Professional Printing Tips
When printing, some things can often get overlooked. It's important to remember some of these steps to get the most out of your printing.
1. Changing Colour Space
What is colour space? Well, according to Cambridge in Colour;
"A "color space" is a useful conceptual tool for understanding the color capabilities of a particular device or digital file. When trying to reproduce color on another device, color spaces can show whether you will be able to retain shadow/highlight detail, color saturation, and by how much either will be compromised."
"Working spaces are used by image editing programs and file formats to constrain the range of colors to a standard palette"
It is therefore important to change the working space within Photoshop to suit your needs, so the program can replicate colours as they need to be shown.
But how do you know which is best to use? The most common working spaces are SRGB and AdobeRGB 1998, and they both have different uses.
Luckily, Cambridge in Colour have a guide to these too. They say "sRGB is a RGB color space proposed by HP and Microsoft because it approximates the color gamut of the most common computer display devices. Since sRGB serves as a "best guess" for how another person's monitor produces color, it has become the standard color space for displaying images on the internet."
simply put, sRGB is what you're most likely to use for internet purposes, such as emails, and website upload. "sRGB's color gamut encompasses just 35% of the visible colors" And this is because most screens simply don't have the capabilities to show more than that. The colour gamut, which identifies the entire range of colours available on a particular device, is smaller to replicate what people will see on their screens.
"Adobe RGB 1998 was designed (by Adobe Systems, Inc.) to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK printers, but by using only RGB primary colors on a device such as your computer display. The Adobe RGB 1998 space encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors" states Cambridge in Colour. This means that the adobe workspace allows for you to see how the image is more likely to look once printed. Of course using the correct printer profile will help most with this, but Adobe RGB will show you more colour gamut nevertheless.
The International Colour Consortium (ICC) provides an accurate description of the device's gamut, and that's how we know what percentage of colours a certain profile shows. This then allows us to make a visual comparison, which Cambridge in Colour have done so above. The white lines show how much colour sRGB uses vs Adobe RGB 1998 in black. The diagram shows that the Adobe workspace shows a lot more colour and tones.
With this diagram you can see how the Adobe RGB 1998 encompasses a lot more green and cyan in all brightnesses, and in the highlights also has the advantage of showing more of the magenta shades. This tells us that sRGB isn't as good as replicating greens, and that's therefore a disadvantage to using this workspace.
Cambridge in colour then pose a question. They say; "All of these extra colors in Adobe RGB 1998 are great for viewing on a computer monitor, but can we actually reproduce them in a print?"
To which we learn simply, no.
In this extension of the diagram above, we can now see the colours that a high end inkjet printer like we use at university can produce.
"the high-end inkjet printer exceeds sRGB for colors in shadows, midtones, and highlights. The high-end inkjet even exceeds the gamut of Adobe RGB 1998 for cyan-green midtones and yellow highlights."
So if you were to use the sRGB workspace for a high end inkjet print, you're going to lose a lot of information and colour detail.
It's at this point where you could question why ever use sRGB. Cambridge in Colour have also answered this.
"why not just use it (AdobeRGB 1998) in every situation? Another factor to consider is how each working space influences the distribution of your image's bit depth. Color spaces with larger gamuts "stretch" the bits over a broader region of colors, whereas smaller gamuts concentrate these bits within a narrow region."
This can be confusing to visualise and understand but with their diagram, it explains a lot.
If an image contained only shades that could be replicated in a small gamut color space (sRGB) then we would be wasting bits by allocating them to encode colors outside the small gamut:
"A similar concentration of bit depth occurs with sRGB versus Adobe RGB 1998, except in three dimensions, and not quite as dramatic as demonstrated above. Adobe RGB 1998 occupies roughly 40% more volume than sRGB, so you are only utilizing 70% of your bit depth if the colors in Adobe RGB 1998 are unnecessary (for evenly spaced bits)."
So how do you change this in photoshop, now we know why we need to change it?
It's very simple. First, open up your image. Go to 'Edit' > 'Colour Settings' > 'Working Spaces' > 'RGB' > Open the drop down bar and choose the workspace you want. As I did this for printing, I changed this to Adobe RBG 1998.
2. Using the ruler feature
When you scan film, it's almost inevitable that you'll get some dust and/or scratch marks on the film and therefore on the scanned image.
The ruler tool helps you mark out specific places that you have or have to yet retouch. It does this by allowing you to mark off different sections
It will tell you how far you've gone through your image. In my example I did 0.5 inches approximately, but the size you will want yours will depend on the size of your image.
Let go, and the line will remain where you placed it.
The colour mine became was cyan. However if you have an image that has a lot of cyan in it, these markings may not be easy enough to see. Luckily we're able to change the colours to suit any image.
To do this go to 'Edit' > Preferences > 'Guides, Grid and Slices'
Now you'll need to go to 'Guides' > 'Canvas' and use the drop down menu to choose the colour.
Press 'OK' when you've chosen a suitable colour that can be seen against your image.
You can keep making these ruler lines and turn them into a grid, it's best to have a universal distance between each line as to make each section even.
If you want to remove or change where a line sits, simply grab the places line and take it back to the side or top ruler to remove it, or just replace if you just want to move it.
To hide all ruler markings, you can go to 'View' > 'Extras'
The lines will disappear, and when you turn 'Extras' back on again, they'll be there once again.
To use this feature to your advantage, you could cover the entirety of your image in the grid, and the spot each square at a time. Once this is done, remove the lines of the grid so you know where you've been retouching in the image and where you still have left to do.
3. Printing Space
If you're planning on printing your images, it's not only the colour space that is important in your colour management. The colours the printer will produce isn't the same as what is shown on your monitor. This is because of a huge amount of printer types, ink and different papers.
Changing the printing space is easy. First, make sure the printer paper settings are integrated into Photoshop, luckily these profiles are already in the university computers in the lightroom.
Go to 'Edit' > 'Convert to Profile'
Then 'Destination Space' > 'Profile' and use the dropdown menu to pick the profile that matches your paper in the printer.
Once this is done the colours on your screen will adjust to match more to how the image will be printed on that paper. You can now edit the image further, knowing more about how the image will look. This isn't going to be 100% accurate because it's very hard to replicate, so always do test strips on important work to test the colour first!
4. Sharpening
Most images will need to be sharpened before printed. Of course this depends on the image and the aim of it, but most times I find my images benefit from sharpening. There's a number of ways to do this, but it's important that whatever way you choose, you do the sharpening last. If you crop and resize after you've sharpened, the sharpening will also get stretched and become far less effective.
The most professional way is using an unsharp mask. If your image has layers, you'll need to save the psd and then continue, so you dont lose the layers and can edit again later, and then merge down all layers.
Another way to do this without removing layers is by pressing 'ctrl/cmd , alt, shift + E', which makes a new layer encompassing all previous layers underneath it.
Once this is done, duplicate the background layer or the merged layer.
Now, go to 'Filter' > 'Sharpen' > 'Unsharp Mask'
Set the threshold to 0, the radius to 0.9 and then the amount to whatever you'd like. 50% is a good starting point. You can then print a test strip and see how you like it.
5. Save The Master File as a TIFF
This seems incredibly silly to even mention, however it can be easily forgotten. Saving your file with all your layers as a TIFF means you can keep all of your layers and keep all the details. Even if you don't keep layers, a TIFF file will allow for the information to stay much more than say, a JPEG. This is because a TIFF file is uncompressed.
However, because it's uncompressed this means that it's also that the file size is much bigger, so you'll need adequate storage space.
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-spaces.htm
1. Changing Colour Space
What is colour space? Well, according to Cambridge in Colour;
"A "color space" is a useful conceptual tool for understanding the color capabilities of a particular device or digital file. When trying to reproduce color on another device, color spaces can show whether you will be able to retain shadow/highlight detail, color saturation, and by how much either will be compromised."
"Working spaces are used by image editing programs and file formats to constrain the range of colors to a standard palette"
It is therefore important to change the working space within Photoshop to suit your needs, so the program can replicate colours as they need to be shown.
But how do you know which is best to use? The most common working spaces are SRGB and AdobeRGB 1998, and they both have different uses.
Luckily, Cambridge in Colour have a guide to these too. They say "sRGB is a RGB color space proposed by HP and Microsoft because it approximates the color gamut of the most common computer display devices. Since sRGB serves as a "best guess" for how another person's monitor produces color, it has become the standard color space for displaying images on the internet."
simply put, sRGB is what you're most likely to use for internet purposes, such as emails, and website upload. "sRGB's color gamut encompasses just 35% of the visible colors" And this is because most screens simply don't have the capabilities to show more than that. The colour gamut, which identifies the entire range of colours available on a particular device, is smaller to replicate what people will see on their screens.
"Adobe RGB 1998 was designed (by Adobe Systems, Inc.) to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK printers, but by using only RGB primary colors on a device such as your computer display. The Adobe RGB 1998 space encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors" states Cambridge in Colour. This means that the adobe workspace allows for you to see how the image is more likely to look once printed. Of course using the correct printer profile will help most with this, but Adobe RGB will show you more colour gamut nevertheless.
The International Colour Consortium (ICC) provides an accurate description of the device's gamut, and that's how we know what percentage of colours a certain profile shows. This then allows us to make a visual comparison, which Cambridge in Colour have done so above. The white lines show how much colour sRGB uses vs Adobe RGB 1998 in black. The diagram shows that the Adobe workspace shows a lot more colour and tones.
With this diagram you can see how the Adobe RGB 1998 encompasses a lot more green and cyan in all brightnesses, and in the highlights also has the advantage of showing more of the magenta shades. This tells us that sRGB isn't as good as replicating greens, and that's therefore a disadvantage to using this workspace.
Cambridge in colour then pose a question. They say; "All of these extra colors in Adobe RGB 1998 are great for viewing on a computer monitor, but can we actually reproduce them in a print?"
To which we learn simply, no.
In this extension of the diagram above, we can now see the colours that a high end inkjet printer like we use at university can produce.
"the high-end inkjet printer exceeds sRGB for colors in shadows, midtones, and highlights. The high-end inkjet even exceeds the gamut of Adobe RGB 1998 for cyan-green midtones and yellow highlights."
So if you were to use the sRGB workspace for a high end inkjet print, you're going to lose a lot of information and colour detail.
It's at this point where you could question why ever use sRGB. Cambridge in Colour have also answered this.
"why not just use it (AdobeRGB 1998) in every situation? Another factor to consider is how each working space influences the distribution of your image's bit depth. Color spaces with larger gamuts "stretch" the bits over a broader region of colors, whereas smaller gamuts concentrate these bits within a narrow region."
This can be confusing to visualise and understand but with their diagram, it explains a lot.
If an image contained only shades that could be replicated in a small gamut color space (sRGB) then we would be wasting bits by allocating them to encode colors outside the small gamut:
"A similar concentration of bit depth occurs with sRGB versus Adobe RGB 1998, except in three dimensions, and not quite as dramatic as demonstrated above. Adobe RGB 1998 occupies roughly 40% more volume than sRGB, so you are only utilizing 70% of your bit depth if the colors in Adobe RGB 1998 are unnecessary (for evenly spaced bits)."
So how do you change this in photoshop, now we know why we need to change it?
It's very simple. First, open up your image. Go to 'Edit' > 'Colour Settings' > 'Working Spaces' > 'RGB' > Open the drop down bar and choose the workspace you want. As I did this for printing, I changed this to Adobe RBG 1998.
2. Using the ruler feature
When you scan film, it's almost inevitable that you'll get some dust and/or scratch marks on the film and therefore on the scanned image.
The ruler tool helps you mark out specific places that you have or have to yet retouch. It does this by allowing you to mark off different sections
To find this tool, go to 'View' > 'Rulers'
This will bring up a measuring system at the top and left hand side of the programme. To add a ruler mark simply click and hold down on the ruler and pull it down or to the side as to where you want to place it.
It will tell you how far you've gone through your image. In my example I did 0.5 inches approximately, but the size you will want yours will depend on the size of your image.
Let go, and the line will remain where you placed it.
The colour mine became was cyan. However if you have an image that has a lot of cyan in it, these markings may not be easy enough to see. Luckily we're able to change the colours to suit any image.
To do this go to 'Edit' > Preferences > 'Guides, Grid and Slices'
Now you'll need to go to 'Guides' > 'Canvas' and use the drop down menu to choose the colour.
Press 'OK' when you've chosen a suitable colour that can be seen against your image.
You can keep making these ruler lines and turn them into a grid, it's best to have a universal distance between each line as to make each section even.
If you want to remove or change where a line sits, simply grab the places line and take it back to the side or top ruler to remove it, or just replace if you just want to move it.
To hide all ruler markings, you can go to 'View' > 'Extras'
The lines will disappear, and when you turn 'Extras' back on again, they'll be there once again.
To use this feature to your advantage, you could cover the entirety of your image in the grid, and the spot each square at a time. Once this is done, remove the lines of the grid so you know where you've been retouching in the image and where you still have left to do.
3. Printing Space
If you're planning on printing your images, it's not only the colour space that is important in your colour management. The colours the printer will produce isn't the same as what is shown on your monitor. This is because of a huge amount of printer types, ink and different papers.
Changing the printing space is easy. First, make sure the printer paper settings are integrated into Photoshop, luckily these profiles are already in the university computers in the lightroom.
Go to 'Edit' > 'Convert to Profile'
Then 'Destination Space' > 'Profile' and use the dropdown menu to pick the profile that matches your paper in the printer.
Once this is done the colours on your screen will adjust to match more to how the image will be printed on that paper. You can now edit the image further, knowing more about how the image will look. This isn't going to be 100% accurate because it's very hard to replicate, so always do test strips on important work to test the colour first!
4. Sharpening
Most images will need to be sharpened before printed. Of course this depends on the image and the aim of it, but most times I find my images benefit from sharpening. There's a number of ways to do this, but it's important that whatever way you choose, you do the sharpening last. If you crop and resize after you've sharpened, the sharpening will also get stretched and become far less effective.
The most professional way is using an unsharp mask. If your image has layers, you'll need to save the psd and then continue, so you dont lose the layers and can edit again later, and then merge down all layers.
Another way to do this without removing layers is by pressing 'ctrl/cmd , alt, shift + E', which makes a new layer encompassing all previous layers underneath it.
Once this is done, duplicate the background layer or the merged layer.
Now, go to 'Filter' > 'Sharpen' > 'Unsharp Mask'
Set the threshold to 0, the radius to 0.9 and then the amount to whatever you'd like. 50% is a good starting point. You can then print a test strip and see how you like it.
5. Save The Master File as a TIFF
This seems incredibly silly to even mention, however it can be easily forgotten. Saving your file with all your layers as a TIFF means you can keep all of your layers and keep all the details. Even if you don't keep layers, a TIFF file will allow for the information to stay much more than say, a JPEG. This is because a TIFF file is uncompressed.
However, because it's uncompressed this means that it's also that the file size is much bigger, so you'll need adequate storage space.
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/sRGB-AdobeRGB1998.htm
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-spaces.htm
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