Introduction

You may think in todays world of technology marvels something as simple as having your prints appear just like you saw them in the real world would be a simple thing, consistent color would be a sure betfar from it. Anyone with any experience in the digital imagery world will be the first to point out color consistency is about elusive as the Holy Grail itself. Even when you think youve finally have attained a satisfactory level of consistency, something happens to cause your colors to go south.

Why all the gnashing teeth over something like consistent color? Well, if youre not into having Aunt Mabel look jaundiced in family pictures or if you want to avoid your kitchen possessing a decided pink hue, consistent color should be everything to you. The problem is things you take for granted because the 20 lb computer between your ears accounts for the varieties of light and color has to be specifically adjusted when interacting with your computer, monitor, and printer. The challenge becomes obvious when shooting under fluorescent lights with daylight film. You get a huge colorcast thats not easily removed after the fact. While you and your naked eye may see everything looking great, the film takes a decided blue hue simply because thats the way the light really is despite what you see with your naked eye. Your brain is doing subtle adjustments to make the scene appear right even though it's not.

Dealing with challenging light is a simple problem for film-based photography. Its not a challenge exclusive to digital photography. There are this is more issues you have to deal with in the digital photography domain that are never issues with the film world. Essentially were talking about the problems dealing with your computer.

Digital Challenges

So, whats the problem here? Well first, theres the entire problem of gamut. A color gamut is essentially the breadth of colors available for a particular device. A monitors color palette looks entirely different on a printer, its gamut is different. Its simply a matter of physics. Monitors display colors differently from the way inkjet printers display theirs. The ability of a given monitor to display a given set of colors is different than the individual printer. Then add the other factor that each individual device though the same model will potentially show colors differently than its brother. The variaties of the production process rarely build two printers exactly the same for digital imagery purposes. Essentially, were having a problem with references systems. Without using a calibrated color process, your results become unpredictable when moving your image from the monitor to the printer. Now you see the point of color calibration.

Monitors have a wider color gamut than printers. Said another way, monitors are able to produce more colors than printers. Add another dimension where your digital cameras or film scanners have a different gamut than either your printer or monitor you begin to see we have a complex problem. The challenge boils down to keeping color consistent between three devices that arent matched with each other. What does a photographer do?

Color Space

This is where technology and standards come into play. Lots of smart people through the years developed a set of protocols and standards by which color is standarized. What theyve done is set a standard for how colors appear under specific conditions. Its the same as establishing the length of an inch, the weight of a pound, or the duration of a second. These standards are very basic concepts and theyre the only way anyone can tell if an apple is red verses green. Were talking about establishing the truth of color.

These standards exist as defined in a thing called a Color Space, which is only a reference system by which colors are defined. A color defined in one Color Space may look different in another. An inch is an inch in an English reference system while an inch isnt a millimeter in the metric system. Obviously, theyre two entirely different things. What are the characteristics of a Color Space? Essentially, they provide a map of reference numbers for individual colors. There are many out there designed for particular purposes. The most common, sRBG, was specially designed to represent the color gamut of a typical computer monitor. The designers wanted to eliminate as much angst as possible with viewing images across several monitors. If the color gamut was the same across several monitors, the colors should look the same. At least in theory its supposed to work this way.

But, one Color Space will not work for everything. Four-color printers have a wider gamut than most monitorsmuch larger than desktop printerswhich means if youre tied to sRGB Color Space, youre not taking advantage of the full capability of your hardware. So, a larger standard was developed to define this extra space. Its called Adobe 98 and its the most commonly used Color Space. Its the standard for digital imagers including photographers around the world.

Now were back to the original problemhow to deal with different devices that define color differently? Instead of just throwing your images unaltered from one device to another, its better to ensure your images color fidelity by following a disciplined conversion process. This works by first knowing the precise color characteristics of your devices and their associated differences. When the differences are known, a programmer can code a conversion application that makes translating color from one device to the other reliable and automatic. Easier than pie, youre thinking right?