Lars Ekdahls favourites in digital imaging

May 1, Year 2012. Be aware of that this page is not updated any more. Sorry!

As we are dealing with colours - you monitor does not necessarily show colours accurately without being calibrated, and there are many issues involved in coordinating what you see on the monitor with how it prints. Some of my other favourite places I have learned a lot about Managing Color in Photoshop 6 and 7, and ColorSync & ICC-based color management are from the following sites

• A common question is: Could anyone tell me what is the best way to make the colours in my monitor (using PS CS2) to look exactly as they are printed? (or the other way around ;)
  One answer can be: You can try and make these corrections visually, without a spider, but it's difficult. That's what Adobe Gamma tries to do. It is a basic monitor calibration utility, intended to help you match what you see on-screen with your prints. In order for it to really help, you need to go to your control panel and go through the calibration process. So try using Adobe Gamma first and see if it improves on what you have now. If not, a spider is the only real solution. When you create profiles with a spider they change your screen on boot-up. The correction is applied to all programs. There are differences between how Macs and PCs handle this, also depending on the version of the operating system used, but this is true generally according to Michael Reichmann. A Swedish evaluation of the Colorvision Spyder can be found here!
  

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• Monitor Calibration and Profiling by Ethan Hansen He is an active and valuable contributor on digital photography forums. There some good stuff on his site Dry Creek Photo.
  If you can not trust the colours displayed on your monitor, all other color management is a waste of time. Calibrating and profiling your monitor should, therefore, be your first priority. Luckily, it is the easiest part of the image capture, editing, and printing system to profile. The cost to do this ranges from free to expensive. If color accuracy and the ability to match your prints to your monitor are important to you, a decent hardware calibration system is essential. With a little work you can get good color from your monitor. If digital photography is your business, or you simply want the best colours you can get, the expense of a high quality calibration system is more than justified.
  This site has also links to some downloadable files in Lab format containing images of the Gretag Macbeth ColorChecker card. If you view the Lab file in Photoshop 6 or 7, and compare the on-screen image to a GM card viewed under a D50 lamp or similar, then you will get an idea of how good your monitor profile is.

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• RAW Image Workflow. Learn how others use the RAW mode of their digital camera to get the best images possible
  
• Photoshop CS4 and Color Management by Ian Lyons. This latest article from Ian Lyon will explain the main changes and make suggestions as to how the new Photoshop CS4 color management system should be configured.
  You must also visit the main site, Computer Darkroom if you are interested in understanding color and printing techniques, or if you just want to learn more Photoshop tips, check out Ian's site. This site is an extremely helpful for digital darkroom resource.
  
• Photoshop CS3 - Managing Colour When Printing also by Ian Lyons.
  
• An interesting article is A Color Managed Raw Workflow" by Bruce Fraser (4,54 MB
• Follow the Rainbow: 101 Color Resources for Web Designers.Do you freak out if someone asks you to match print colors to Web colors? Or, maybe you just can’t decide whether the orange would work better with the blue or the green. Either way, many designers may not realize how easy it is to choose a palette for that new Web design. Additionally, many designers might be surprised to learn that they can stay on top of color trends with a few visits to fashion design Web sites.
  All those tips and more are listed below in this list of 101 color resources for Web designers. The categories are listed alphabetically as are all the links contained within each category. Although the sites are numbered, this does not mean that one site is better than others. Visit them all and bookmark the ones that will help you become the most color-savvy Web designer around.
  

• Resources and Information - Photography and digital imaging. Online resources that they have found useful, covering different aspects of digital workflows and photography. Among other things Colour Management in your web browser - Test Images



• A highly recommended tutorial regarding color management and color spaces
  
• Assign Profile VS Convert to Profile, when to use?
  
• Can you have control of the colours of your images on the World Wide Web? Yes and no, probably.
• Bruce Fraser is a self-confessed color geek and co-author of Real World Photoshop 6/7 and CS. On his website you can learn about Color correction like "Out of Gamut: Color-Correct Vocabulary" , "Out of Gamut: Color-Correcting Photographs in Photoshop", you can read in in the . You will find much more about this subject
  
• Out of Gamut: Don't Underestimate Photoshop's Auto Color by Bruce FraserImaging professionals tend to veer away from Photoshop's overly simplistic automatic color-correction tools. But version 7's Auto Color mode is a horse of a different color, if you know how to use it. Color guru Bruce Fraser shows you how. I use it nowadays in my workflow when I work with digital images in Photoshop
  Also translated into the Swedish language!
  
• A very nice little PDF-document that talks about which working space/gamut you want to be in and why.
  
• Photographers using digital equipment now have previously unattainable control over noise levels, dynamic range and color accuracy. This is an exciting time to get involved with photography and digital imaging. From the site, Cambridge in color, you will have a comprehensive toolkits of tutorials to help improve your digital images. Like - Understanding Posterization -, -Using Local Contrast Enhancement-, -Understanding Histograms, Part 2: Luminance and Color-. Highly recommended!
• My Swedish visitors should absolutely have a look at my site Tips och Tricks när det gäller digitala bilder.

Graphic Sites for web design

Tips, techniques and tutorials in Digital Imaging

• rec.photo.digital
• comp.publish.prepress
• comp.graphics.apps.photoshop
• Discussions about scanners, printers, computer gear and high-resolution backs and cameras at the Luminous Landscape Forum.
• google.com.scanners
• google.com/printers
• Rob Galbraith for for digital Photography