List of articles related to color management

Your Display Profile May Be Wrong

March 24, 2016 by A. Cemal Ekin

How is that for a bold statement! But it may very well be true, even if you do it regularly on schedule. Display calibration and profiling is a must for all digital photographers. There is no escaping that if you want to produce an accurate representation of your work not only on your monitor but on the Internet, in competitions, on your friends’ monitors, mobile devices, and so on. Clearly, you cannot control the quality of the displays in front of the millions of users all over the world. But you can do your best and provide accurate information. This becomes particularly important and immediately visible if you print your work, yourself or printed at a lab.

Monitor Calibration

There are many devices in the market, presumably all capable of bringing the colors on your monitor where they are supposed to be. I have been using a calibration device for 18-20 years, starting with Monaco Optix XR, then a ColorMunki Photo, finally an i1Display Pro. They are all in the X-Rite products stable. There are other models and other brands, the prices have come down considerably and there is no excuse for not using one anymore. They all come with their drivers and calibration software which, in a layperson language, display a series of known color values and reads the displayed value. If they differ, the software creates a profile, something like a lookup table, that makes the corrections on the fly. This part is familiar to everyone.

Luminance Setting for Screen

One of the adjustments, in fact, one of the critical choices in this process is the luminance level of the monitor. This is worth looking for in a calibration device before picking one up, make sure it allows different luminance levels for the monitor. If you use a calibration device and do not see this in the interface, try first switching to “Advanced” mode even though this could be a little more involved process. The screen luminance is measured in candela per meter squared (cd/m²). When you find a drop-down selector with this unit next to it, you have found a critical piece of adjustment in your calibration process.

The question is what is the right level of monitor luminance? The definitive answer is: It depends. Depends on your environment, how bright a room you work in, whether there are windows in your view or behind you, the wall colors, etc. I have a post discussing your digital work environment that is worth a look. If your monitor luminance is too bright, a properly exposed image will look too bright and you will make it darker to look correct on the screen. This will make your image project darker in competitions, and produce darker prints. The opposite is also true. If your monitor is too dark, a normally exposed image will look too dark and you will brighten it, resulting in too bright a projection in the competition or lighter than normal prints will result.

Print Viewing Light is Essential Equipment

This adjustment will take a little empirical effort to get it under control. First, make sure that your environment is as controlled as you can make it, shade the windows, use monitor hoods, etc. Then, this is also very critical and often ignored, get yourself a proper viewing light for your prints. There are lights color experts swear by, Solux is one of them. If you are handy you can build a print viewing booth using Solux lights. I have been using several Ottlite daylight balanced lights for quite a few years and, although their spectrum may not be perfect, they are close enough for my purposes. The important things to remember are:

It should be daylight balanced or very close to it
If possible, a dimmer will help
You use this light to view and evaluate ALL your prints

The next hurdle is: how do we compare the screen to a print and make the luminance adjustment on the monitor? By using a standard image, not one of yours. There are many images on the Internet, the Kodak Imagedisc test image is a good one to download and use for this purpose. I downloaded one from Dry Creek Photo Web site, follow this link to download it and unzip the file. You will find a couple of PDF files and a JPEG image file which will be the standard we will use. (The image on the left is reduced for screen display, do not use it for print testing.)

Open the test image in Photoshop or other software you use to edit images. Make sure that there are no adjustments are applied by way of autoprocessing on import or the like. Now, print this image on an 8×10″ paper with proper workflow and color management. When the print is finished take it to your viewing light, if possible next to your monitor while shielding it from the light. Look at the print, look at the monitor. Do they look the same? Is one brighter or darker than the other?

If the print is darker, then your monitor is too bright
If the print is lighter, then your monitor is too dark

Get your calibration device, start the software and look for the luminance adjustment. If you left it at its default and you are using an i1Display Pro, it may be at 120 Candela /m². You may need to adjust this up or down. In the case of #1, lower the luminance by 20-40 units, calibrate the monitor and look at the print again, no need to produce another print. After a couple of iterations, you will get them to look sufficiently similar if not outright identical.

Empirical Luminance Measurement (imprecise but useful)

There are measurement instruments that will give a precise answer to this question, they are not easily accessible. So, I have improvised yet another empirical approach to assess the luminance levels.

Bring your camera out, take a picture of the image displayed on the screen in manual mode. Try ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/60 second exposure, or what your camera indicates while you are in the manual mode. Then, with exactly the same setting photograph the print under the viewing light making sure that the light is at a distance of normal viewing. My viewing light was at about 18″ and at a slight angle and it is not as even as I would like. You can see a little glare on the right side of the print photo, no problem though. Try to set this distance that makes the print look the same as the screen, within reason of course. It will be somewhere between 1-2 feet from the print. These are my results, not bad if I may say so myself!

My viewing light was at about 18″ and at a slight angle and it is not as even as I would like. You can see a little glare on the right side of the print photo, no problem though. Try to set this distance that makes the print look the same as the screen, within reason of course. It will be somewhere between 1-2 feet from the print. These are my results, not bad if I may say so myself!

Now, compare the photographs. Your eyes are extraordinarily adaptable to changing light levels. Using the camera in the manual setting will record different images that you can compare on your screen. Viewing them side by side will allow reading values from the same locations of each to compare. Now, before you jump on my neck that this is imprecise, let me say “this is imprecise” as a measurement. It is only a tool that is at our disposal that removes part of the subjectivity of our eyes because of their huge adaptability. But ultimately you will make a judgment using your eyes every time you make a print, this is only to find the optimum level of luminance for your monitor and editing environment.

Get to work! This will take a little time. But, you will love the results and know that the results of your edits are going to be accurate.

Your Photo Editing Workspace

July 1, 2015 by A. Cemal Ekin

During some of my presentations, I get asked about the work environment for editing digital photographs. I also get individual inquiries about the subject. In this post, I will address those questions with some workspace examples including my own.

Vision, the perception of luminance and color are generally relative. If you want to validate this to yourself try going from bright outdoors directly to your basement or another reasonably dark place. As you enter the basement you will notice that it is quite dark and you may even have difficulty seeing what is around you. Now, sit and wait five minutes and observe how things are reasonably easy to recognize with good detail. The same thing is true for color, not only do some colors interact with each other and make us perceive them differently, bright and strong colors will tend to make others look more muted than they actually are.

General Photo Editing Workspace

If we carry this line of thinking, the surroundings of your computer monitor, the level of light around it, the color of the wall behind it, etc. all become players in your digital photo editing process; all unbeknown to you! Here are general guidelines for comfortable and accurate digital workflow. I asked my friends Jim and Frank to provide photographs of their workspace which they designed after consulting with me.

You must, MUST, start with a calibrated and profiled monitor. Without this step, you are not even fishing in murky waters, you are trying to fish in the desert. A calibrated and profiled monitor will display the colors accurately and reflect the correct luminance levels. Your monitor calibration may even be incomplete!
Do not have your monitor sitting in front of a window which may allow you to “enjoy the flowers in the backyard.” Enjoy your flowers by going out to the garden and place your monitor away from windows. The amount of light behind it and the colors you will see from the window will seriously distort your perception of what you see on your display monitor.
Paint your walls neutral gray if you can, at least avoid strong colors. My walls are slightly cool gray, they have almost a green tinge. Frank chose a cleaner gray which is better. Jim’s walls are darker gray which works extremely well. If you have to paint the walls with strong colors, try to put black foam core boards, or something similar, behind the monitor covering most of your direct vision behind the display monitor.
If there are windows to the side or above your monitor, use window blinds to sufficiently darken them and shield the light from the window so that it does not hit the screen. That will have a tendency to weaken the colors which will result in your excessive adjustments to your images.
Make sure there is no strong light source behind you that may similarly illuminate the display and distort the perception.
A display hood is a very good idea. I made one a while back but due to my excellent craftsmanship it did not last long!! You will see in one of the photographs how Jim shields extraneous lights from hitting his monitor.
Try to maintain a similar ambient light. I realize this may be difficult from daytime to nighttime, but with a carefully placed lamp, you may provide sufficient ambient light without disturbing the display. See the tall light behind my monitor which I turn on at night-time. It is behind the display, not too strong, is reflected from the ceiling for reasonably even lighting
You may have other windows in the room, which should all have blinds or controllable shading. You can adjust the amount of light coming into the room depending on the outside conditions to maintain a relatively stable ambient light in the room.
Your desk should be at the right height that allows you to sit comfortably in front of it. Speaking of sitting, a good task chair will pay its cost back in fewer back problems. You will likely sit in this chair for long hours, why not choose a comfortable and ergonomically designed chair. I bought my Aeron chair probably more than 10 years ago, it is still in excellent shape and supports me well.
Your tools, like keyboard, mouse, tablet, etc. should be properly positioned with sufficient room around them for easy operation.
A few things are worth noting:
1. See the placement of my computer tower to block the window light
2. The reflection of a light you see on the Weston poster is from a light behind me which I turned on to shed some light on the desk, normally it is not on
3. Jim’s display is very well shielded from the window behind him, yet the window adds a little extra light on the print evaluation area; note his Ottlite lamp!
4. Note how Frank covered a window high above with black blinds

Printing and Print Evaluation

Aside from digital editing, printing and print viewing environment needs to be controlled. This may even be more important than some of the issues surrounding your editing workspace since prints are viewed by reflected light and highly susceptible to the amount and quality of light falling on them. I have had more than a few times friends complaining about poor print quality suddenly realizing that their prints actually suffered from lack of proper light falling on them. As you will see, above my Epson 4880 printer, I use an Ottlite to view my prints. Regardless of the amount of light in the room, I always review my prints under this light. This allows me to make mental comparisons to other prints I have made since they were all viewed under the same light.

In addition to the amount of light falling on the print, the color quality of the light is also very important. Not all “bright sources of light” have the correct spectrum for viewing prints. Ottlite is daylight balanced although some say it has spikes on certain frequencies of the color spectrum. It has worked well for me and I do not see perceptible differences between viewing prints under this light and good quality sunlight. If you don’t mind a little more expense, I have heard very good things about Solux. I believe you can buy the lights, sockets, and with a little handiwork, you can build what you need. I prefer to just plug them in!

There is a very simple, but possibly hard to find, tool in determining the suitability of the light for viewing prints. I have one that I got probably 8 years ago, it is called “Kodak Color Viewing Light Selector.” Inside a folding cardboard is a small 1.75″ x 3.5″ purplish pink patch. Miraculously, under bad lighting, say old fluorescent tubes, you clearly see stripes on it which indicates that the light is not suitable for viewing prints, particularly color prints although B&W prints may also be degraded depending on the toning and the color shift of the light source. I emphasize these points in printing presentations and workshops I have.

The key to all this is “consistency and control”. We should strive to control the environment to minimize, if not eliminate, the contamination of the display and the printed output, and maintain a consistent environment so that what we do becomes a second nature and repeatable. Here are photographs of a few workspaces, mine and my friends’. They both took my recommendations to heart and are very happy with the results.

Use Your Passport: Create Camera & Light Profiles

May 5, 2014 by A. Cemal Ekin

(Fair warning, long post but worth every word you read!)

Your ColorChecker Passport I mean. I think a lot of photographers purchased this very useful piece of equipment but are yet to use it. They probably carry it in their gear bag hoping one day it will suddenly make sense and they will become devoted users of it. Alas, that day does not come as quickly as it should. For many who use it, it serves as a glorified gray card to get the color balance right. But the real benefit of this device lies in its ability to profile your camera sensor response to different light sources. I will take a stab at explaining the reasons for camera profiling, when should you seriously consider doing it, when can you comfortably use an “old” profile, and try to show how simple the process really is.

Why Profile Devices

If I had a device that could capture images, show them to me and allow me to edit them, project selected images on a large screen, and produce gorgeous prints I probably would not need calibration and profiling. Such a device will most likely be using “device dependent color” which could produce fantastic results; in my dreams! The reality is that we use umpteen different cameras, twice as many display monitors, connected to a multitude of computers, outputting to a slew of printers, using a wide range of substrates. All of these devices have a specific color gamut, characteristic, definition, and the colors from one device need to be translated to other devices depending on the need. A system like this would need to use “device independent color” where color information is translated, and if necessary modified. In order for such a system to work, they all need to agree on what “red, or blue, or violet, …” is. Calibration and profiling bring this level of standardization into our workflow. In a typical workflow, all these devices talk to each other through “Profile Connecting Space” in the software like Photoshop or Lightroom. PCS significantly simplifies and standardizes color communication problems. If you want full control over the color accuracy you need to use an end-to-end color-managed workflow. And, this requires adjusting all devices in your workflow to a standard (calibration) and establishing the actual characteristics of each device (profiling).

What Devices We Profile

A long time ago, when I used to calibrate my 21″ Sony Trinitron monitor and my friends used to think it was totally unnecessary. My Monaco Optix device later became one of the X-Rite products since then, and almost all my photographer friends now calibrate and profile their monitors now. The necessity of display calibration is well understood. In the digital world colors are defined by numbers; how much red, green, and blue there is in the blue sky, or the green foliage. However, depending on the manual adjustment on monitors these colors may look off, not because the color of the sky is wrong but the way the monitor is displaying it may be wrong. Calibration and profiling remove this confusion and make sure that the blue sky is rendered with the right amount of red, green, and blue. So far, so good.

We also accept the need for printer/paper profiling as given since different papers can hold different amounts of ink, reflect different amounts of light, we need to have a way to make what is on paper corresponds to what we see on the screen (a calibrated and profiled one, that is). In the early days, there were even profiling services online who would create a paper profile from a standard file printed on your printer and mailed to them. Those days are long gone. We either have affordable paper profiling devices, like X-Rite ColorMunki or we trust the profiles provided by the printer or paper manufacturers. They are generally spot on for all but the most discriminating eyes.

Those photographers who scan their photographs from film or print also calibrate their scanners. I have even written a post on how to use the ColorChecker Passport as a makeshift flat-bed scanner profiling instrument.

So, we see the benefits, and a definite need to calibrate and profile some of the devices in our workflow, but the one that actually creates these images, our cameras are assumed to have “good enough” calibration and “Adobe Standard” profile is unquestioned. Yes, the sensor technology has made huge strides and they are very, very good. But, just as we cannot expect to share display profiles because each display is different, even from the same manufacturer, we should not expect that all cameras will respond to light the same way, even two copies of the same model. Thus, the need to profile each camera under some lighting conditions to that color translation from the sensor to the display will occur correctly.

Light

By definition, photography works with light. Generally, we photographers see a few qualities of light, Brightness, Color, Diffusion being the dominant ones. What is missing from the radar of most photographers is the composition of light or it is buried somewhere under “color”. Human eyes are incredibly adaptable to changing conditions partly because our visual system works very fast and more importantly, it is mainly a mental process. We know what color a red apple is and see it as such under wide-ranging lighting conditions. Red remains red, white remains white and we think all the light sources are quite similar. This is far from the truth.

Light, the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum covers from almost infrared, to red, all the way up to violet, and almost ultraviolet. Each hue has a wavelength and strength. Not all light sources that may “look white” have the same composition of different wavelengths; red, green, blue. Every light source has a characteristic with some spikes here, fall offs there, lower energy at other parts, yet may look essentially similar even the same to a human eye. You may say, so what? But your camera sensor responds to spectrum wavelengths at various levels of energy differently. Well, again, you may say “so what?” You may actually be keeping the wrong color information, that’s what! For instance, there are some light sources that are not good for portrait lighting (search the internet for Color Rendering Index) or other types of photography where accurate color is important (where is it not?). The reason may lie in the deficiencies in some parts of the spectrum and spikes in others and your camera responding to these in a way that is impossible to see with our eyes.

Take a look at the graph I prepared to demonstrate the characteristics of some known light sources (click to enlarge). Please keep in mind that this is not to scale nor is it precise. However, it should help see the nature of light and appreciate the unpredictable characteristics of light sources. As you see, the sunlight at noon appears reasonably steady on the spectrum. It is also important to note that tungsten light also has a smooth curve with no spikes. “White LED” may appear white but has much more energy in the greens and quickly falls off after hitting the orange zone. The mercury vapor light has strong spikes on different wavelengths. I also superimposed in black line a hypothetical bad puppy! There are actually light sources sold as “full spectrum” but with no additional information about the spikes they have. This hypothetical light source will produce stronger greens and oranges and we will wonder why other colors are not as rich, or even wrong!

When to Create Camera-Light Profiles

Keep one thing firmly in the forefront, camera profiling is not white balancing. Profiling is the result of the relationship between the light sources and the camera sensor. I think the official stand on this is to create a profile every time we take a photograph, be it a landscape, tabletop, portraits, etc. My unofficial take on this is “sunlight in Warwick will not be substantially different from sunlight in Salt Lake City”. Look at the graph above and locate the curve that represents sunlight, that’s what we are talking about. There may be other qualitative differences between Warwick sun and Salt Lake City sun, but the characteristics of the light will be essentially the same. So, do I need to create a profile every time I photograph under sunlight in Warwick if I have one such profile already? My take on it is that I do not. Not even when photographing in Salt Lake City, I may still use the camera profile I created for sunlight in Warwick. Repeat: using such a profile does not necessarily give an accurate white balance, we may still need to do that.

Following this line of thinking, if I create a profile for tungsten light I will feel comfortable using it under similar conditions. Tungsten curve is a very smooth curve with no spikes although the slope of the curve may change altering the color temperature of the source which is a totally different issue. Please note that I am not talking about “warm light” but specifically “tungsten light” with a filament heated to the point of glow.

What about fluorescent lights, in stick or bulb form. That is a different ball of wax! Fluorescent lights are different from tungsten, candlelight, sunlight. The last few I mentioned create light by heating a “black body” to the point of emitting light. In fluorescent light, the light is actually emitted by the excited molecules of some chemical substance that will fluoresce under UV light energy. Therefore their characteristics are much more subject to variation. They may use different levels of UV energy, different chemical coating, or even coatings, and different glass encasing the entire contraption. All this simply points at the variable nature of fluorescent light sources and I will not feel as comfortable using a profile I created with one kind of light at home when I photograph an interior of an office space lit by fluorescent lights. I will take a little time and carefully photograph my ColorChecker Passport and create a profile for that specific light source.

There is also the possibility of having mixed light sources, like sunlight and tungsten, daylight and fluorescent, fluorescent and tungsten, and so on. Now we are dealing with multiple spectrum response curves and they both need to enter the equation. For this purpose, ColorChecker software allows using two photographs of the Passport photographed under different light sources, say daylight and tungsten. (By the way, sunlight and daylight are not the same things. Sunlight refers to the light of the sun whereas daylight includes sunlight and the reflected light from the sky. Their curves may be different but probably not by much.) The ColorChecker software calls this situation “Dual Illuminant” (read as dual or mixed light sources) profile creation. Two such photographs are added to the program and it prepares a camera profile that will handle photographs that are taken under one, or the other, or mixed light sources as profiled. Remember, all photographs of the ColorChecker target must be taken with the same camera, and preferably with the same ISO setting. (This part is for a different post.)

The following may be a reasonable approach to developing a profile collection:

Sunlight
Daylight
Flash
Shade
Overcast
Tungsten
Known fluorescent like studio lights
Dual light source pairs
1. Sunlight/Shade or Daylight/Shade (if you are really fussy)
2. Daylight/Tungsten
3. Daylight/Flash
4. Tungsten/Flash (gelled to match tungsten)
5. Daylight/Known fluorescent

I will recommend creating a new profile when you are photographing in an environment with unknown spectrum fluorescent lights, like in stores, offices, or friend’s homes. You should experiment with other kinds of light sources like LED, quartz, studio lights, etc. and don’t be deceived by how “white” the light source may appear.

Profile Creation

This is easier and takes time than you may imagine. Profile creating software, ColorChecker, needs DNG format images. If you use Lightroom, the process is simpler since the Lightroom export module acts as the go-between to prepare your RAW file in DNG format before passing it to the profiling software. Let’s take a look at that first. If you have Lightroom installed, the install process for ColorChecker adds a plugin for Lightroom that will facilitate the profile creation. If you have not yet installed ColorChecker software make sure to do that before proceeding further.

Position the ColorChecker Passport under the same light as your subject would be, making sure that is it evenly lit
Using the camera you are profiling for, set the ISO to the desired level
Photograph the Passport to get a “good exposure” with no blown highlights or blocked shadows. Try to keep the lens axis perpendicular to Passport so that the rectangular shape is not seriously distorted.
Import the image into Lightroom, then right-click on it and choose ColorChecker Passport (see image below)
Give the profile a meaningful name that includes the light source and the camera (see image below) and click on OK
After a short time, you will see a pop-up window telling you that your profile is ready and Lightroom needs to be restarted for it to become visible (see image below)

Right-click on the source image

Give the profile a name

Lightroom DNG profile created

If you don’t use Lightroom and you are creating this profile for use in Adobe Camera Raw, then you will use a two-step process but still quite simple and fast.

Make sure the ColorChecker Passport software is installed
Open Adobe Bridge, select the image(s) to convert to DNG and press Ctrl-R to open them in Bridge Camera Raw (see image below)
Click on “Save Images” on the lower left corner of ACR (see image below)
File save dialog window will open. Optionally choose a new destination for the saved files, and make sure to choose DNG as the export format (see image below)
Open the folder containing the DNG file you have just created, then open the ColorChecker Passport software and position it for easy drag and drop. And, drag and drop the file to ColorChecker software (see image below)
The software will load and align the relevant part of the image with green dots marking the four corners indicated by small white angles. All the color patch squares will also be marked with green squares. If the green dots are not properly positioned, drag them with your mouse to where they should be
Click on the “Create Profile” button and you will get a file save dialog window where you will name the profile. The software will recognize the camera model and enter it into the name field, you may want to add the light source information. Then click on “Save”
You will see a window indicating that the profile has been created and that the software using this profile must be restarted. You will need to restart Bridge or Photoshop although ACR may see this profile already.

You can create the profile using either method, they are usable in Lightroom or ACR regardless of the method you used to create them.

Images selected in Bridge

Images opened in Camera Raw

After clicking on Save Images

DNG file drag and drop to ColorChecker

DNG file loaded and ready for profiling

Profile Use

In Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw, the default profile under Camera Calibration panel is typically Adobe Standard unless you have changed your defaults. The created profiles will appear as options in that drop-down selector. Keep in mind that these are camera specific profiles and the ones you create will only appear when developing an image taken with the same camera as in the profile. When you process the photographs taken with the same camera under a light for which you have created a profile, you can click on the drop-down menu and switch the camera profile from Adobe Standard or what other default profile you may have to the special one. What you will see, sometimes quite subtly, is a shift in several color patches. The new colors take the light source and the camera sensor into consideration. At the risk of repeating too many times, I must still remind you that this is not white balance but color profile for the camera and the light source. It may, and quite likely it will need white balancing. Passport squares have known color values and profiling simply makes them correspond to these known values by altering their appearance. From inaccurate and incorrect, comes accurate and correct; like magic!

In the following image sets, you will see the same photograph with Adobe Standard profile and with the camera profile created. As you compare the before-after images try to look at the same boxes and you will see the difference in the color patch. If you like, save these images, load them to Photoshop, stack them as layers making sure they are perfectly lined up; then you can turn one of them on and off to see the difference. Alternately, you can change the blend mode to “Difference” on the top layer to see which boxes may show hints of residual information.

Adobe Standard vs Camera Specific Shade Profile

[twenty20 img1=”5533″ img2=”5532″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Adobe Standard” after=”Shade Profile”]

Adobe Standard vs Camera Specific Sunlight Profile

[twenty20 img1=”5533″ img2=”5532″ offset=”0.5″ before=”Adobe Standard” after=”Camera Sunlight”]

Conclusion

A color-managed workflow is certainly far more under the control of the photographer than one that is “catch as catch can!” This is particularly true if you use more than one camera body since each sensor may render colors differently. However, with a little patience and careful planning, you will end up with colors coming from different cameras looking the same. Although I will not be paranoid and profile every photo session under similar conditions. However, due to the unpredictability of fluorescent lights sources, I will seriously consider profiling each such unknown lighting situation. Having too many profiles may make things go a little out of hand, potentially with dozens of light-camera profiles appearing in Lightroom or Camera Raw. For this purpose, X-Rite has made available DNG Profile Manager which you can download and use. It is a standalone program and will list all profiles visible to Lightroom or Camera Raw allowing you to delete those you no longer need.

Bottom line: Subscribe to the notion of end-to-end color-managed workflow and you will have better control of color in your photographs.

ColorChecker Passport Problem

July 23, 2013 by A. Cemal Ekin

And a fix! Read on…

I have been using my ColorChecker Passport for quite a while and until now the software has not failed me. I wanted to calibrate my camera for a particular light and followed the regular procedure:

Take a photograph of the ColorChecker Passport
Import to Lightroom
Right-click, and select to export to ColorChecker Passport

And it would tell you that the profile was successfully created and Lightroom would recognize it after a restart. But, instead I had a flashing screen, which appeared to be a command prompt screen in Windows 7 and I saw an error message on the left. After a couple of more failures, I decided to uninstall and reinstall the software thinking that it might have somehow gotten corrupted. That did not help the problem.

Then I asked “Uncle Google” and read up on the X-Rite support site but could not find anything resembling my problem. It was time to call the big guns, I wrote a message to my friend Brenda Hipsher who oversees the X-Rite social media and the X-Rite Blog. She thought it was a strange problem and suggested that I write to X-Rite support with full documentation, which I did on Friday.

This morning there was a message from X-Rite support which said “Based on the support issue you submitted, we have attached a PDF file of a Knowledge Base Article as a potential solution.” I opened the PDF file, followed the simple steps, lo and behold program started working like magic. In case you may have a similar problem, I am sharing the steps necessary to fix it. Keep in mind that my problem was that not only the plugin was not working but I could not even start the Passport.exe from the desktop. If your problem is similar to mine you may follow the steps below. They do not do anything drastic and can easily be reversed if it does not solve your problem. Here are the simple steps that resolved my problem (and the official X-Rite page which repeats the same information):

Open control panel and select System
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Environment Variables button at the bottom of the window
Under System Variables click the New button
For Variable Name type KMP_DUPLICATE_LIB_OK
For Variable Value type TRUE
Click OK and close all the windows

That’s it! All tech support problems should be this quick to resolve. Thank you X-Rite, thank you Mary DeCator.

Munki See, Munki Do: Display Calibration

July 4, 2010 by A. Cemal Ekin

I am amazed that many photographers, far too many of them work on a monitor with no calibration, no profiling and get surprised when they do not achieve the expected colors from their prints. I have made quite a few presentations on digital workflow, and have been preaching the importance of color management starting with the display monitor calibration and profiling. The importance of a calibrated and properly profiled display monitor cannot be overemphasized. It is a must, period. The rest of the color-managed workflow depends on it.

I have been using a Monaco Optix-XR display calibration device that I acquired about 8-9 years ago; it was one of the better devices then. It served me well over the years until I upgraded my computer about a month ago, and its OS to Windows 7. The old software, which had not been updated for many years after X-Rite acquired Monaco, did not install on Windows 7 64-Bit OS. A replacement was clearly necessary, not for compatibility reasons only but also the availability of newer and better technology.

I sought advice from Brenda, the knowledgeable and helpful rep of X-Rite as to which one of their products would suit my needs the best. X-Rite makes close to 10 different models with a wide range of capabilities and prices and I considered i1Display series and the ColorMunki. She recommended X-Rite ColorMunki Photo (yes, it sounds a bit hokey to me too) and demoed one on my computer. I was sold on the spot. The process could not be simpler, it’s so simple a Munki can do it (sorry for the pun!)

Install the software first; it will probably take longer than the actual display calibration. Then plug in the CM (no more Munki-ing around with the long names) to an available USB port, which will trigger the installation of the hardware device driver. After it says your hardware is ready to use, start the Photo software. From this point on, it is a matter of following the on-screen instructions which even show a picture of the device with the correct dial setting and informs the user when it is set correctly or incorrectly. (There is one part that is not so foolproof as this fool was tripped by it. You need to open the sliding sensor cover at the bottom otherwise you will go through the entire process only to end up with an error message. I wish there was a hardware or software indicator that the cover was closed. But it is a very, very minor issue and I will most likely not make that mistake again.)

During the initial phases of the calibration process you will need access to the brightness and contrast controls of your display, acquaint yourself with those buttons; they are usually very hard to find and their labels are practically impossible to read. At least my monitor’s controls are. While making the adjustment on contrast or brightness as instructed by your loyal Munki software, go in small steps as it takes it a moment or two to read the new levels. After these are done, it will go through displaying and reading a series of colors on the screen and tell you that it is finished. At this point, you need to save the created profile. It suggests a name, which is fine to use. I prefer to add my monitor brand and the date of calibration to the file name so my profile names look like:

Ekin_Samsung_100704

but any name will do. I’m from the old school of computing and try to put as much information into the file name as I can within reason. It’s a habit I developed in the days of CP/M and MS-DOS! (What do you mean you don’t know what they are?)

The next step is a visual comparison of Before-After with noticeably better After view. You will be pleased when you see the results. I have not yet even mentioned that it can profile substrates for printers with ease and is a color picker from any surface that you can touch with this Munki’s foot. Other utilities included in the package will be quite useful to people who need to decide on color combinations like on a Web site, or a magazine layout. On their Web site, they offer training materials, brochures, and other information that will help the user get the most out of this product.

I love this Munki and highly recommend that you get one at your earliest convenience. They are easy to train, once you learn how to remove their “eye-patch!”

Photographic Printing Workflow

February 23, 2010 by A. Cemal Ekin

I gave a presentation at the Photographic Society of Rhode Island, PSRI, on producing quality prints using repeatable workflow. It also included a couple of tips on how to create multiple proof prints at once. This is based on a technique I learned from John Paul Caponigro, he calls it “Bracket Proofing” and it works like a charm.

I’ll be happy to share the process with you in a mentoring session or invite me to your club for a presentation.

On Color

March 12, 2008 by A. Cemal Ekin

I have been working on a presentation that I will make in a few weeks about color and color photography. I have read many books, visited many Web sites, and the last book I have been reading by Wittgenstein¹ prompted me to ask a series of questions in my exploration of the idea of “color.” Ponder upon these:

Is it meaningful to talk about the “evolution of color” in the sense that we talk about the evolution of the planets, species?
All the colors must have emerged spontaneously.
If not, is there an order of appearance?
Are there “unknown colors”? Can there be?
Once we are aware of the idea of “color” do we know all the colors we can?
What is the difference between “surface color” and “emitted color”?
Was there a time when humans did not see all the colors we now know?
Will humans see more colors one million years from now?
Is human evolution a factor in “color”?
If it is, is human evolution the analog for the evolution of color?
Is there color inside a tightly sealed wooden box?
How can we know that?
If there is no color, what would it look like if we could observe the objects inside?

Penny for your thoughts.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Colour (University of California Press, 1977).