Printing your photos is an important task for every photographer. Knowing what colors will work how and setting them right for the print task is as important as getting the lighting right when you shoot. Learn more about color management and profiles.

 What is color management?

Many photographers, even professionals get stumped when asked this question. But just as many, do not realize that color management has already been a part of their workflow.

Before we go into Color Management, it is important to know what a digital image is made up of; pixels. Each pixel has information about the color and the depth of that particular color. In order to have each pixel have a specific value, we need to give it a profile in which the colors are found. By giving each pixel a value, they become accountable when moved from one part of the digital process to the next (eg. from capture to processing to printing).

So what is a profile?

A color profile is a name that's been given to a group of specific colors that are found within a specific color space.

Color Management starts from the moment an image is captured; whether through a camera, or through a scanner. When we use a scanner, most scanners would already have 'managed' the color in some way or another. For a camera, most new cameras already have the function of assigning profiles to them, usually sRGB, or AdobeRGB profiles.

In the processing process, it is advisable to use a profile that is large enough to encompass a lot of colors that the capturing device would have captured, and more. It is majority accepted that AdobeRGB is the profile that most professionals would use as it has a large gamut of colors. As one might start with a small profile, this larger space when processing will allow access to more colors that might not have been originally available during the capturing stage.

So, for most color management workflow, the capturing would be in AdobeRGB, work on the computer system will be on AdobeRGB, and then for printing, a specific printer profile would be used.

Why can't we use AdobeRGB profile for printing?

Well, the most obvious reason would be that there are just so many paper medias available, and each type of paper would be able to produce specific colors. So having just one profile just isn't possible.

It is therefore, important, to have some form of profile attached to the image through each stage of its journey from capture to print. And more so, a profile that works from stage to stage.

For printing, having an accurate paper profile is important for getting a print that is as close as possible to what you've been looking at so far, as this is the final part of the process and you want the best possible color for what you have been doing so far. Once the paper profile is inaccurate, it is impossible to get a good print.

Having said that, it is important to manage your perception of 'what you see on the screen is what you get on the print'. It is impossible for such a thing to happen as the screen is producing light that is direct, and a print is just reflecting light. It's sort of like looking at a slide and a print from a slide, it's never going to be the same.

With good color management, you can, however, get close to what you see. So, in conclusion, Color Management is essentially the way in which a person is able to efficiently use profiles from one stage to another stage of his / her process.