[X4U] X 10.4.2 color profiles to match this of a Canon camera

[Said Nuseibeh]

Hello Germaine,

You are indeed a little off-base on the color profile issues. Granted,
it is quite complicated and almost every explanation I have encountered
is sadly abstruse, but I think you can easily do better.

The short answer to your question is Yes. The factory installed "sRGB"
profile applied to your monitor will by itself poorly render the colors.

I understand a profile to be a reference description of how colors are
mapped mathematically. A profile by itself is fairly useless. However if
your device, like a monitor or scanner, is calibrated, then the profile
can be applied in a designated color space and thereby become visually
and mathematically helpful. The sRGB color space of your camera is the
manufacturer's way of providing a baseline indication of how the
device's colors are mapped, an indication which can later be used by
application and color management software for the interpretation of
color. sRGB is the default Windows and Web colorspace. You can (and in
your case probably should) designate that colorspace as a profile for
your camera's image files, but without a calibrated monitor reference,
the colors will be mapped in a visually unreliable way: you have not
closed the loop.

If you care about accurate color then you need to get sophisticated
about calibrating your monitor. If you opened your image with its sRGB
profile in three monitors side-by-side, then the image would most likely
appear differently on each monitor if they are uncalibrated. There are
numerous packages for sale with pucks that measure the actual colors
produced by your specific LCD --at a designated color temperature and
gamma-- and calibrate the colors to a known standard or gamut. Then the
software will generate a device-specific profile which establishes a
meaningful way for the color numbers in a file to be translated to the
screen.

If you do not have $200 to throw toward one of these packages, then at
least go though the manual calibration procedure for your monitor
(System Preferences... Displays... Color... Calibrate). You will
generate a custom monitor profile that will then be used to more
reliably convert the colors to your screen and retain pleasing colors.
[However, once calibrated, you should not change your monitor's settings
(generally 6200-degrees Kelvin and 2.2 gamma, as well as the brightness
and contrast settings used during calibration).]


For further information, Google "Color Management" and read more here:

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ps_pro_primers.html
http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.ee6b362


Good Luck. Others, please feel welcome to correct any misundertanding,
confusion, or error introduced on my part.

-Said





On Wednesday, January 11, 2006, Germain M. wrote:

>I bought a digital camera, a Canon S2 IS. Exif infos indicate an  
>"sRVB" color space. Some friends told me I could adjust the LCD  
>screen of my iMac G5 to the same settings to get exact color  
>reproduction. I found a color profile named "sRVB" in the "Monitor"  
>pref pane. I use it and I saw big difference the way the LCD is now  
>displaying the pictures transferred from the Canon. But everything  
>now has a bleuish tint. The grey around windows in Mail or Safari is  
>rather bleuish than greyish. Is this normal? I wonder if I understand  
>well the principle of matching color profiles. Could this factory  
>installed "sRVB" profile render poorly the colors. Should I have  
>another color profile. Or build it? Which I don't know how t do. Do  
>you think Canon supply color profiles? I need hints abut this. My  
>universe has gone blue.