamut of my intended printer/paper combo.
One final graph. If you were baffled by the graph at the top and have read this far, I bet that you now can interpret the graph below. Consider it to be the photographic proof that the resources on color management listed below are worth checking out.
Learning About Color Management
Books
Real World Color Management
Color Management For Photographers
More Color Management Books
DVDs
Six Simple Steps to Good Color Management - new DVD by JP Caponigro, available through ACME Educational
Online
John Paul Caponigro’s website - check out the Downloads page for free tutorials
Kelby Training - on-demand tutorials from the folks who invented Photoshop education
National Association of Photoshop Users - access to NAPP’s online tutorials is worth the price of membership alone
Lynda.com - 24/7 on-demand tutorials for a wide range of digital topics
Workshops & Seminars
D-65 Workshop - lives up to it’s slogan “Digital workflow, not workslow.”
The Fine Art of Digital Printing - spend a week with JP Caponigro and Mac Holbert at FADP and you’ll no longer think of “Color Management” as a four-letter word
Photoshop World - offered spring and fall by NAPP. You’ll find many seminars on color management and sit in large rooms filled with fellow photographers who are as baffled eager to learn as you.
Santa Fe Workshops - week-long workshops in beautiful northern New Mexico
24 comments
Thanks for this info.
Do you suggest a LCD monitor that would do the “job” for color management?
Ken
[...] color management, called Why your photos look lousy…or Simple Truths about Color Management . Click here to jump [...]
just for the record:
the k in cmyk does NOT stand for black.
it stands for key. (key print plate)
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Thanks for the clear and informative article. How do the items covered apply to black and white printing? Thanks!
Ray Davis
Rayt - true confession time… I gave up my interest in B&W when I printed my first Cibachrome back in art school 25 years ago. But, I know the guy to ask. I’ll go find Mr. Versace and ask him.
Lao - O.K. You busted my chops for being so casual. Do you really think that a guy who uses “large blob of green dots outside of the pink line” in a Simple Truths post is going to admit that “K” actually stands for “Key” and not “blacK”. What color is Key anyway…? Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Probably the biggest and most common mistake that photographers make is that they think that just because they do just black and white, there is no need for color management. It’s all grayscale. If ANYTHING needs to be color managed the most it’s a black and white workflow. Particularly if you are using inkjet printers.
The best results for black and white inkjets come from firing ALL of the heads not just the black ink(s). What color management provides is a way to control all aspects of the process. that the gray you see on the monitor is the exact gray you’ll print. Black and white images are the most unforgiving of all if the printer profile is not spot on, or the calibration of the monitor is off.
In the world of inkjet printing gray is, and should be treated as, a color. So with out color management, away to know that all aspects of your system will be speaking the same color language, when the neutral gray you see on your monitor comes out magenta, you have no idea where the disconnect is. If a gray is off, you know it. if a red is a little too cyan, that’s a lot harder to tell to tell at all, but gray is gray, period. If it’s has color in it that was not intended the first it’s not truly gray, and second you are not working in a color manged workflow.
Great article - I have been trying to go to the dentist, er, I mean learn more about colour management and this really filled in more than a few gaps. Any thoughts on what is the best montior/printer/paper combo for showing the widest gamut. Thanks.
All these posts about color management are great, yours is very clear. But i now know all the basics an theory about that stuff.
What is more challenging is making the good choices (and setup) for our workflow to be color managing compliant. I mean i would really love to see a post telling me how to caliber my screen (and why), which gamma to use on my mac (and why), what settings i need to change to photoshop and lightroom preferences (and why…), what color space i should use when i export my pictures for web/print, well … you understand i looked around these matters, but i never found a complete explanation that don’t focus on a particular hardware/software setup.
Thanks anyway, these are just my feelings
Steve - Mac Holbert, one of the fellows who literally invented digital printmaking as we know it today, sent me the following as a reply to your query about the combo that will provide the widest gamut on screen and on paper.
“NEC 2690WUXi (w/calibration device) or it’s latest incarnation, an Epson 2880 or greater, Epson Exhibition Fiber Paper”
Mac, along with his partner in crime JP Caponigro, offers a week-long intensive workshop “The Fine Art of Digital Printing” (find the link in the resources section above). I attended FADP last fall. There is no better investment that you could make to take your craft to the next level than attend FADP.
[...] Source and Read More: pixsylated.com [...]
Outstanding post! It really helps to visually see the different scope of the color gamuts. Another thing that will improve your prints is to use a printer with more inks. I use an older HP 8450 that has 8 inks and produces 96 millions colors. My photos look incredibly better from it than from a six color printer. Of course with more inks, the cost to print is higher.
[...] Hungry for color management articles? Here’s a good article on color management from pixsylated.com [...]
Thanks for this excellent introduction! This filled in a lot of missing information for me as well. Can you tell me how you were able to determine, and then graph, the gamut available to different devices and papers? Perhaps a better question is, “How can I find out the gamut available to each of my own devices and papers?”
Larry — The gamut graphs were created in Monaco GamutWorks - which came as part of the Xrite Pulse ColorElite package that I use to profile my monitors and various printer/ink/paper combos. ColorElite was discontinued by Xrite after they merged with / acquired Gretag Macbeth. Xrite’s flagship product is now the Eye-One series. (Although I’ve not used it, I’ve heard good comments about the new ColorMunki by Xrite.)
In GamutWorks, I can load a number of ICC profiles (that I create or download) as well as images. The graphs were created by turning various comibinations of the profiles and the image map on and off.
Many programs for creating ICC profiles come with a similar feature. For a stand-alone solution that’s affordable, I’d check out ColorThink at Chromix.com.
Vincent
Thanks for the information.
[...] written on color management of photos and why your images may look terrible on the internet. Pixsylated is an incredible website filled with lots of great articles on photography and the [...]
Thanks for the great explanation. However, one thing still eludes me. Is there a way to use this knowledge about colour spaces and get a better photo on screen?
I’ve seen and read this topic explained many times but your explanation with the graphs were probably about the easiest to understand than any of the others.
[...] And: If you want to learn more about ICC-Profiling and color management, there’s a nice explanation about it to be found over at Pixsylated. [...]
Thanks for the article, it helps to make things clearer.
One thing that I’m not so sure about. Going by your article, we should use the widest gamut available at the point of shooting the image. However it’s a bit miss leading, as although you have a wider gamut, the available number of 1s and 0s used to encode the image (bit depth) stays the same. So you will have a wider overall gamut, but the gap between one colour and the next will be greater and can lead to posterisation.
I’ve found it explained in this article here. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-space-conversion.htm
The recommendation is that you should use a colour space that is appropriate for the distribution of colours in the image, if you are shooting landscapes with lots of green tones then you may benefit from RGB over sRGB, but of you are shooting lots of red and blues, there is no benefit from the increased gamut of RGB, but you will get a greater range of red and blue tones from sRGB.
Andy
Andy -
I understand your thinking that the allocation of a greater bit depth to a narrower color space will reduce the risk of posterization. Based on my experience, my recommendation is the opposite. By using broad color gamuts (like ProPhoto RGB) and greater bit depth (16-bit is my standard in Photoshop), the rendition of color occurs in much finer steps.
Check out the article on Cambridge in Colour about Adobe RGB vs. sRGB. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm You’ll see that Adobe RGB has a wider gamut than sRGB at all luminance values. There is no portion of the spectrum where sRGB renders more colors than Adobe RGB.
My strategy is to shoot in as wide a color space as possible - even if my printer can’t take advantage of it today. The color gamut of ink jet printers continues to expand. I’m certain that, in a few years, I’ll be able to render more colors than I can today. Shooting in sRGB limits the gamut of colors to a relatively small set and limits my future options.
My reading of the article you cited is that the topic is color conversion — such as what happens when my digital capture in Adobe RGB has to be converted to the more limited gamut of CMYK for commercial printing. Unfortunately the article has no date. This is an important factor to me when evaluating technical pieces. No mention is made of soft-proofing in Photoshop or the use of appropriate printer/paper/ink profiles to manage color conversion.
Thanks for bringing this up. And thanks for reading PixSylated.
Excellent post. Thanks for writing so clearly.
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