A Space Odyssey... of colour!

[Sean Setters]

I'm interested to see the replies on this one.

[Mark Elberson]

I think Madison is the resident expert on color spaces / management so hopefully he'll reply. I believe that you are certainly on the right track though with the combination of an IPS Monitor and a Color Calibrator. That should give you an accurate representation on your screen of what your print will look like.


As far as color space goes...there have been a few threads on here in the past. AdobeRGB has a wider gamut than sRGB which is why many think it's better. There are a few factors to consider when choosing your color space.


1) Your monitor...does your monitor have the ability to display the wider gamut of the AdobeRGB color space?
2) Print or Web...most (if not all) web browsers will display your jpeg in the sRGB color space because that's all they can do.
3) Print profile...whether it's your own printer or one at the lab, what color space does it use? I have downloaded the printer profiles for the two machines they use at Costco. They have directions as to what color space to use (sRGB) and what resolution to use (300-330 PPI)


Ok, that's my limited understanding. I am fairly certain that the above statements are facts but I am not sure. I actually just picked up a Spyder3Elite and I could not believe the difference between the before/after comparison it gave me after the initial calibration. It was spot in though. My screen was WAY too blue which made my prints WAY too red. My screen is also WAY too bright which of course made my prints WAY too dark. I calibrated my laptop for giggles as my new iMac arrives tomorrow.