Color Management for Digital Photographers For Dummies by Don Mason, Ted Padova

Introduction     1
About This Book     1
Who This Book Is For     1
Conventions Used in This Book     2
How This Book Is Organized     2
The Basics of Color Editing     2
Image Brightness and Contrast Corrections     2
Color Corrections     3
Finishing Work     3
The Part of Tens     3
Icons Used in This Book     3
Where to Go from Here     4
The Basics of Color Editing     5
Understanding Color     7
Understanding Calibration Basics     7
Getting to Know the Language of Color     9
Hue     9
Saturation     11
Brightness     11
Color space     13
Color gamut     13
Clipping     13
Mixing Colors     14
Understanding grays     15
Understanding channels     16
Why are there 256 levels?     17
Understanding Color Modes     17
RGB     17
Index color     17
Grayscale     18
Bitmap     18
CMYK     19
ConvertingColor Modes     19
Controlling Lighting     21
Understanding Color Temperature     22
Using Balanced Lighting     23
Going for Neutral Gray     24
Building a viewing booth     25
Employing viewing booth alternatives     27
Calibrating Your Monitor     29
What Is Monitor Calibration?     29
Working with CRT versus LCD Monitors     30
Calibrating with Hardware Devices     32
Adjusting Hardware Controls on an LCD Display     33
Using Calibration Software     36
Using Adobe Gamma     37
Calibrating with just RGB controls on a Mac     42
Calibrating LCD monitors that have brightness and contrast controls     47
Calibrating monitors that have white-balance, brightness, and contrast controls in Windows     52
Calibrating monitors with just white-balance controls in Windows     53
Calibrating Mac monitors that have white-point adjustments     54
Color Profiles and File Formats     55
What's a Color Profile?     55
Understanding the Different Types of Profiles     57
Monitor profiles     57
Workspace profiles     57
Output profiles      58
Working with Workspace Profiles in Elements     58
Defining your color workspace     58
Embedding the workspace profile     60
Managing Print Colors with Output Profiles     61
Acquiring device profiles     62
Installing profiles on your computer     65
Using output profiles when printing     67
Choosing and Changing File Formats     69
Which formats support profiles?     69
When can you change a file format?     71
Understanding Bit Depth     73
Understanding dynamic range     74
Where you get 16-bit images     75
Intake Brightness and Contrust Carrectimis     77
Making Tonal and Brightness Corrections     79
Checking Out Your Images     80
Fixing Tone Problems     81
Using the Levels Dialog Box     84
Getting to Black and White     88
Adjusting Gamma levels     89
Correcting a low-contrast file     92
Correcting an underexposed file     93
Correcting an overexposed file     94
Correcting a high contrast file     95
Finding the first real black and white pixels     95
The Levels black-and-white preview option     97
Breaking the Rules of Editing     100
Knowing when to break the rules     101
Breaking the rules for white-point adjustments     102
Breaking the rules for black-point adjustments     105
Correcting Contrast     111
Correcting Image Contrast     111
Fixing Contrast Problems with the Auto Contrast Command     114
Working with the Brightness/Contrast Command     117
Modifying Contrast with Adjust Color Curves     121
Using the Shadows/Highlights Tool to Adjust Contrast     124
Traveling Back in Time with the Undo Command     131
Using Adjustment Layers     133
Adding Adjustment Layers to Your Editing Arsenal     134
Creating Adjustment Layers     134
Working with Adjustment Layers     136
Changing the opacity of layers     137
Moving adjustment layers between files     137
Choosing a layer blending mode     139
Correcting Image Contrast with a Curves Adjustment     Layer 139
Increasing image contrast     140
Reducing image contrast     144
Color Carrections     149
Identifying Color Problems      151
Identifying a Colorcast     151
Discovering Memory Colors     153
Getting Familiar with Color Saturation     155
Color Correcting Skin Tones     157
Correcting Skin Tones     157
Using the Hue/Saturation Tool     164
Understanding the Hue/Saturation dialog box     164
Editing Hue/Saturation     165
Removing a Colorcast     173
Using Levels and Color Variations to Make Color Corrections     179
Using Levels for Color Correction     179
Correcting color by using Levels     181
Analyzing the Levels adjustments     184
Working with Color Variations     185
Correcting color with Color Variations     188
Darkening and lightening images     191
Saturating images with Color Variations     191
Advanced Color-Correction Methods     195
Cleaning Up the Whites     195
Examining color channels in Levels     198
Using Auto Levels     199
Setting White and Black Points with the Levels Eyedroppers     204
Fine-Tuning with the Hue/Saturation Command     212
Correcting Overexposed Saturated Files     216
Correcting Color by Using Levels      221
Understanding the effects of adjusting color in Levels     222
Color correcting a file with Levels     223
Camera Raw Color Correction     227
Understanding Camera Raw     228
Using the Raw Converter     228
Making Adjustments in Camera Raw     233
Working with Camera Raw Defaults     239
Finishing Work     241
Printing     243
Preparing Files for Printing     243
Printing and image resolution     244
Changing image resolution     246
Cropping images     248
Converting Color     250
Printing to Epson Inkjet Printers     251
Using automatic profile selection     252
Selecting a printer profile manually     259
Printing with a printer profile in Windows     259
Printing with a custom profile     261
Printing to HP Inkjet Printers     262
Printing to HP printers in Windows     263
Printing to HP printers on a Macintosh     264
Printing to Canon Printers     265
Printing to Canon printers in Windows     265
Printing to Canon Printers on a Mac     266
Renaming Color Profiles      268
Printing Contact Prints     268
Choosing Paper and Inks     271
Soft Proofing Color     273
Understanding Soft Proofing     273
Converting to an Output Profile     274
Converting color in Windows     274
Converting profiles by using operating system tools on a Macintosh     277
Viewing the Soft Proof     279
Part of Tens     283
Ten Tips for Better Tone and Color     285
Calibrating Your Monitor     285
Using a Gray Card     286
Or Using the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker     287
Shooting Pictures in Proper Lighting     287
Shooting Photos against a Background     288
Using Curves Adjustment Layers     288
Shooting in Camera Raw     289
Editing 16-Bit Images     289
Editing for Content     290
Using Filters     290
Tea Reasons to Upgrade to Photoshop     293
Using the Curves Dialog Box     293
Using the Channels Dialog Box     297
Changing Bit Depth     298
Improving Dynamic Range     300
Working with More Color Modes     300
Converting to a Profile      303
Proofing Color     304
Embedding Profiles     304
More Options for Using Camera Raw     305
More Selection Tools     306
Index     309