Color Management

Hello,

Could somebody tell me a few words about color management? My problem is the following. I have an image (created with Sony DSCF707 digital camera) and I would like to print it with my HP Deskjet 5550 PhotoRet IV printer. My printout is a little bit over saturated in red color. I have a program called PhotoShop Elements. In this program I tried to use Color Management
display. In this program you can only set color management to off or on. If I set it "on" my picutre on the monitor looks like the printout exactly! Good. But what about PhotoShop (7) ? There are lots of settings but I tried any combination of those and the picture looks all the time the same, it doesn't change, and it is not like my printout. What is the difference between PS Elements and PS7 in this way? How do I set PS7 to display the colors at the right way?

Thanks
Balazs

Well I remember in Ps 6 when u first install it and run it, a menu pops up and asks you about your color settings... but I can't remember how to get there but mine was somethin like web colors, because I only do images for web use. But... Then again other people might remember how to get to the menu... I'll tell u how when I figure it out, or unless someone tells you first. :rolleyes:

Shift+Control+K

This is the point! Shift+Ctrl+K. But what to set there? Because whatever I set there, it has no or very little effect on the picture itself. Not like in Elements for example. There I can set only 2 things, yes or no, and it works great. Whatever I set in PS at the Ctrl+shift+K window, no effect. At least no such visual effect as in Elements.

sadly you are using Photoshop elements so i dont think you have the same color management there as the full blown Photoshop? ( i could be wrong but i think i heard that on tech tv sometime or another)

Color Correction will help you. You must do this in PS. I'll give you a very simple and brief rundown on it, although you may want to do some reading on the subject. By the way, this is mathematical and not intuitive, it may not look perfect on your screen if its not calibrated.

Step 1: Set info pallette so it has an RGB and a Greyscale dialogue on it. Set pixel sample to 3x3 (find this on the top of the menu bar)

Step 2: Find an spot in your image that should be grey with your eyedropper tool and look for an area that reads 50% up in that info pallette. Record the three numbers that are in the RGB side. (If the image is bad the numbers will be a bit different IE: R 132 G 96 B 165)

Step 3: Add the three RGB numbers together and divide by 3. This will be your neutral grey. You will need this number for the next step.

Step 4: Adjust curves. Go into each color menu for the curves and replace the original number with the neutral number. To do this for each channel, simply click somewhere on the line graph. Then below is a spot for numbers. First number is the orignal reading, second spot is the number you got by dividing by three. (Do this in the indivdual RGB channels, not the full RGB graph. So R channel gets R number etc...)

Step 5: The image still looks a bit funny. Now go to Adjust levels. In each RGB channel, again not the complete RGB channel, slide the dark and light ends so they are at the ends of the graph where the graph actually starts. By readjusting the levels the truth colors will come out.

Step 6: If you have PS7 press Auto Colour and forget the jargon I just wrote. :D

This really is a basic description that I probably didnt explain well at all. But If you do it right there is some amazing quality to be had. I dont really like the auto colour mode. As well, if this doesnt work at all, you may not have sampled a good area, in that case try sampling somewhere else. And it needs to be grey to work proper.

Hope this hasnt completly messed you up.