Color Management for Digital Portrait and Wedding Photographers

I just attended a free webinar by Photography Schoolhouse entitled, "Color Management for Digital Portrait and Wedding Photographers". It was a great discussio on ICC profiles, color spaces, and device calibration. If you're not a member of Photography Schoolhouse, this is a great forum to join just for the informative, and free, webinars that they offer. Click here to see their current offerings.

What did I walk away with?

• It's highly recommended to perform monthly monitor calibrations using a monitor calibrator
• Kerry Allan has used both the Spyder and the EyeOne and had some difficult with both. He recommends purchasing one in the $250 price range for good quality.
• Kerry Allan uses the Samsung 226 CW Syncmaster (22" monitor at 1680x1050 res that sells for around $300) and has been very pleased with the color range it provides. He does note that CRT monitors still can't be beat when it comes to color accuracy and range.
• Always install the device drivers with your monitor and printer. They contain the ICC profiles for these devices which are needed to accuracy represent that you think you are seeing on the screen.
• Kerry Allan recommends DryCreekPhoto.com for downloading various ICC profiles and for tutorials on Color Space Management.
• Make sure you properly set up your Color Settings in Photoshop (for PS7, select Edit >> Color Settings) to save in the color space that your intended printer requires (most print houses will provide recommendations for what color space to use).
• You can assign a printer profile in Photoshop to ensure that the correct ICC profile is used (for PS7, select Image >> Mode >> Assign Profile).