How do I incorporate printer profiles?

[Martin Huber]

As a side, the color cast is the same as when I printed my images at the local Longs Drugs. When I told the Longs tech to just make my pics have the same color as they did on their computer screen, they did a great job and all was well. In other words, both MPix and Longs have the same color shift, but the color on the Longs monitor and my monitor match.

According to their website MPIX wants JPEG images in sRGB color space but without an embedded profile (quite strange in my opinion).
So I would proceed like Hoogo said:
- Open the "Edit/Options" and navigate to "Color Management/Devices".
- Turn on "Activate Color Management" (if it isn't already)
- Choose a suitable color profile for your screen (if you haven't already).
- Leave the Options with OK.

In order to prepare an image for MPIX:
- Load the image.
- Use "Tool/Color/Convert With Color Profile" to convert the image to sRGB.
- If MPIX is really serious about the "without an embedded profile" point, you now have to remove the sRGB profile by using "Tool/Color/Set Color Profile" and choosing the "None" option. This may change the visual appearance of the image on the screen.
- Now save the image to a different name as JPEG using "File/Save As" and choosing an appropriate compression rate.

Martin

[joe mama]

According to their website MPIX wants JPEG images in sRGB color space but without an embedded profile (quite strange in my opinion).
So I would proceed like Hoogo said:
- Open the "Edit/Options" and navigate to "Color Management/Devices".
- Turn on "Activate Color Management" (if it isn't already)
- Choose a suitable color profile for your screen (if you haven't already).
- Leave the Options with OK.

In order to prepare an image for MPIX:
- Load the image.
- Use "Tool/Color/Convert With Color Profile" to convert the image to sRGB.
- If MPIX is really serious about the "without an embedded profile" point, you now have to remove the sRGB profile by using "Tool/Color/Set Color Profile" and choosing the "None" option. This may change the visual appearance of the image on the screen.
- Now save the image to a different name as JPEG using "File/Save As" and choosing an appropriate compression rate.

Martin

Wait a minute! OK -- I did all the color management stuff. When I used "Tool/Color/Convert With Color Profile" to convert the image to sRGB, nothing happened. But when I converted to the profile for the paper I'm printing on, I got the color shift I was getting on my prints! However, when I use the "Proof" mode in the "View" menu, the image becomes all washed out.

What's going on? Should I just convert to the paper profile that was sent me?

[lutz]

Hello Joe,
the MPIX profile should be only used for proofing ( somehow like a virtual printer) - at least this would be the normal way.

Photoline (w. colour managment switched on) is aware of the required color profiles; thus you would not expect any bigger change in the image upon converting from aRGB to sRGB. Photoline does compensate for it; the problem is, that apparently MPIX and most amateur print labs do not.

(Is Adobe RGB really worth the trouble? - most websites advice is not to bother with colour management without a hardware profiled monitor).

[Hoogo]

If I were just a little bit deeper in that theme...
Ok, lets think slowly. Color management is enabled, you loaded a file. We always thought it is aRGB and has an aRGB-profile glued to it. A contained profile should be visible in the attributes-dialog under document, and it should be displayed in any one of the "tool > color > blabla color profile".

Did aRGB appear there when you freshly opened your file?

Then you converted to sRGB. Nothing happened - at least noting visible. That is a good thing. The original picture was converted to Lab using the old profile, then it was converted to sRGB using the new profile. The colors stay the same, but the RGB-Values you get when using the color-picker should have changed.

Can you try that? Pick some saturated color from your picture, paint a big blotch with it, convert, and have a look at the numbers after converting?

[Hoogo]

Oh, and accidentally I found a program in another forum today, Monitor calibration wizard. As far I have seen so far it adjusts your monitor. It does not create an ICC profile of the monitor, but does something different. The simtel download there seems a bit suspicious to me, but the other one is just fine.

[lutz]

Some more, free profiling tools are here: QuickGamma and QuickMonitorProfile
http://quickgamma.de/indexen.html
http://quickgamma.de/QuickMonitorProfile/indexen.html

and some theory:
http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html