regarding color profiles in Windows

[jacobgong]

I just got myself a decent new IPS monitor so I had to make sure my software set-ups are all done correctly, but now I don't think I understand what to do with color profiles.
For example, like why do I see no differences when I set a color profile in Windows? Does it not apply to everything on the screen?
Photoshop gets a lot more complicated of course, there is the color setting where you get to choose a "working space" but what is a working space? is it different from the monitor's profile? and the printer's profile?
there is also the proofing condition where you choose a "device to simulate". What do you mean like simulate? how can I not simulate and display what it should look like?

I wish someone could put all these in a flow chart or something, it's so confusing.
like this:
Source, images, videos etc. (embedded profile)
internal processing. (hopefully something that covers the entire spectrum, or whatever the embedded profile is, or whatever it defaults to)
monitor. (a profile that converts the internal processing result into output signal such that the display displays the correct colors)
printer. (same as above, but for printing)

Now my monitor comes with a CD which has a color profile for it, but there is no instruction for it, nothing what so ever. How am i supposed to know what the hell it is supposed to do? Because the monitor has different color space settings like sRGB and Adobe RGB. Does it simply apply to like, all settings?

 

[MTVision]

Just choose sRGB for your monitor and for photoshop. That is the standard default color profile for the internet.

I don't know if you would notice a color difference. I use to have photoshop set to aRGB and never noticed a color difference until I posted it to the Internet without converting it to sRGB. Most printers/print labs use sRGB as well (or that's what I've read).

 

[MLeeK]

You are getting things all confused...
First you need to have a calibrator and to calibrate your monitor. The calibrator will set the color profile accordingly.

For working colorspace in photoshop for most applications you will be using sRGB unless you are printing for extreme color or for some reason you choose to work in prophoto or adobe RGB. Adobe and prophoto are extremely large gamut colorspaces and 99% of labs are printing in sRGB. If you don't want to go through headaches of having your prints come back wonky or having to convert it to sRGB before printing-just work in sRGB. Under Edit>Color Settings your settings will be North American General purpose 2; srgb...; US Web coated...; and so on and so on... Make sure you are preserving the embedded color profile.

Yes, there are times and reasons to work in a large gamut colorspace, but for someone who is this confused by all of this just stay simple and not have to mess with conversions and worrying about blowing gamut...



Now that you have calibrated your monitor and you are working in the same colorspace you are going to print in stop worrying about all of it unless you get a professional photo printer and need to calibrate to output on it.
Calibrate your monitor often. Mine is set to remind me once a week. Might be overkill, but I know there is no drifting or getting wonky colors that way.

 

[Garbz]

I just got myself a decent new IPS monitor so I had to make sure my software set-ups are all done correctly, but now I don't think I understand what to do with color profiles.

That's not enough information. Is this monitor special? Does it have a wide gamut? Are you generating your own colourprofiles using a calibrator? If the answer to both of these is no then you can safely ignore all the windows colour setting garbage. Set it back to sRGB and be done with it.

For example, like why do I see no differences when I set a color profile in Windows? Does it not apply to everything on the screen?

Welcome that's because Windows Colour Management is an oxymoron. Windows doesn't do any colour management, it simply provides a database of profiles for your hardware. It is up to the application (like Photoshop) to request what the current colour profile for your device is, and then to either do it's own conversion or use the APIs provided by windows to convert profiles. Photoshop does this. While you don't see anything change if you select weird-colour-space.ics as your colour profile on your monitor, if you open Photoshop and check your colour settings you'll see something called Monitor Color - weird-colour-space.ics. It knows and then does the conversion itself.

Photoshop gets a lot more complicated of course, there is the color setting where you get to choose a "working space" but what is a working space? is it different from the monitor's profile? and the printer's profile?
there is also the proofing condition where you choose a "device to simulate". What do you mean like simulate? how can I not simulate and display what it should look like?

I wish someone could put all these in a flow chart or something, it's so confusing.
like this:
Source, images, videos etc. (embedded profile)
internal processing. (hopefully something that covers the entire spectrum, or whatever the embedded profile is, or whatever it defaults to)
monitor. (a profile that converts the internal processing result into output signal such that the display displays the correct colors)
printer. (same as above, but for printing)

Ok here's a primer. Devices have colour spaces to describe how they work. You can think of it in terms of Input, Working, and Output Profiles.

- Your input profile is something like "Adobe Standard" profile that Adobe CameraRAW uses to determine what colours actually are on your sensor. If you shoot in JPEG then this step is taken care of by the camera itself and you're left with a JPEG that has a working profile set according to your camera (usually sRGB, sometimes AdobeRGB)
- Your working profile is just that. It's what you're currently working on. You can safely ignore the working profile settings in Adobe Photoshop, what is critical is that the working profiles are preserved between apps, which is to say that if you open a JPEG that has an AdobeRGB file and Photoshop asks you what to do you never tick the "Ignore embedded profile" option. It's just plain bad. A working profile is theoretical, it's all math. It basically says a value of 255,0,0 has specific chroma value ..... . This is not enough informationto display an image. You need to know how your output device will interpret 255,0,0 as well.
- And that brings us to output profiles. Monitors, printers, etc all will produce a different colour when you feed them the raw value 255,0,0. It'll be a shade of Red, but you can't guarantee the chromaticity of that shade. That's what colour management is there fore.

A practical example: I have an sRGB file (my working profile), yet my monitor for sake of argument is AdobeRGB (my output profile).
If I display RGB(255,0,0) on my display ignoring the output profile it becomes waaaaaaaay to red. But Photoshop knows my output profile is AdobeRGB and my working profile is sRGB. So when I paint RGB(255,0,0) it instinctively displays RGB(219,0,0) on my display to compensate for my display being just that bit too saturated. It does this completely transparently to the user, as all I as the user am concerned with is the Working Colour Space.

Photoshop uses the output profile to ensure that your display is showing you the *correct* colour as currently set in your working profile.


So the natural extension of this is softproofing one device so that we know what it looks like if we send it to another. In a perfect world all our devices could display all colours we could need and that would be the end of it. But more often than not we find things like printers are unable to display pure reds greens or blues, on account of them using cyan, magenta, and yellow to make colours instead. So when our wonderfully colourful picture on the computer gets printed it may look quite a bit more dull which is unexpected.

Soft proofing basically adds another step into the conversion
Without Softproofing: Working Profile -> Display Profile
With Softproofing: Working Profile -> Printer Profile -> Display Profile.

The idea here is that I know accurately what my simulated device will look like in advance. However if you're still with me and your brain hasn't melted yet you may realise that this will only really work if your display profile has a wider colour gamut than your printer profile you are softproofing. Otherwise you still won't have an accurate view.

Welcome to colour management. I doubt I explained that very well.

Now my monitor comes with a CD which has a color profile for it, but there is no instruction for it, nothing what so ever. How am i supposed to know what the hell it is supposed to do? Because the monitor has different color space settings like sRGB and Adobe RGB. Does it simply apply to like, all settings?

What monitor do you have?

 

[KmH]

Here is a group of tutorials you may find useful:

Tutorials on Color Management & Printing

You might also want to get the following to have handy for reference: Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers: A professional image editor's guide to the creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC

Real World Color Management (2nd Edition)