Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Confused...

Does anybody out there have a work flow they would be willing to share with me regarding photoshop's color space?  This is why I ask...I have decided to shoot raw, so that I have more flexibility while editing after I have taken my pictures.  But, as far as I can tell, I should be editing in ProPhoto 1998 in camera raw and the same after I import the picture to Photoshop for final adjustments.  Once I import the picture to Photoshop CS5, my color space is still set on ProPhoto 1998.  Then when I save my photo as a JPEG I leave it in ProPhoto 1998.  Is this correct so far? 

Now, I did a test print today at Costco using ProPhoto1998 color space and it was AWFUL!!!  I know that Costco has a site that you download their color space, which I did do.  However, when I tried to covert my working profile ( in photoshop  EDIT>CONVERT TO PROFILE  my "SOURCE SPACE" was PROPHOTO1998 and the "DESTINATION SPACE" was Costco's SRGB code).   I can't even upload the picture to Costco's site.  I am pretty perplexed here!!!

I also thought, maybe I should edit my RAW photo and then save it as a "RAW" file.  Then try to upload it to Costco.  I tried this and the file isn't even there when I look for it via Costco's upload dialog box.  Yes, the "RAW" file is saved on my hard drive, but I can't seem to get it to export over to Costco.  Maybe if I try to change the "DESTINATION SPACE" again to Costco's SRGB code.  NOPE.  And to top it off, when I opened the "RAW" file on my hard drive back into Photoshop, it looked NOTHING like what I had originally saved.  The file was black and white, stretched, and very pixelated.

I have also read to just leave all the images in SRGB through out all the edits via camera raw and photoshop, that way I can just send the picture straight to Costco.  Wouldn't that limit most of the colors?  Why bother shooting in RAW then?

In the past I had my color space set to Adobe 1998, maybe I should go back????

Any suggestions or good sites with information would be awesome!  Just comment away please! :)

......SUNDAY OCTOBER 3RD......

Here is some new information I have received from the very kind and generous Heather Armstrong of Heather Armstrong Photography.  Thank you soooo much Heather for all of your great information that you passed along to me!  She told me to try shooting in SRGB, set Photoshop in SRGB, and print SRGB.  That she has gotten great results doing this.  So, I tried and it so far has been successful.  I also want to try setting my camera to Adobe 1998, photoshop to Adobe 1998, and then print using the Costco SRGB code...once I figure out how to do that!  However, in the mean time...the results were very close to my calibrated screen.  Also, thank you Lisa for letting me borrow your calibrator!

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