Cameras and Photography Explained

You must manage color

While standards exist for color information, there are quite a few different ones, and they're implemented haphazardly across products. Even Macintosh users, who have color management built into their macOS in a more regular way than Windows users, need to manage their color.

Colors need to be managed from image capture through however you output them. If you make mistakes or don't pay attention to what's happening with the color, you'll have a very difficult time getting good looking images.

This article isn't about moving sliders on the screen until "the color looks right." That's not color management, that's color manipulation, which is something different.

When you move a slider to adjust the color you see, how do you know that the color you're seeing on your display is correct? Well, that's done by understanding how color is defined, what is defining it, and making sure that the camera, computer, and printer are all talking the same color language.

This article will talk about Color Spaces and Color Profiles, the behind-the-scenes controllers of how color is managed.

Quick Recommendations (all your really need to know)

• Set ProPhotoRGB in your raw converter as your Color Space if you photograph with raw images (it doesn't matter what the in-camera setting is, and no current camera has a ProPhotoRGB Color Space option you could set, anyway). You'll be surprised to know that your digital camera can do much more subtle and extended color than AdobeRGB can show. Fortunately, whatever setting you have in your raw converter will override your camera setting. If you're worried about Color Space mismatch—what you see on the monitor versus the actual colors behind the scenes—and you have an Apple Retina display, you could choose the P3 Color Space for converting raw files. But I recommend ProPhotoRGB, as it defines more colors, colors your camera can capture.
• Set sRGB as your Color Space in both your camera and in your photo editor if you always use JPEG and print at labs or if you only output to the Web. Setting anything else means you have to convert your Color Space before saving and sending the image to print or putting it on the Web. While we're starting to see some of the larger Color Spaces supported in a few browsers, most of those are concentrating on HDR support (an article for another day).
• Profile your monitor. Spend a bit of money to get a hardware analyzer and the corresponding software for it. This is the best thing you can do to help you achieve good, managed color. And these days, it doesn't cost much. But make sure the monitor profile that's created by the hardware is only used for the monitor! It's not a Color Space. If you own any Apple Retina display (current iMac, Studio Display, most MacBooks), they come very well calibrated out of the factory and rarely drift, so unless you're Mac owner that's also a perfectionist, you can tend to skip this advice.
• Use the printer driver and custom profiles for the paper you print on. All printer makers have profiles for their own papers, and most paper manufacturers supply profiles now, as well. Third parties also make paper profiles, such as my Internet friend in the UK, Keith Cooper. Only when you learn how to print using the proper paper profile should you try anything more sophisticated or switch to having the application handle the color management during printing.

But Wait, There's More

Think you need to know more? Then:

• Profiles are not Spaces. Most of the confusion about color management comes in the terminology, and the biggest confusion point of them all is the difference between a Color Profile (sometimes called a Device Profile) and a Color Space. Note that I use these two terms separately, but the International Color Consortium (ICC) does not. The reason why I separate them is because they are used differently:
  • A Color Space defines what is possible. Imagine you're designing an office building. The bigger the building you design, the more workers it can hold. Color Spaces are the same. The "bigger" the Color Space, the more color possibilities it encompasses. Larger Color Spaces not only include more possible colors, but also tend to allow for brighter, more saturated colors, as well. Note that a _specific pixel value_—say 48, 122, 240—produces a different color in sRGB than it does in AdobeRGB because of the difference in size of the Color Space; that's why an image taken in one Color Space but displayed or printed in another will look wrong. In order of increasing size, the primary Color Spaces photographers use are sRGB (small space), P3 and AdobeRGB (medium space), and ProPhotoRGB (large space). (Because of video, HDR, and HEIF you might also sometimes see the BT.2200 Color Space appear. Again, that's something for another article; it's rare that any photographer is using that Color Space today.)
  • A Color Profile defines how a device deviates from a Color Space. When we profile a monitor, printer, or sometimes a camera, we are essentially creating a map of how it differs from a specific Color Space definition. Savvy software can then use that map to "fix" the color when rendered on or by that device so that it matches the Color Space definitions in use.
  • ICC files are confusing. Color Spaces and Color Profiles are both stored as .ICC files, and the ICC itself uses the word "profile" to describe both! Technically, that's correct. Practically, that gets you into trouble if you don't pay attention to what's in that file and its purpose. That means you have to know whether the .ICC file you're picking is really the right type for what you're using it for. You don't want to pick Color Spaces to fix device deviancies from the color definitions, nor do you want to pick Color Profiles to assign a Color Space to use for color definitions. The most typical problem that occurs along these lines is picking your monitor's Color Profile as your Color Space. Remember, in Thom's world, a Profile is not a Space. You pick a Color Space (sRGB, AdobeRGB, or ProPhotoRGB) to work in, and you add profiles for your display and printer (and sometimes camera). Those profiles force the device to conform to the Color Space, and your colors shouldn't deviate as your images go through your workflow.
• Your computer software makes it harder than it should be. With the exception of a few recent products, such as Lightroom (all versions), you need to be proactive in dealing with color management. That involves:
  • What's your OS do? Windows and macOS users Color Different.
    • In macOS, color management is always present (System Settings > Displays > Preset). Apple provides a basic Profile (Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits) on my MacBook Pro) that is set by default, but you should select any monitor profile you create with a hardware calibrator (see below; most profilers automatically do this for you by placing their profile into this field). The macOS also defaults to a gamma of 1.8 (you should probably profile to 2.2; see gamma, below). But the good news is that all macOS applications are "color aware," meaning that they display colors using whatever Color Profile that's in effect in Displays. Thus, all applications get the device deviance for the monitor automatically adjusted. Also notice: Apple now ships an XDR-capable display with an XDR profile, but if you're not using HDR processing, you should probably pick the corresponding "regular" one (e.g. Apple Display (P3-500 nits) on the MacBooks).
    • In Windows, color management generally requires that you create or install a profile for your devices. Quite a few monitors and video cards come with Color Profiles, so you should check to see if you've got one, and use it if you do. Even Windows 11 has similar issues. Gamma is assumed to be 2.2, which is what you want. But not all applications are "color aware," so you may have to set things like your monitor Color Profile in your software application. This is a real problem, as there is considerable variability on this point and considerable differences in the terms software programs use (see next).
    • Beware Adobe Gamma. If this helper application is loaded at startup by your operating system, it's going to try to apply a profile of its own. This can lead to classic "double profiling," which you don't want to do. If you profile with a hardware device as I suggest, make sure Adobe Gamma is disabled.
  • What's your application do? Basically, your application falls into one of two categories: (1) it doesn't need any help with color and you thus have to configure nothing (e.g. Lightroom); or (2) it needs information from you about what to do:
    • Set a Color Space. Photoshop users need to select Color Settings from the Edit menu and set their "RGB Working Space" to the Color Space they wish to use (more on which one in a bit). Capture NX-D users need to select Color Management from the Preferences menu and set their Default Color Space and their default Printer Profile (used for Soft Proofing). This latter usually entails picking the profile your printer maker supplied for the paper you use. In NX Studio you use Options > Color Management.
    • Watch for Color Space mismatches. If you camera is set to sRGB and your application to AdobeRGB, you should see a dialog pop up when you try to open an image asking what to do (though some applications such as Lightroom just automatically and correctly move the color information into the space they've set). This dialog allows you to accept the camera's definition, assign the application's definition, or convert the data. Generally, you want to avoid conversion upwards in Color Space sizes (e.g. sRGB to AdobeRGB).

Monitor Profilers

Any monitor profiler is better than no profiler, and probably good enough.

Monitor profilers run from about US$100 to many times that. The best ones these days for photographers is one of the Calibrite Colorimeters. You can also buy displays with built-in profilers and even more expensive profilers or calibrators if you start looking closely. Does it matter which you buy? Not really:

• The differences between profilers is small. If you're into absolute precision with color, perhaps because you photograph clothing for fashion catalogs, then maybe you have motivation to look for the very best and most accurate profiler (such as the Calibrite Display Pro HL). But for the vast majority of photographers, virtually any profiler is a strong step forward in color management and probably all that you ever need. (Again, Apple Retina displays tend to not need profiling—just use the default profile assigned by macOS—though they can drift a bit over time.)
• The biggest issue is getting the profiler's parameters set correctly. Even the profile software sometimes gets in the way. Many throw out cryptic terms and options at you: gamma, white point, and so on. Start with gamma of 2.2 and a white point of D65 (unless you know for sure that your monitor is set to something else; some monitors use the term "color temperature 6500K" instead of "D65"). Later, when you get more color savvy, you can experiment with other options.
• Don't let your monitor's controls get in the way. Did you tweak the brightness and contrast (and other settings) directly on your monitor? If so, you might need to reset those things. It's best to start from the defaults and only apply settings directly on the monitor that the profile hardware/software suggest.
• Mac users should watch out for TrueTone. Automatically Adjust Brightness and True Tone should be turned off in the Display panel in System Settings. Otherwise, the operating system will be yanking the monitor around when you want its output to be a constant.
• Gamma is not a relative on your mother's side. Gamma refers to how the dark to bright continuum is linearized (or not linearized). Cameras see with a gamma of 1.0 (linear). Humans see with a gamma that's not perfectly captured by a number, but gammas in the range of 1.8 to 2.2 generally come close.
  • Set 2.2 if you have choice. The reason for this is all those PCs surfing the Web with an assumed gamma of 2.2. If you profile to the macOS 1.8 gamma standard, those PC users are going to see what looks to be somewhat bright images with an improper shadow linearization.
  • Some software, including Nikon camera settings, now refer to a gamma adjustment as "brightness." I suspect this is so that you don't confuse "monitor gamma" with "image gamma." But now you'll confuse "monitor brightness" with "image brightness."

What About Printers?

Printer profiling is a different, more complex story.

You're in a twisty maze of printer settings. You're in a maze of twisty printer settings. When it comes time to print, things get very confusing if you're trying to do it yourself (it's not much less confusing if you use a lab, but at least using a lab is simple by comparison, and they can usually help you with settings):

• Who's doing the color management? It's a fight between the application (e.g. Photoshop) and the printer driver (e.g. Epson or Canon driver). They can't both do it, so you have to pick one or the other. I'll give you a simple starting point: use your printer manufacturer's paper and let the printer driver do the work. Select the manufacturer's paper Device Profiles when you start out. As you get more sophisticated, switch to letting Photoshop do it and use custom paper Device Profiles.
• Use the right Color Space. Most of the recent desktop inkjet printers come close to the size of the AdobeRGB Color Space. Thus, if you work in sRGB you're losing some of the color subtlety you could obtain. At home, you'd tend to use AdobeRGB as your Color Space while editing. However, most photo labs have printers that work closer to sRGB (and expect that as the Color Space), so you'd be sending them the wrong data if you used AdobeRGB as the Color Space.
• Profile your lab. If you have prints regularly done by someone else, check Dry Creek to see if there's a profile available for that lab. Dry Creek also has some good color management articles you should read.
• Learn Soft Proofing. Most programs that you'd use to print from have soft proofing ability, which is a way of letting you see on screen what the likely output from your printer will look like. Why should there be a difference? Because some printers can't print certain colors, some papers add an underlying color, reflective color from a sprayed on ink looks different than illuminated color on a display, and so on.

What the heck is a Color Mode?

Fortunately, Nikon stepped away from that terminology when EXPEED came out in 2007. Basically, those old Nikon DSLR Color Modes 1 and 3 were pretty large deviations from "neutral" color, as if you had adjusted Hue, Saturation, or other color modification controls on the camera.

• I've always suggested Color Mode II. For those early Nikon DSLRs, that's the most "neutral" of the Color Modes. My mantra is that "it is always easier to create deviations from normal color than it is to create normal color from deviated colors."
• The latest cameras don't have Modes. The Nikon Picture Control settings now do the color distortions, should you want them. The most neutral is indeed called Neutral.