Newbie - asking for a little workflow help

behrlich

Newbie

Posts: 1

Newbie - asking for a little workflow help

« on: November 21, 2009, 02:31:33 PM »

Hi all,

We're new to the world of digital photography (had a point and shoot for years, but just recently purchased a D5000). I'm currently trying to get my workflow setup, but am hitting a couple of snags. I'll explain my workflow products then the problems I'm having.

Workflow (and excuse me if I'm not explaining it correctly):
1. Save RAW
2. Upload off card using Nikon Transfer
3. Open with Ufraw
4. Edit in Gimp

(working on a mac)

-the main problem is that when I open the files in Ufraw the colors seem to be all skewed and I've read about ICC color profiles to enter into the program, but can't for the life of me find the ICC profile for the D5000.

-also, how do you go about calibirating your monitor and printer based on the same so you get the results when printing?

Thanks so much for anyone's help and input


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rayw

Sr. Member

Posts: 440

Re: Newbie - asking for a little workflow help

« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2009, 03:00:02 PM »

You can really confuse yourself with this, if you read folks different opinions. I found the best solution was to buy profile prism, and read the explanations/tutorials there. BUT you're on a mac, so no point in buying, since that is for windows only, but I think you can still read the documentation on line, or run some windows emulator.

The Gimp only recently had colour management, but there will be plenty of help there. It is not so important to have a profile for your camera - the profiles you need most are for your monitor and printer. You may well have an Argb colour space assigned to the camera, and srgb to monitor.

There are a few MAC users here, who hopefully can give more specific advice

Best wishes,

Ray


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Terry-M

The Honourable Metric Mann
Forum Superhero

Posts: 3251

Re: Newbie - asking for a little workflow help

« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2009, 05:26:23 PM »

Quote

Ufraw the colors seem to be all skewed

and

Quote

also, how do you go about calibrating your monitor and printer based on the same so you get the results when printing?

If your monitor is not calibrated and you are not using a colour management aware application (Ray says Gimp is now), that is likely to be the main reason why colours seem off.
You need a calibration device, and its associated software, that reads the colours from your monitor to make a profile. It will also load data into your graphic card to adjust the monitor appearance (I assume Mac is similar to Windows for this).
Popular calibration devices are X-Rite Eye One Display 2, Spyder 3.
When printing you again need a colour management aware program and a profile for every paper type/ink combination you use. Profile Prism will make these profiles for you, or a device like the ColorMunki, or buy a custom profile. However, most paper manufacturers supply quite good profiles for their papers; you usually need to use the printer manufacturers inks for them to work properly.

Quote

and I've read about ICC color profiles to enter into the program,

Ufraw uses dcraw, like Qimage SE, to decode the raw. However, Qimage has other features including Noise Reduction, Unsharp Mask (USM), a very simple but clever method of adjusting raw images and allows the use of a camera profile to obtain the best possible colour reproduction from your camera.
Of course, like Profile Prism, Qimage is Windows only so you would need to use a Windows emulator on your Mac.
Terry.


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