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Soft-proof, edit on a wide gamut monitor in calibrated AdobeRGB mode?

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Brett Delmage

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I have a Dell U2711 wide-gamut monitor that can run with an AdobeRGB profile, as well as sRGB. Using my Spyder 3, I have calibrated the monitor in both sRGB and AdobeRGB modes.

I have always soft-proofed in Photoshop in sRGB because I didn't own this monitor earlier. But now that I have it I'd like to use it in calibrated AdobeRGB mode for editing and soft-proofing, for final printing on a 3880 or better. I'm editing in ProPhoto space. Previously I have edited for printing, on monitors with sRGB profiles.

I'd welcome hearing of others' experience editing for print using a wide gamut monitor, and especially of any pitfalls.

if there is a thread or thread I should read instead, I'd welcome a link. My search before posting didn't find anything appropriate.

Unless I actually hear a pile of comments back 'like don't do this because...', I'll be starting to try this out, and will post a follow-up about my experiences.

Also, are there any opinions on what the white point of a wide gamut monitor like the U2711 should be profiled for print editing? I've calibrated it for D50 (5000K) but I've also seen opinions that D65/6500K actually works better in practice.

Thanks!

Brett
 
The R2880 printer uses the same vivid K3 ink set and gives the same IQ as the R3880 so the gamut maps are the same. Notice that the Epson 4900 printer with two additional colors doesn't increase the gamut much.

I believe that is is very simple looking at these gamut maps what you will see on your monitor and what will be the end result in soft-proofing and the the limitations of the printed output.



Bob P.
 
Gday Bob

What are the benefits of editing by using aRGB or Pro Photo on a wide gamut monitor if our printers can only reproduce the sRGB colour space?
Regards Rod
 
The only advantage I see is that if your photo is in aRGB or ProPhoto color spaces you gain that little extra gamut of the printer as shown in gamut maps comparison.

If you are a Lighroom user then the ProPhoto has it's place as stated in the following link that was posted by HugoWolf in another post.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/3.0/Using/WS268F3399-80B2-4169-A598-04C7F769FFA0.html

I shoot in aRGB but automatically convert to sRGB in both Nikon NX2 and PS as I really never see any advantage of using the aRGB color space for the photos I print and the ease of sRGB color space for use in some other applications and online labs.

Some day we will have wide gamut printers and then hopefully they will figure out how to apply the printer gamut profile to the monitor profile so we will actually only see the same colors on the monitor as in the print.

Bob P.
 
The white point color temperature is picked to approximate the light falling on the print at viewing time. The white point intensity to get a better soft proof match should be about 120 nits (ft-candles/cm2 I think) for better luminance matching to the contrast scale of the print.

I think 5,000 represent daylight coming in through a north facing window on a clear day at noon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature (skip the formulae)
--
Ron Ginsberg
Minneapolis, MN
Land of 10,000 Puddles
 
rodbam said:
Gday Bob
...if our printers can only reproduce the sRGB colour space?
Click to expand...
That's not correct. Today's wide-gamut inks (Epson Ultrachrome, Canon Lucia, HP Vivera) can print colors that exist well beyond the sRGB color space. Indeed, they can even print some colors that exist beyond aRGB. This is yet another reason why you should always shoot RAW and work in 16-bit ProPhoto. (Remember RAW is RAW -- it has no color space.)

If your printer can generate color xxx and that color lies beyond the sRGB (or aRGB) color space, your printer will never even be given the opportunity to print that color if it exists in a photo. And why would you want to castrate your printer like that?

Keep in mind that the "Adobe 1998" specification is now 14 years old. Yet, with each new generation of printers, the ink gamuts get wider and wider. Thus, aRGB is obsolete. I work exclusively in ProPhoto unless the original is an 8-bit sRGB JPEG. You should, too. Hope this helps.
 
Brett Delmage said:
I have a Dell U2711 wide-gamut monitor that can run with an AdobeRGB profile, as well as sRGB. Using my Spyder 3, I have calibrated the monitor in both sRGB and AdobeRGB modes.

I have always soft-proofed in Photoshop in sRGB because I didn't own this monitor earlier. But now that I have it I'd like to use it in calibrated AdobeRGB mode for editing and soft-proofing, for final printing on a 3880 or better. I'm editing in ProPhoto space. Previously I have edited for printing, on monitors with sRGB profiles.

I'd welcome hearing of others' experience editing for print using a wide gamut monitor, and especially of any pitfalls.

if there is a thread or thread I should read instead, I'd welcome a link. My search before posting didn't find anything appropriate.

Unless I actually hear a pile of comments back 'like don't do this because...', I'll be starting to try this out, and will post a follow-up about my experiences.

Also, are there any opinions on what the white point of a wide gamut monitor like the U2711 should be profiled for print editing? I've calibrated it for D50 (5000K) but I've also seen opinions that D65/6500K actually works better in practice.

Thanks!

Brett
Click to expand...
Hi,

I also have a wide gamut monitor, but not Dell and calibrate it with Spyder3Elite. When you calibrate minitor, you calibrate it not in sRGB or Adobe RGB. You create the Monitor profile. You can call it any name you want and you set as your default monitor profile. If you use Spyder3Pro or Elite, it has a feature to measure ambient light and depending on this it will recommend you settings. The reason is that ambient light affects how human eyes perceive color. For my lighting conditions I use 5800K and 120 cd/m2. I also have Epson stylus 1400 printer. When I print from the image in Adobe RGB color space it comes out with more vibrant colors than printed from the same image in sRGB. Since I shoot in RAW, I can easily change color space to see results. And this is using the same Epson paper, Epson ink and Epson color profile for that paper.
--
Best regards
 
Bob,

Thanks for posting the gamut map. It seems to me that the value of soft-proofing with wide gamut monitor operating in aRGB is valuable. The benefit would seem to be greater to those shooting scenes with more green-cyan-blue in them than red-magenta.

Thanks to everyone else who has posted observations and comments too. I'm going to try running my Dell U2711 in aRGB and see how it works out on my current printing project. It seems there's little risk of an adverse side-effect.

That said, I publish a lot of photos to the web, and it sure is easier on the eyes in Windows 7 with it's non-color managed environment to work in sRGB. So I think I'll be switching monitor modes and profiles a lot.

Brett
 
Brett Delmage said:
I have a Dell U2711 wide-gamut monitor that can run with an AdobeRGB profile, as well as sRGB. Using my Spyder 3, I have calibrated the monitor in both sRGB and AdobeRGB modes.
Click to expand...
adobergb mode is a waste to use when using color-managed software, since it clips parts of what the monitor can do, just use sRGB emulation and native modes, for the most part
Brett Delmage said:
I have always soft-proofed in Photoshop in sRGB because I didn't own this monitor earlier. But now that I have it I'd like to use it in calibrated AdobeRGB mode for editing and soft-proofing, for final printing on a 3880 or better. I'm editing in ProPhoto space. Previously I have edited for printing, on monitors with sRGB profiles.

I'd welcome hearing of others' experience editing for print using a wide gamut monitor, and especially of any pitfalls.

if there is a thread or thread I should read instead, I'd welcome a link. My search before posting didn't find anything appropriate.

Unless I actually hear a pile of comments back 'like don't do this because...', I'll be starting to try this out, and will post a follow-up about my experiences.

Also, are there any opinions on what the white point of a wide gamut monitor like the U2711 should be profiled for print editing? I've calibrated it for D50 (5000K) but I've also seen opinions that D65/6500K actually works better in practice.

Thanks!

Brett
Click to expand...
these days I think most people use D65
 
Brett Delmage said:
Bob,

Thanks for posting the gamut map. It seems to me that the value of soft-proofing with wide gamut monitor operating in aRGB is valuable. The benefit would seem to be greater to those shooting scenes with more green-cyan-blue in them than red-magenta.
Click to expand...
looking at a 2D slice can be misleading though, the 3D views often show more extra colors, for instance AdobeRGB appears to only add more greens compared to sRGB but it, in practice, often makes a bigger differences to reds and oranges for sunsets and leaves!
Brett Delmage said:
Thanks to everyone else who has posted observations and comments too. I'm going to try running my Dell U2711 in aRGB and see how it works out on my current printing project. It seems there's little risk of an adverse side-effect.
Click to expand...
native mode
 
have more red for aRGB when viewing on a monitor, but the limitations of the printers don't seem to get to that area too easily, if at all.

I just hope that Canon and Epson make some big new discovery someday to give the larger printer gamuts. Of course I'm an old fart and the younger generation is just going to hang super thin ProPhoto OLED display panels on the wall and stream their photos from the Cloud......

Bob p.
 
bronxbombers said:
these days I think most people use D65
Click to expand...
I'm in two minds what to use, D55 or D65. When calibrate my U2410 Dell with a Colourmunkli Photo it measures my lighting & recommends 80 but even with my brightness on zero I can only get down to just under 100 so I have to use the contrast slider to try & get down to 80, whereas when I choose D55 it makes it a lot easier to get down to 80.
What are the drawbacks to using D55?
My prints come out slightly darker than my monitor.
Regards Rod
 
bronxbombers said:
looking at a 2D slice can be misleading though, the 3D views often show more extra colors, for instance AdobeRGB appears to only add more greens compared to sRGB but it, in practice, often makes a bigger differences to reds and oranges for sunsets and leaves!
Click to expand...
Dry Creek Photo has a bunch of 3D gamut plots at
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/printer_gamuts/

Look at some of them. They illustrate exactly what bronxbombers said: 2D plots are illusionary. The only downside is you will need to install a VRML plugin if you don't already have one installed. IMO, being able to see 3D gamut plots is well worth the minor detour to install another plugin. I have the plugin installed on my 64 bit Win 7 machine and my 32 bit XP machine and it works with a variety of IEs and FiewFoxs.

You can see similar 3D plots of your own profiles at
http://www.iccview.de/content/view/3/7/lang,en/

If you want to generate your own 3D gamut plots without needing to go to a web site, the Argyll CMS has several utility programs that generate similar 3D plots.

http://www.argyllcms.com/

If all you want to do is generate 3D plots you don't have to "install" Argyll. Just download the .zip file, unzip it, and put the programs that are in the "/bin" directory on your path. Then you'd be interested in

http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/iccgamut.html

and

http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/viewgam.html

iccgamut generates .gam files that contain the data that describes the profile. viewgam will combine any number of .gam files into a 3D plot that you look at.

Once you get this far, you might be interested in
http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/tiffgamut.html

which makes .gam files from .tiff files. So you can plot real world images against color spaces. This is illustrated in this Photo.net thread:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00ZPwm?start=10
(Scroll down a bit to see screen shots of the gamut plots.)

Wayne
 
Wayne,

Thanks for posting all this information about gamuts and viewers! I was aware that the models are 3D, but never imagined I could view them with something, looking at all sides. This is great info.

I tried to install a VRML plug into my Firefox (current version) on both Linux and Win 7 (64 bit) this afternoon, with no luck. The Cosmo player, which I thought was a recommended one, crashes. Any suggestions for Win 7 or Linux viewers would be most appreciated. (I see that I can install a number of X3D or VRML apps in Linux, but they also seem to be editors and more complicated than I'll need to look at gamuts.)

Brett
 
(Let's see if this one works. DPReview died when I first posted this.)
Brett Delmage said:
Wayne,

Thanks for posting all this information about gamuts and viewers! I was aware that the models are 3D, but never imagined I could view them with something, looking at all sides. This is great info.

I tried to install a VRML plug into my Firefox (current version) on both Linux and Win 7 (64 bit) this afternoon, with no luck. The Cosmo player, which I thought was a recommended one, crashes. Any suggestions for Win 7 or Linux viewers would be most appreciated. (I see that I can install a number of X3D or VRML apps in Linux, but they also seem to be editors and more complicated than I'll need to look at gamuts.)
Click to expand...
Ah, I left out that detail. I tried the
http://www.iccview.de/content/view/3/7/lang,en/
site first. If you don't have a VRML plugin, it points you to

Cortona-3D
http://www.cortona3d.com/Products/Viewer/Cortona-3D-Viewer.aspx

which is what I installed. I didn't look at Dry Creek's site until after I had the Cortona-3D plugin installed. I do remember that it took several tries. I don't remember exactly what steps I took, but it might have been something like "close all browsers before installing Cortona."

VRML is considered all but dead, but I don't think there is any viable replacement. For doing things like 3D gamut plots.

Wayne
 
rodbam said:
rodbam said:
these days I think most people use D65
Click to expand...
I'm in two minds what to use, D55 or D65. When calibrate my U2410 Dell with a Colourmunkli Photo it measures my lighting & recommends 80 but even with my brightness on zero I can only get down to just under 100 so I have to use the contrast slider to try & get down to 80, whereas when I choose D55 it makes it a lot easier to get down to 80.
What are the drawbacks to using D55?
My prints come out slightly darker than my monitor.
Click to expand...
When it comes down to the line, it is all visual: what matches best when moving from one medium to another, and for me on a NEC calibrated with SpectraView, D65 at 80 cd/m² gives me the best match monitor to print. I tried both side-by-side for a few months, and with the ambient lighting in the room with the monitor, it was better.

When editing images I use a different profile, it is somewhat between the one I use for general processing (word processing, spreadsheets, and coding) and the D65 profile I use for printing and soft proofing. It is also D65, but 120 cd/m² and with a gamma of 2.2. I find the slightly exaggerated setting useful – it lays bare more flaws and things I need to fix.

Brian A
 
I've had a tendency to just use the one setting but after reading your post I will do several calibrations & use the one best for specific tasks.
Regards Rod
 
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