Embedded Color Profile

This is very easy.

== The lab should tell you which color space they want; sRGB or aRGB.

== When you "export" the image, specify the color space they require. (There is a drop down on the screen.)

If they offer specific profiles for their various papers, etc., you can go one better.

== Load the profile(s) on your Mac.

== Turn on "Soft Proofing" and select that profile from the drop down menu.

== Edit image.

== Export image as JPEG, selecting the same paper profile.

In theory, your print should be close to what you saw on screen.

Hope this helps.

The International Color Consortium specifies a file format for interchange of colour information. Technically, this is the file format of ColorSync 2.0 of May 1995.

The concept is that the colourants in data space (RGB, CMYK, Gray) are referenced to colours in code space (CIEXYZ, CIEL a*b) so that the colourants can be changed to keep the colours constant.

To work with this model,

1. The application that captures and corrects colourants in data space when saving and sharing in an application-independent file format (TIFF, JPEG, PDF) incorporates into the image the ICC profile for the source colour space.

2. The ICC profile for the source colour space is not the capture space (scanner or camera) and not the display space (the measured profile of the monitor), but the correction space e.g. ECI-RGB, Adobe RGB (1998), Photogamut RGB or other.

3. In working with a digital camera, as a rule there is no ICC profile for the capture space (opposite when working with a professional flatbed or drum scanner). The camera has internal proprietary perceptual preprocessing that the third party capture software works with.

4. The display should be calibrated and the calibration characterised in an ICC profile which should be installed correctly in the Apple ColorSync Utility. The user should not change monitor profile in the Displays control panel (where the wrong video card gamma tag can be downloaded).

5. The display profile should not be used as colour correction space in the exposure correction and colour correction software. The measured display profile does not necessarily define gray as R = G= B whereas an idealised type MNTR Monitor profile such as ECI-RGB, Adobe RGB or Photogamut RGB does.

6. The size and shape of the ICC format colour space that is selected for sharing colour information should not be so small that colours that can be captured are clipped and thus cannot be communicated to devices that could have reproduced those colours. So, don't use sRGB.

7. In saving out the data space colourants and the ICC colour space that defines the colours they should form to an application-independent file format, do not apply corrections that overrule the colour management system e.g. gamma corrections in the export dialogue.

8. In general, if the ICC colour management system is correctly configured by all concerned it will work, but it is easy to forget that the viewing condition for the studio lights should be correctly configured as well.

The above steps are applicable to any and all colour capture and colour correction software.

Hope this helps.

/hh

== The lab should tell you which color space they want; sRGB or aRGB.

The photographer chooses the source colour space for colour communication. The printing service, whether selling a long run gravure printing condition, a medium run offset printing condition, a short run digital press printing condition, or a single print for a photo gamut printing condition chooses the destination colour space.

The ICC source colour space should be so large that it holds the source colours of which the preferred printing condition is capable, and the ICC destination colour space should have good gamut mapping to preserve colour contrasts when colours that cannot be mapped directly must be moved. Prerably the print service provides its profiles for soft proofing and hard proofing.

If they offer specific profiles for their various papers, etc., you can go one better.

Right.

/hh