Help with Photshop/Monitor setup for professional studio, ICC profiles, printer.

[hieubui]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, I am completely new here, if I am not, can you help show me where I can get answers to this?

If you can help me, then please.

So I'm helping my dad with a photography studio over the summer to make money for a car and I will be doing the editing and such.
I have CS4 on a laptop, that is connected to a NEC monitor with Multisync P221W with the Spectraview II calibration software.
We have done a few pictures before but it has always taken us a few prints from the costco photo center to get the colors and lighting right because
it always seems to be different than how I see it on the monitor. I have been told install the ICC profiles from California digital photo lab profiles . I live in the victorville area, and there are 4 ICC profiles, 2 for each printer. How do I install all 4? And how do I switch from one to the other? Also how do I set up my NEC monitor for photo editing, the Spectraview program calibrates it and says that it's set up for Photo editing but are there standard values for the colors, gamma, etc? And also how do I set up Photoshop CS4 for editing, I have been told to go to color settings but I don't know what to do once I get there.

And what is the best photo printer for me? We plan to start printing our own photos soon and what would be a good priced printer that prints at least 8x10?


Thanks for your time.

 

[KmH]

Start here:

Tutorials on Color Management & Printing

You'll need a spectrophotmeter to calibrate the display and profile whatever printer you get:
ColorMunki Photo - Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler

If you only need to calibrate a display you can use a less expensive colorimeter like the highly recommend X-RiteEye-One Display 2, www.xrite.com.

Click this link: http://mpix.com/support/Help.aspx?id=3
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on where it say's "DOWNLOAD HERE" under the "Are ICC profiles available for soft proofing?" paragraph. Save that .zip PDF file to your computer. Open the ICC Profiles folder and click on the Soft-proofing help.pdf folder. In that folder you will find directions how to install ICC profiles.

I would not use any of the Costco labs in the link you posted. I highly recommend you use Mpix, MpixPro, or Miller's Professional Imaging for your prints.

A photography studio needs prints much larger than 8x10 to survive, and frankly I would leave the printing up to the experts.

 

[Garbz]

To set up your monitor if it's the brightest thing in the room set it to monitor default white balance, monitor default contrast ratio, monitor default gamut and gamma 2.2 contrast curve. If your room lighting is bright then you start having problems, your eyes should adjust to the screen, not your screen adjust to your eyes.

To install colour profiles in windows put them into the directory: "c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\color"

In Photoshop you then want to explore the concept of soft proofing: "http://www.computer-darkroom.com/softproof/softproof_1.htm" using the printing profiles you got.

Now if you finally want to match the print to the screen properly you'll need a calibrated lightbox with the brightness and white balance adjusted to match what you see on the screen.


Oh and while you're at it when you finish calibrating and you open photoshop click "edit -> colour settings" go to the RGB Profiles drop down box and hit the down arrow and check to make sure you see a monitor profile named: "Monitor RGB - P221W <serialno> <date> <time> " This means photoshop has loaded the ICC profile you generated in spectraview correctly.