Mastering Digital Color A Photographer’s and Artist’s Guide to Controlling Color David Saffir © 2007 Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning Publisher and General Manager, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or Thomson Course Technology PTR: transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, Stacy L. Hiquet including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without written permission from Thomson Course Associate Director of Marketing: Technology PTR, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Sarah O’Donnell The Thomson Course Technology PTR logo and related trade dress are Manager of Editorial Services: trademarks of Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Heather Talbot Learning Inc., and may not be used without written permission. Marketing Manager: Important:Thomson Course Technology PTR cannot provide software Heather Hurley support. 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Readers should be particularly aware of the Andrew Behla fact that the Internet is an ever-changing entity. Some facts may have changed since this book went to press. PTR Editorial Services Coordinator: Educational facilities, companies, and organizations interested in multiple Erin Johnson copies or licensing of this book should contact the Publisher for quantity discount information. Training manuals, CD-ROMs, and portions of this Copy Editor: book are also available individually or can be tailored for specific needs. Kezia Endsley Interior Layout: ISBN-10: 1-59200-543-8 Shawn Morningstar ISBN-13: 978-1-59200-543-7 Cover Designer: Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004108526 Mike Tanamachi Printed in the United States of America 07 08 09 10 11 BU 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Indexer: Larry Sweazy Proofreader: Gene Redding Thomson Course Technology PTR, a division of Thomson Learning Inc. 25 Thomson Place ■ Boston, MA 02210 ■ http://www.courseptr.com To my Uncle Howard Levin, who made so many things possible. May his memory be a blessing. Acknowledgments My thanks to my teachers and mentors, who have helped me to see the possibil- ities, and to make some of them become reality. A partial list includes Harald Johnson, Jack Duganne, Lee Thomas, Ted Dayton, Ramona MacFadyen, David Bacon, Mike Lehman, Tommy Durian, Eileen Fritsch, Teri Ritter, and Cynthia Saffir. About the Author David Saffir is a nationally-recognized portrait, commercial, and fine art pho- tographer and printmaker, living in the Santa Clarita Valley, California. Formerly a resident of Santa Barbara, California and New England, David has had a life- long interest in photography, and particularly the world of nature. He also writes on a number of subjects, and has authored articles on color management, digital capture, and large-format digital printmaking. David has enjoyed an extensive career leading marketing, planning, operations, graphic design, and creative teams as a general manager and vice president for high-tech medical companies. He has led design, art, and communications groups in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Leaving corporate life behind, he chose to focus his time on work, and pursue his love of crafting images through photography. Now, David works extensively in portrait and commercial photography. He works primarily with the Hasselblad H1, using Phase One digital camera backs. He also uses Nikon and Canon DSLRs. David is also an accomplished digital printmaker. He finishes all of his work, and makes limited edition prints for other artists and photographers. He uses HP and Epson professional inkjet products. David teaches workshops in digital printing, including the Clear Focus Studios seminar sessions scheduled in a number of cities this year. He has also written numerous nationally- published articles on digital image capture, color management, printing software, and digital printing. Most recently, he taught web seminars for the Professional Digital Imaging Association on digital capture, color control, and printing. He was a conference-level speaker at WPPI and other venues during 2006. His images have won awards in a variety of print competitions, and they have appeared in a number of publications. His e-mail is [email protected]. His website is www.davidsaffir.com. About the Series Editor Harald Johnson has been immersed in the world of commercial and fine-art imaging and printing for more than 25 years. A former professional photographer, designer, and creative director, Harald is an imaging consultant, the creator of the website DP&I.com (www.dpandi.com), and the author of the groundbreaking books, Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer’s and Artist’s Guide to High-Quality Digital Output (2003), Mastering Digital Printing, Second Edition (2005), and Digital Printing Start-Up Guide (2005). Harald is also the founder of YahooGroup’s digital-fineart, the world’s largest online discussion group on the subject of digital fine art and digital printing. Contents 1 Introduction: Imagine the Possibilities . . .1 Getting a Grip on Your Color: 2 Definitions and a Road Map . . . . . . . . . . .3 From the Eye to the Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Color Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Film Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Digital Capture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Controlling In-Camera Image Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 From the Camera to the Computer (Scanning). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Film Scanner Image to Computer and RAW Image Processing . . . . 17 Editing and Finishing the Digital File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Making Levels Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Making Color Cast Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Saving the Master File with All Layers Intact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Controlling Your Color: 3 Tools for Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 Options for Scanning or Capturing Your Digital Image . . . . . . . . . 34 Film Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Scanners and Scanning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Digital Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Hardware Settings and Pre-ProgrammingYour Capture Workflow . . 55 Example of Workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Additional Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 viii Mastering Digital Color: A Photographer’s and Artist’s Guide to Controlling Color 4 Production Guide for Photographers . . . .61 Begin with the End in Mind. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Using Your Tools Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The “Master Image”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Planning and Managing Image Capture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Selecting a Digital Camera for a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Scanning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 The Importance of Color Space and Profiling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Processing Digital Image Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 JPEG or TIFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Cooking RAW Files to Perfection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 RAW Processing Recipe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Editing Global Contrast. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Editing Color Using White and Gray Point Balancing. . . . . . . . 87 Editing Global Color Using CS2 Hue/Saturation . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Editing Global Color Using CS2 Color Balance. . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Editing Global Color Using CS2 Photo Filter Tool. . . . . . . . . . . 93 Finishing Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Getting the Best Output. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Color Management 5 Policies for Photographers . . . . . . . . . .103 Impact of In-Camera Color Space. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 In-Camera Color Space and File Type Decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Setting Up Adobe Photoshop Color Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Managing Scanning Film to Digital. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Basics of RAW File Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 The Impact of Computer Display Choices On Your Work . . . . . . . 114 Calibrating Your Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Maximizing Quality Using Inkjet Printers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Viewing Inkjet Prints During the Production Process. . . . . . . . 125 Viewing Inkjet Prints On Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Specialized Software for Inkjet Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Contents ix 6 Production Guide for Artists . . . . . . . . .131 Expectations Are Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Making an Image of Your Art: Options and Actions. . . . . . . . . . . 134 Photographing Your Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Scanning Your Artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Evaluating and Managing Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Printing On Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Storing Digital Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Archiving and Storing Digital Images and Prints. . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Color Quality Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157 7 Capture and Lighting Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Choosing Lighting Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Color Space and Color Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Exposure Management and Color Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Color Enhancement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 In-Process Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Work Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Controlling Your Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 The Human Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Software for Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Post-Production Controls: Soft Proofing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 Post-Production Controls: Evaluating Output Quality . . . . . . . . . 182 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Black and White Imaging 8 in the Digital World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185 Converting a Color Image to Black and White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 Printing in Black and White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Improved Printer Drivers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 Custom Printer Profiles for Black and White. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Using Printer Profiles to Make Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Using a RIP for Black and White Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206