Anyone EXPERT Photogs here...

[Clair de Lune]

***Please reply only if you have a professional website with stunning web pictures as well as awesome prints***

1. Based on my observation, you must be post processing two versions of same image right? One for web, one for print? *Please answer this first*

2. Why do I ask? Because according to WHCC and various print websites, you must set your white point to 6500K when you calibrate (for me, using i1Display2) so you are in sync with the printer.

3. Everything looks yellow now so you make it cooler/proper so your prints will be nice and colorful for prints.

4. But what about your images for online viewing/website? (where your biggest audience is actually) If you use the ones PP'ed in 6500K. They'd look very blue/cool to the general public that use the 9500K monitor.

4. So, going back to 1- you Must be PPing for two versions!

If you're not, it boggles my mind how? If I surf to any professional website now while my monitor is in 6500K, their professional pictures all have a yellow cast, not proper. This means they did NOT work in 6500K for their web images.

Please advise before I get a further headache. I have been wrestling with this for days.

 

[angry hampster]

Yes. Print process is not only larger by pixel size, but will use different dpi, color profiles, luminosity, sharpening, etc..

 

[Alyx]

1. Yes, I'm pretty sure all professionals will be doing one for web and one for print.

Different sharpening, color and even file types. Monitors work in RBG while most printers work in CMYK, one result being that printers loose some colors of blue from their color space.

Beyond that and I'm not experienced enough to help much. I don't have a printer so I don't profile my monitors for printing.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Clair de Lune
***Please reply only if you have a professional website with stunning web pictures as well as awesome prints***

1. Based on my observation, you must be post processing two versions of same image right? One for web, one for print? *Please answer this first*

2. Why do I ask? Because according to WHCC and various print websites, you must set your white point to 6500K when you calibrate (for me, using i1Display2) so you are in sync with the printer.

3. Everything looks yellow now so you make it cooler/proper so your prints will be nice and colorful for prints.

4. But what about your images for online viewing/website? (where your biggest audience is actually) If you use the ones PP'ed in 6500K. They'd look very blue/cool to the general public that use the 9500K monitor.

4. So, going back to 1- you Must be PPing for two versions!

If you're not, it boggles my mind how? If I surf to any professional website now while my monitor is in 6500K, their professional pictures all have a yellow cast, not proper. This means they did NOT work in 6500K for their web images.

Please advise before I get a further headache. I have been wrestling with this for days.

I'm not a professional photographer, but rather a retoucher. If that's not close enough for you, well, whatever.

1) Yes. Or no. The reality is that, while the gap is closing as professional photographers as a whole become better digital people, there's often a sizeable gap between the print process they're intimately familiar with and the reality of web presentation. A good, old school lab will adjust your images (unless you tell them not to) to output correctly on their devices. Whether that's correcting color temp, applying a gain curve, a color profile, whatever. They probably won't mention even doing it and the person at the counter might not even know it gets done. But chances are, if you're using a professional service bureau, it is.

Alyx is partially correct in mentioning many printers work in the CMYK color space, but that's less true in the photography output space. From the Fuji Frontier up to the Durst Lambda, many of the newish breed of photography printers use light to expose photo paper. These printers are strictly low-volume only, however, unable to maintain competitive pricing on mid-to-high volume print runs; on larger runs more traditional CMYK(+) processes would be used.

The hitch remains the same, however, in that even these 'lightjet' printers, the reproducible color gamut is compressed as compared to (monitor) RGB. They, in general, can reproduce a larger gamut than CMYK processes but each output process is unique. Output media, LED age (on lightjets), and inkset/toners (in CMYK printers) all affect the total gamut a given printer/media combination are able to reproduce.

Most people in the print industry work in a generally-accepted middle ground for their particular process. For us (I work on many clients and my work ends up with many, many printers) those settings are these.

The next thing you have to realize about web images is that they're a) going to be different files for the resolution if nothing else, and b) are going to be displayed on

2) There is no single rule that encompasses all workflows. No matter what any website tells you. Take a look at Photoshop's color profiles folder; this doesn't simply end with color temp or gamma. It's a pretty old problem. There are companies whose entire business it is to make systems that make the color on the screen come out of the printer. Your job is finding a workflow that works for you. My suggestion is to use the standard 9500K color temperature and build the rest around that. If you're going so far as to set your monitor to 6500K, why not go the distance and paint your color correction room Munsell Gray and switch out all your lights to 6500 as well? Ambient light and color can wreck your color perception too.

3) Stop there. As you point out in 4 and 5 this leads to a vicious cycle. Pick your primary target (print or web) and set up your workflow around that with a mind to include the other.