Digital Art Community Forum for Artists & Creators

Username: Dustfinger
Post Date: 2024-02-25 22:46:40

Hello, please help me :) I've read tons of contradictory stuff about this and I'm getting tired and frustrated. I want to achieve a satisfactory color consitency for my paintings across screens, softwares, computers... My screen is calibrated and I have a corresponding ICC profile. It is set up as my monitor color profile by default (windows 10). Where else should I select it as a setting ? Should it be embeded in my paintings ? I guess not but... In other words: what settings do you use in your painting software (Rebelle 7 especially) to get color consistency ? (I know Photoshop, Rebelle and CSP, and I struggle with this on all of them...) Thank you in advance for your greatly appreciated help

Username: Tom Gallovich
Post Date: 2024-02-26 05:27:45

Hi Dustfinger, Depending on how critical you want to be! You would have to control every step of the process! In general you will be faced with a million different variables. The following is based only on my personal experience. To set the table you must have a complete understanding on who is doing your printing and how they are doing it. For example; I was dealing with one printer for a while and then began to get subtle purples in my neutral shadowed areas. What I found out that some of their art department employees were manipulating my color adjustments to what they thought would print best on their printing equipment. Needless to say it could have been completely different from my original color adjustments. Even if you stay with the same lab, their work flows could change over time. In my early days of wedding photography I used film from a square format camera. Whats my point? I can send the identical one and only negative to 5 different labs (back then) and get 5 variations of the same negative. It would depend on paper used and basically what the developer thought your photo should look like. Now in the digital age add different qualities of monitors, printers, and the products they are printed on. So, how critical do you want to be? I have seen tutorials about their monitor based on an ICC profile from a drop down list. That is a start but not the full picture so to speak. Reason is, does it take ambient and reflected light into consideration? What is the commercial printer/lab equipment and printing process. I have been using Colormunki for quite some time. (They were bought out by Calibrite). To custom calibrate your monitors/equipment takes into consideration reflective and ambient light. This means bright objects behind you and your monitor could reflect and change your perceived colors. When photographing reflective objects you must be careful of what objects/colors are around the reflective object. They could dramatically change the dynamics of your main subject. Especially if color accuracy is the theme. Ambient light could mean a bunch of windows in your computer room. This could vary your lighting conditions from night time to daytime hours. If you have an over abundance of ambient light flooding your monitor would be no different than an overexposed photo. (Also equivalent to working with tungsten lighting in traditional painting.) Color Shift! Now, for those who would rather use one ICC over the other because it has a larger color gamut make sure your monitor could handle it. They do vary! Eizo is arguably one of the best in range and accuracy. But it's also about $3,400.00 for a 27”. One of the few monitors that comes with a hood. (some models) It handles 99% of Adobe RGB. (Out of my price range). [URL]https://www.eizo.com/solutions/graphics/prepress_and_design.html/[/URL] I only send out for canvas prints to a specific printer and that's it. If I would consider a glossy paper, my colors would print deeper with strong blacks. The product your printing on may change the original look. Keep in mind that there are different materials so they do print differently. From canvas, cloth (highly absorbent), brushed aluminum, paper (various surfaces) and even wood. For example; on the brushed aluminum, black & white images work the best. Commercial printers have come a long way in CMYK printing. Some have as many as 12 different variations of ink. So if you are worried about losing some color quality from the interpolation of RGB to CMYK, but you have other issues else where, does it matter? In other words control the parameters that you can. It will take time, trial and error, and unfortunately some investment on sample images. To help yourself out even further spend some time on the Pantone site. Also understand the limitations of your own equipment. Then once you come up with a reliable system stay with it and disregard the millions of opinions of what someone else thinks your work should look like. [URL]https://www.pantone.com/articles/color-fundamentals/how-can-we-reproduce-color[/URL] Calibrite has a color checker for photography and scanners. When I custom calibrate my monitors (Wacom 24 Pro 4K & 2 Dell Ultra Sharps) they calibrate differently. I calibrate each one separately. This is so I can see my reference photo color as accurate as my painting on the Wacom. I would do my final proofing on my Wacom. Keep in mind that no matter how technical you are, if your commercial printer changes any settings of your image then what ever you did up to that point will be for not! This is the profile listing for my Wacom only. The Dell Ultra Sharps each have their own profiles. Affinity Photo 2 Profile (My ICC profile of the Wacom calibrated on Jan 25, 2024) The CMYK Profile Drop Down just as an example. [img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2024/02/41735/2024-02-26_05-02:25_Color Management.jpg[/img] Rebelle 7 Pro Profile (My ICC profile of the Wacom calibrated on Jan 25, 2024) [img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2024/02/41735/2024-02-26_05-02:18_R7 Color Management.jpg[/img] Here is an additional comment I made in the Forum.... [URL]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/forum/t/40613/needing-some-advice-on-a-canvas-print-for-a-r6-completed-work#61972[/URL] Good Luck with your printing! Tom G.

Username: Dustfinger
Post Date: 2024-02-26 23:27:01

Hi Tom Gallovich and thank you so much for your comprehensive answer ! To answer you, I'm only planning to print one day, right now I'm not even worrying about this part. My idea being that, if I got the digital part right already, printing won't be a total nightmare... I may be wrong :) So I'm focusing on a digital environment color consistency for the moment. I don't think I'm being crazy critical, as I don't have a professionnal equipment and accept the limitations that come with this. What I'd like is to not lose all shadow details or get some new (weird) ones and go from a rich forest green to a desaturated almost khaki green... be it when I switch software or computer... That would be a good start. My monitors are calibrated using an X-rite ColorMunki Display and DisplayCAL (which made a remarquable difference btw). I cannot pretend to control ambiant light and my place is definitly not great for this, so I just take it into account and lower my expectations a bit more. I am pretty sure my biggest problem comes from wrong settings in my softwares, be it Rebelle, Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint or Adobe Acrobat. I found too much contradictory advices about this, got nowhere and am not capable to think for myself anymore... The last thought that made sense to me and that I have followed was to set my display ICC as calibrated, check that it is recognized by my softwares (e.g. Display in the settings of Rebelle) and set the rest as sRGB. But I guess that is wrong and you're clearly doing just about the opposite. I will try your settings and see if that solve my biggest problems and will read the comment you linked too. I don't have more time today so I'll stop there, but I wanted to thank you more than anything else :) D

Username: Twelvefield
Post Date: 2024-02-27 04:03:27

Talking to a professional printer can help. Likely, if your image is to look its best, that's where you should go: a pro you trust. The really high end printers do a terrific job interpolating CMYK, especially since 2015 or so. sRGB to me is a bit of a trap, it's a comfortable standard, but not 100% predictable. Still, it's a matter of going back and forth between your pro and your computer until you get the look you want. I'd rather spend fifty clams making colour tests with the pro and getting their advice now than sweating through colour calibration at the threashold of a large, meaningful project.

Username: Dustfinger
Post Date: 2024-02-27 18:08:51

Thank you for your answer and advice Twelve field. I'll keep it in mind ????

Username: Dustfinger
Post Date: 2024-02-27 18:10:25

*That was supposed to be a thumbs up, not interrogation points...