One of the biggest misconceptions in color management is the belief that you calibrate your monitor and printer to match each other.
If you think that’s how it works, you’re not alone. And that belief will cause you problems and frustration at one point or another, if it hasn’t already.
Want to break through the misconception and learn how it really works? It’s not hard, it just requires a little under the hood knowledge of color management.
Let’s start with an example from music. Consider this: If a guitarist and a cellist were playing the same piece of music, would you expect the guitar to sound like the cello? No. We all know that the character of instruments is different, even if they are playing the same notes, so we don’t expect them to be the same. This is also how we should think (though, to a lesser degree) about monitors and prints.
The problem with the idea of making your monitor and printer “match” is that it forgets about the file itself…and the fact that the file is the most accurate representation of color.
Files, by their nature, are what contain the colors we want to reproduce. They are the most accurate representation, even though they record color in a numeric form our eyes can’t see. To see the colors, we need output devices, monitors and printers, which convert those numbers into a visual representation. To understand how they work together, we need to understand how colors are stored and translated.
Files contain the formula to actual colors, not just a vague definition of a color. A pixel value of 211R 0G 0B doesn’t just mean the 231st step of red above zero. It means a very specific color, as plotted in the spectrum as defined by a specific ICC profile.
The problem with monitors and printers is that they are each limited in the colors they can reproduce. This is constrained by things like gamuts (the range of colors they can create) and white points. When we measure and define the colors a device can produce, we have its colorspace, which can be described in a ICC profile.
The file almost always has more colors than the devices we use to display color. The way color management works is it uses these ICC profiles which describe a device’s colorspace to map the colors from the file’s colorspace into the device’s colorspace as accurately as possible.
Why? Well, you can’t just feed a pixel value of 211R 0G 0B from the file into a printer or monitor and expect to get the right color red. In all likelihood, you’ll need to feed in an entirely different combination of RGB values to the output device in order to get the same exact color as defined by 211R 0G 0B in the file. The color profile contains the information that lets the computer translate color from one colorspace to another.
This is the important point. Color management IS NOT trying to make the monitor match the printer. Instead, it’s trying to make each device, independently of any other device, represent the file as accurately as it can, within its own limitations. The file is always the starting point; monitors and printers are just representations of the file.
The reason we see a “match” between profiled monitors and printers is this: When we make each device represent color as accurately as possible, if the two devices are similar enough, then those two devices often display the color in a similar manner…so similar that we can say we have a “match.”
This is what leads to the idea of the “match,” and that idea causes many photographers great frustration. When one of the devices is more accurate than the other (usually the print, because a good print is more accurate than any monitor), then the photographer sees a difference between the two, and no longer thinks they are “matching.” The usual response is to think something has gone wrong, because they are expecting a match.
Instead, the photographer should understand what color management does, and conclude that they are seeing the limitations of the device. You have to realize that devices like monitors do not represent the print 100% of the time so you can shatter the myth of the match.
Now, I’m not recommending you throw away your color-accurate monitor, but to understand and work with its limitations. A true color-accurate monitor that has been accurately profiled can produce an extremely good “match” to a print for a wide variety of photographic applications. But when it doesn’t, we should look at the print (printed with a proven ICC profile) as the most accurate representation. One would not expect a student violin to sound like a Stradivarius, would they? So, while our monitor may be good for many performances, we’ll need to pull out the Stradivarius (the print) for our most breathtaking music.
Color Management is called “management” not “matching” for a reason, and now you know why!
Thanks Rich! What a great way to approach color management. As my son would say…..”boom done, any questions?”
This is a great “summary,” of the situation, and I’m sure that many photographers/printers will experience an “AHAH!!” moment while reading this. I tell my printing workshop people up front, day one: “Having a well-calibrated monitor/printer system gets you 96% towards the goal of making a perfect print, no more. The artistry of digital printing is in fine-tuning the print file that last few percent to get EXACTLY the print you envision. But without a calibrated system to start with, you’re probably only 50% of the way towards that goal, with a long and frustrating road ahead. By the time you stumble your way to the 96% mark, you may have given up in despair and MISS all the fun and satisfaction contained in preparing that final print file.” Thanks for posting this.
Well said Alan!
Bravo! There is a lot of mis-information on this subject, and you summed up the problem quite nicely!
One thing I would add is to point out Photoshop’s “View>Proof Setup>Custom…” dialog, which allows you to run a simulation of your output profile on the monitor. Although a *great* tool, especially for catching major gamut issues in your output, this is another place where people can get tripped up in trusting the monitor too much.
Let’s remember, a monitor is POSITIVE (mixed) light, where a print is (duh) reflected light and so by their very nature they are totally different. I don’t care how good the monitor is, it will never be a print.
Matthew,
Thanks for the kind words.
I actually avoid “View>Proof Setup>Custom…” for fine printing because I find that it is not accurate enough. I know many will disagree, but that’s what I and my printmakers at West Coast Imaging see. We find it’s better to let it fly and see what it’s really doing on a proof print, then adjust according to what it really did, not to a blind gamut warning / simulation.
We’ve done side by side tests with challenging prints with out of gamut colors, comparing a print under 4700k SoLux to the monitor, and turning the softproof on and off, and the monitor was more accurate with softproof off. I’d reason this is because since the monitor can’t match the print to begin with, detuning the monitor with the softproof doesn’t magically make the monitor more accurate.
Rich, that makes sense, especially for Fine Art. Typically I’m stuck in the depressing world of CMYK, which has a pretty severe gamut limitation compared to even sRGB, so as a quick reference for a photographer Proof Setup works pretty well.
For a few production cycles on our catalogs we attempted soft-proofing and found it to be totally insufficient, even for CMYK.
You have my curiosity piqued regarding SoLux. I haven’t had a chance to actually see any SoLux products, only their promotional stuff. Are they as good as they claim? Do they last as long as the GTI product? Our GTI booth is about to expire its lamps and it would be great if the new kid on the block is that good!
Chicken and egg problem? So, IF the original digital file from your camera file has the “True” color information, But now you adjust this “true” file on your “untrue” monitor what are you left with?
Please explain..It is my understanding that a printer has an internal conversion process that converts any file you feed it to CYMK for printing. The CMYK color space is nowhere near the quality of my better-than-RGB LaCie monitor.
If that is true then the print output is obviously going to differ from my monitor, not because of the difference between incident and reflected light but because the color spaces are so different (though that is obviously part of the issue).
I gave up the myth of of print-screen image parity long ago for the color space issue. But I have not tried (nor am I interested in trying) an RIP, but I have to ask, would that get you closer than profiling? I figure that if it looks “good” printed it’s going to be OK on a wall somewhere where the lighting is going to be radically different than the perfect 6000K lighting in a studio.
Thanks for the article!
William,
It’s not that the monitor is “untrue.” It’s just not as “true” as the print. I consider using a profiled color accurate monitor essential, but when that monitor disagrees with the print, I know that it is because the monitor is untrue, not the print. For most users, the monitor will get you there 99% of time without a hard proof (a print). For experienced fine art photographers, the monitor is the starting point, but you’ll also need the hard proof to guide you because you are trying to pull out the last 1%, maybe the last 0.1%. The purpose of this article is to let you know that there are limitations and how to deal with them when you encounter them, not do dissuade the use of profiled color accurate monitors.
Bruce,
Are you talking about CMYK on an offset press? The “CMYK” on an Epson printer has a far greater gamut than your LaCie display does.
RIPs use profiling so its not an “instead of” option. It is perfectly possible to get accurate prints from a inkjet printer using the driver, a RIP is not required.
Regarding lighting, it seems to work out that if you make it look great under 5000K lighting, it still looks great under 3200K lighting, for the most part.
Matthew,
They are as good as they claim. The SoLux bulbs are way more accurate than the GTI lights by my observations. The fluorescent bulbs are the weak point as they still have spikes in the spectrum which can overemphasize some colors as compared to true daylight.
The only challenge with SoLux is that there is now “viewing booth” solution. You have to make your own.