Can someone please help me with printing?

with a raw file in Aperture, what working space am I in?

On the source colour space in the Apple application and the Adobe application, see enclosed.

/hh

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http://lists.apple.com/archives/Colorsync-users/2005/Oct/msg00253.html

I spoke at length with the lead tech on the Aperture product yesterday. Some of the info provided previously is errant. I guess that the junior tech did not have his facts right.

In concept, Aperture is using the steroids of a quad processor G5 and beefed up display card to do tricks with chunks of data.

RAW files are converted to floating point temp files for display.

Edits are recorded into a XML file, but not applied until the file is exported

Only when the files are exported, does ICC enter the processing stage. Any working space can be selected for a target destination.

Input is not profiled in the ICC sense, but rather characterized in the Adobe Camera RAW sense. These camera characterizations are part of the OSX/updates. (Which presumably means that Apples smart OS will see RAW files in other apps in the future).

Display profile is of course in play throughout the process.

Softproof profile can also be enabled throughout the process.

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http://lists.apple.com/archives/Colorsync-users/2007/Jul/msg00520.html

Subject: Re: Working color space of Aperture/Lightroom
From: Andrew Rodney <email@hidden>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 18:34:35 -0600

On 7/25/07 6:26 PM, "Nov06" wrote:

I just had an idea, playing around with gradients. If Lightroom uses
a variation of ProPhoto as working space, should creating a pure grey
gradient tiff in PS with ProPhoto as the working space and importing
it into Lightroom show the equal values for red, green, blue over the
whole gradient?

The processing color space LR uses is ProPhoto primaries and a linear gamma. The numbers provided (in percentages) is Melissa RGB (aka ******* RGB) which is ProPhoto RGB using a sRGB 2.2 TRC. However, the values should be R=G=B using those numbers.

And should adjusting the curve for example keep
things as neutral greys?

It should. Are you seeing something different?

If this works, one could start testing which color space has the
behaviour in Aperture (hint: it's not Adobe RGB).

I was under the impression the underling color space used for processing in Aperture was Adobe RGB but for whatever reason, Apple doesn't want to tell us what exactly is happening under the hood. What makes you say its not Adobe RGB (perhaps using a linear TRC)?

And finally with a raw file in Aperture, what working space am I in?

To try to throw a little more light on this.

Short: When converting from a source to a destination, the destination becomes the source. For instance, when saving from Aperture's implicit RGB working space into explicit RGB working space XXX, then explicit RGB working space XXX becomes the source. If it is too small a source, then colours available in the colour space of any digital graphic device down the line cannot be rendered. Reason: the colours are not in the source space, and if they are not in the source space it is irrelevant whether or not they are in the destination space.

Long: A decade ago the ColorSync Users List had discussions about the fit between colour managing digital scanners and colour managing digital cameras. In a digital scanner, the aim is to digitise a viewable graphic available as a colour positive either in a transparency medium or in a reflective medium. The perceptual rendering, so to speak, is already done by the photographer in picking a film look/filter look and the rest of the rendering is relative colorimetric. SCNR Scanner profiles for digital scanners are unidirectional (input to the Profile Connection Space) and although there is no limitation on the rendering intents the rule is that their behaviour is relative colorimetric. Formally, SCNR Scanner also applies to digital cameras, but with a digital camera the aim is not so much to get a colorimetric reproduction, but rather to replace the perceptual rendering of physical film types. Development was done as well by Heidelberg Prepress on ScanOpen for LinoColor DCam as by LOGO/GretagMacbeth on ProfileMaker for digital cameras as no doubt others, but in the meantime the digital camera developers decided to roll the perceptual rendering into system software rather than exposing it to the control of third party software (which would be available at a professional price). With the transition from ICC Specification 2 (there wasn't really a Specification 3) to ICC Specification 4, it would be nice to see camera capture software open up to ICC camera profiling products so that it would be possible to combine as well issue of colorimetry (which camera manufacturers are arguably not addressing) with the issue of perceptual renderings (which could be addressed in ICC framework as an alternative to addressing this in camera system software). It might even be nice to see Apple, as the company whose file format is the foundation of the ICC Specification, open up its camera capture application. But this post is the sort of thing people are probably shot for -:).

/hh

Hello Jerry,
it is basically really simple using colormanagement.

You will have most times two sources, which are involved into how you see the colors of a photo right: Camera/Scanner for input, Monitor/Printer for output.

First step in working with Aperture is, importing your RAW into library. Aperture performs a color transformation from in your case the 12-bit RAW file (or does the D300 capture 14-Bit?) into a 16-bit widegamut colorspace. You know such a wide colorspace from within Photoshop which brings a widegamut profile with it. Thats all.

If your camera embeds a color profile into that file like Nikon does, that is really stupid, because we use RAW, which is not processed at all and so it has no colorspace. Stupid is, that Aperture does not recognize that fault as it uses the embedded profile for later exporting to external apps. Thats beside what I like to tell.

Your file is imported into Aperture and has now a widegamut colorspace about 16-bit. Give it a name - maybe Aperture profile - if you like.

Aperture now has to show you right colors in screen, because you have to know how that file will look and you have to make your settings for colors you like.

For displaying correct colors on screen, Aperture uses (as all other Apps too, which are colormanaged enabled) the profile for your monitor. That is the profile, you selected in system settings for the monitor.

Til now, soft proofing on screen is off.

I make all my settings for saturation and so on with soft proof on screen set to off!

If you like to see, what your printer is able to print on a given photopaper, Aperture uses the soft proofing function. In this cases Aperture makes a transformation of colors from both profiles: It looks into the printer profile for how large is the colorspace and which colors can be printed, then it looks into monitor profile and does the same. Now it transforms the colors from the developed RAW and shows them on screen. This is all temporarily because the RAW is never toouched by this procress.

The same is if you print your file. Make in the print dialog of Aperture the correct print settings for paper and driver setups and then save. If you let the driver make colormanagement in the file, then select in Aperture "managed by system" for the color sync profile in Apertures print dialog. If you like to use Aperture for colormanagement, then switch in the printer settings colormanagement to off (I use a large Epson printer for my prints, so I can spell the right words for the HP printer driver).

Now, Aperture should print the photo as it shows on monitor. If not, something may wrong: If the rpint comes to dark, you can use the gamma settings in the print dialog of Aperture and set the value to 1.1 or 1.2. If the colors do not match, the profile for the printer may wrong or bad. If you use a similar paper to what your profile for the paper says, that can give you wrong colors on print. Some papers look mostly the same but do have very different print results (I think, you know that).

On the other hand, is your printer able to switch colormanagement completely to off? If not, try a printout with colormanagement set to the printer driver and in Apertures print dialog set to "managed by system" and give it a look.

Thats all you have to do!

If the rpint comes to dark, you can use the gamma settings in the print dialog of Aperture and set the value to 1.1 or 1.2.

A custom gamma correction in the print interface and implemented at print time is not part of the colour managed system from digital original to print space 1, print space 2, print space 3, print space N. Set the studio viewing booth and the studio lighting up to controlled conditions instead of compensating for a too bright display or a too dim viewing light by using a custom gamma correction.

/hh

Well Hendrik, you may use that only, if the printer profile and printer calibrating or paper itself differs from each. Most of us do not make their own printer profiles which is only for professionals. And most of us do not own the needed software and hardware like spectralphotometers.

So, I do that most times that way. I print posters and fine arts on my Epson 9800 Pro printer with the Epson printer driver and I do not print at all on original Epson papers because they are very expensive. When I print on a foreign paper, often the profile are not as good as the profiles that came from Epson if a profile for that foreign paper is available at all.

I do not want to reach the level of a certified proofer, I do want only print nice photos as I like them.

I do not want to reach the level of a certified proofer, I do want only print nice photos as I like them.

No problem in home and hobby photographer, as long as the photography is not intended for a professional process. The problem only hits home if five to ten people are professionally producing photographs for a periodical or book and they are preparing the photographs at several studios located at several sites.

/hh

.... and now, back to trying to print something! I look forward to your progress report. 😉