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Color matching, grayscale confusion


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puppychew

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Hi, I am using
PShop CS5

Goal: To change the paint color on a clients house matching it to a paint chip. Result is mostly for monitor viewing, maybe some will be printed out. I know there are limits and monitors vary and colors are difficult to match but hoping to get as close a possible.

My monitor is calibrated with Spyder Pro 4. I have not messed around with any PS settings and am assuming they are ok.

My Process:
Open and convert photo to working Adobe1998.
Photo is converted to grayscale. I try to make the grayscale RGB close to 128 using the Hue-Sat adjustment.
I then do a color overlay and use the paint chart HTML# to color the selected area.

Problem:
When viewing it on my monitor, the color usually seems too bold and rich when I am comparing it to the paint swatch under a Solux daylight bulb.

My correction:
I can usually correct this and get a better match by adjusting the brightness (hue-saturation adjustment) The grayscale is not the 128 but usually much lighter.
OR
I can usually correct this and get a better match by moving the circle around on the overlay color box which of course changes the html# for the color. This is matched by eye.

These are my 2 ways of correcting the issue. Is one way better to use than the other or is there something else?

I know there is a color proofing option which I really don't understand or know if it would help.
 
"I have not messed around with any PS settings and am assuming they are ok."..so what are they?

"I know there is a color proofing option which I really don't understand or know if it would help."
Color proofing requires that you set a simulation device, Once set, Photoshop shows you what your output will look like under that specific device. For example, I print with Red River Satin Pro paper with an Epson Artisan 1430 printer. I have the profile Red River gives me for my printer and paper combination. Other options are available for devices under View/Proof Setup. Useful to spot out of gamut colors etc. I keep that profile through my printing workflow.
You mention your changing to Adobe 1998 but do you have that set as such in your Color Settings? Fine for printing but I use the srgb setting for everything, online and print and it works fine,

 
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Hi - thanks for responding. Here are my color settings.
I guess i don't have to worry about color proofing setting since I don't print.
Now looking at the settings I believe these were suggested settings from Lynda.com.

Untitled-1.jpg
 
Yep, that looks OK. Many times people set devices other than sRGB or Adobe 1998 and it causes problems.
I suppose since you say you don't print you could set Adobe 1998 as your proofing device. What do you have now in that setup? Actually online should be the sRGB setting in your color settings,
There is an option for the profile created by your Spyder also. I'm kind of taking a shot at this, since I do print and I use a profile for the paper.
Tom?
 
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Proof setup says "working CMYK" but proof colors are turned off. Don't see any options for Spyder.

I don't print but the images I send to people may be printed. I have no control over their printer. The priority is for me to set colors accurately on the monitor, printing accurate color is a nice extra.
 
That setting there will affect what the colors look like on the screen. Your not working in the CMYK color space.
Computer screens are RGB.

Here -read this: https://forums.adobe.com/message/4488375
 
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Do I even need to use the color proofing?

The monitor is Spyder calibrated so i'm assuming the colors are accurate. However when using the 128 gray and the html color code the color is overly rich on the screen.
 
That was an interesting thread - thanks.

so basically it looks like I'm set up pretty good (assuming my browser is color managed)

My problem is still saturation in photoshop. Do you suggest adjusting lightening my grayscale or just trying to match the color by eye. Or should I not have to do that because something else is wrong?
 
The main thing I would change based on your usage would be to sRGB color space from Adobe 1998. The proof setup gives you some options but not a real big deal unless your soft proofing your images. If you have it set to CMYK , it will simulate how your RGB images will look when printed on commercial printing equipment.
puppychew said:
Do I even need to use the color proofing?

The monitor is Spyder calibrated so i'm assuming the colors are accurate. However when using the 128 gray and the html color code the color is overly rich on the screen.
Click to expand...
 
I turned on the color proofing and set it to Standard srgb.

I re-did a sample color and still saturated however.
 
Try some of the others, But as you can see, it does make a difference. You should have one that your Spyder created. You might try that. What kind of monitor do you have?
 
I also just noticed that in your color settings, you don't have the box check to Desaturate colors. I have mine checked and set to 20%
 
I have an Asus monitor.

There are no spyder settings.

I desaturated to 20% and the color looks like it should! Hope my other photos still look good. Are colors usually saturated?
 
Heyyyy allright! Sorry I didn't see that initially. (old eyes).
Usually saturated? I would say that would depend on the way you see them. There may be a better answer than that.
In your proofing setup you should see something that says "sRGB display profile with display hardware configuration with data derived from calibration" that would be created by your Spyder
puppychew said:
I have an Asus monitor.

There are no spyder settings.

I desaturated to 20% and the color looks like it should! Hope my other photos still look good. Are colors usually saturated?
Click to expand...
 
I greatly appreciate your help. I just tested about a dozen swatches and they all match up.

I always thought that adobe1998 had more colors than srgb so since most work was by email I used abobe 1998. When working with these colors should I still use a1998?
 
If your working online exclusively you use sRGB, not Adobe 1998 which is slanted toward printing. You can assign and convert profiles in the Edit drop down (under Color Settings)
If you want to see what I described to you , click on CUSTOM and look probably close to the bottom of the list.
 
I do all my work online but I send images to clients that may print them out.

When I open a clients photo to work on, I convert the working space to Adobe1998. That's so there is more of a color range. I then save it as a jpeg (not to web) and send it to them.

My own work for my blog is save to web.

Does this sound right?
 
I print my work from sRGB all the time and get great results. I see no reason to change the profile. How do you know how the client is going to view it (calibrated monitor?) or what he is going to print it with? You might get some surprising results on his end.
One thing I might suggest also, when you get a photo to work on convert it to 16 bit if it isn't. You will expand your color editing capabilities by doing that. You can convert it back to 8 bit when your finished with it.
Good practice is not to convert to JPG. Use PNG or Tiff with compression if you want to preserve quality. JPGs are good for some things but PNG is not a lossy format, nor is tiff. Everytime a JPG is saved and compressed it creates artifacts and causes your output to suffer eventually.

puppychew said:
I do all my work online but I send images to clients that may print them out.

When I open a clients photo to work on, I convert the working space to Adobe1998. That's so there is more of a color range. I then save it as a jpeg (not to web) and send it to them.

My own work for my blog is save to web.

Does this sound right?
Click to expand...
 
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