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Image usage information

Kodak Professional Color management check-up kit

A useful aid to knowing your colour is right

Let's say you have calibrated and profiled your monitor, got good profiles for your printer, and are working in a colour managed workflow ... how do you reassure yourself that everything is -really- set up correctly?.

Keith looks at a kit from Colour Confidence that gives you some convenient tools to help.

What do you get?

The kit consist of a CD and seven test prints.

The prints are from images (on the CD) in the sRGB colour space.

One image is specifically produced as a printer evaluation target and the others all have content that will show up particular problems in your printed output.

High resolution drum scans of the original transparencies are also provided, along with a copy of the scanner profile (it is embedded in the high res tiff files).

The test prints were printed on a Kodak digital printer on Kodak professional Supra Endura paper.

The evaluation target also has a RHEM strip to check the lighting that you are using (more on this later).

There is also a collection of profiles for Kodak Media for several high quality printers.

and input profiles for the Kodak HR500 scanner:

Color Negative
E6 Transparency
Kodachrome Transparency

There is also an installer for Kodak 'Pro' colour spaces, however it tried to start up classic on my OSX Mac, so was not terribly useful (there is a windows version as well).

Lastly, there is a 64page PDF guide, covering colour management issues for photographers. It covers the applications and benefits of colour management from image capture through to final prints, whether you produce them yourself or via a processing lab. This file is also available from the Colour Confidence web site (registration required).

How do you use it?

Simply compare the prints with your monitor displaying the sRGB versions of the files.

Well, if only it were so easy :-) The comparison depends on a whole lot of factors. It certainly helps to have your monitor and image viewing application set up correctly, with correct colour management settings. In this respect, don't just open up the sRGB file in any old image viewer - use something that supports proper colour management (Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for example).

Secondly there is the whole question of how to view the test print. Ideally you should use a consistent light source which should match you monitor in colour temperature and brightness. The test print has a RHEM strip on it (A small sticky label -see box below) which will show if your lighting is not good enough. This is an important distinction that people often forget. The stripes on the strip are there to show the unsuitability of lighting, not its suitability. For example, I have an energy saving light bulb in my hallway, the colour rendition is awful, but it does not show up stripes on a RHEM strip.

Stripes visible - the lighting is not good enough for reference viewing	Stripes not visible - the lighting may be good enough for viewing

The RHEM strips make use of the fact that inks that may look the same in one light do not in another. This is Metamerism, and also explains why your prints may look fine in daylight, but wrong in artificial light. It's also why Keith asks our print customers where they are going to hang prints -- you can allow for the changes with appropriate profiles.

Don't expect an exact match, but with a bit of practice you will be able to spot the differences quite easily. If you want to see what difference your monitor profile makes, then select a generic one, or turn off colour management all together and make the comparison. On slight drawback you will have as your colour sense gets better, is to find yourself surrounded by other peoples' poorly set up monitors and dreadful quality prints :-)

Print out the sRGB files on your printer and compare them. Remember lighting and allow for the fact that different inks and papers will never look identical.

If you make prints from the files in the original scanner colour space you will be able to see the difference between the larger scanner space and the relatively small sRGB space. This is most noticeable with saturated cyans and oranges/yellows. You can also try this with your monitor -- open one of the very saturated images and use the embedded (scanner) profile. Then go to convert to sRGB. The Photoshop dialogue box for this has a preview button and if you toggle this on/off rapidly you will see slight changes in the saturation of some colours (if your monitor is good enough :-)

How well does it work?

It pretty much does what it says on the tin ... the test images are a harsh test of the accuracy of your colour management and quality of your printer. Remember that the prints are made from sRGB and allow accordingly. The printer test print (there is a high res 10"x8" version of the file) with its greyscale images will also show up deficiencies in your black and white printing setup (I have a downloadable greyscale test ramp image for B/W available on this site). Whilst you can get colour test images quite easily (see the one on my PrintFIX review) you can only compare them with what's on your screen -- having two physical prints to compare really helps.

There is an example of its use in my Eye One Design review where I used it to do a quick check of the accuracy of printer profiles.

Summary

Simple and it works. The information included will help you make the best use of the images, and will help you get your colour management set up correctly.

The colour management guidance PDF is useful, although I would recommend a book like Real World Colour Management by Fraser et al. (it includes a GATF RHEM strip in the back)

Is the kit worth £40? -- How much paper and ink would you waste getting things right? or, if you use a lab for your prints (such as many busy wedding photographers do) do you trust them to get your prints right? It's a matter of what that extra bit of accuracy and security is worth to you. There are a number of other such test prints available, but this collection is a real boon to working photographers.

The Kit reviewed came from Colour Confidence for £39.95

Top of page

More Info

Room and office decoration and lighting for photo editing
Some information on what to consider when setting up a space to work on digital images and evaluate prints.
An Introduction to colour management article by Keith and collection of CM info.
Keith's reviews of the Spyder 2 Pro monitor calibrator and PrintFIX.
Colour management links on this site.
The Viewing page - basic monitor set-up.
The Eye One Design - Spectrophotometer and software for monitor calibration, light measurement and basic printer profiling.
Black and White printer test image - A downloadable image put together as a tough test for any B/W printing set-up.
PrintFIX PRO - review
A considerable upgrade to the PrintFIX. The new version uses a Spectrocolorimeter to let you create printer icc profiles.
PrintFIX PLUS
The software only version of PrintFIX PRO that allows you to create icc profiles without your own patch reader.

Other areas of our site that may be of interest...

NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.

Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.

As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.

New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.

Visiting Leicester or wondering where it is? We have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.