Color Correction vs. No Color Correction

Color Management & Calibration for Photographers who Prefer to do their Own Color Corrections

• When using our Non Color Corrected Economy service, in order to insure that the colors on your monitor match the colors in the prints you receive from Bay Photo, it is best to have a properly calibrated and profiled monitor. You can try some evaluation prints without calibrating your monitor but you will get more consistent and repeatable results if you do calibrate.
• In order to calibrate your monitor you will need a hardware calibration device. An excellent calibration device is the i1Display 2 by Xrite. Information can be found at www.xritephoto.com. This is a very popular device and we us it in the lab. It's about a 200 dollar investment in hardware, but it will really help you to get a good monitor to print match.
• This device attaches to the front of your monitor and reads color patches displayed by the software. Using these readings, the software helps optimize the brightness/contrast/color output and creates a profile. This profile is used by Photoshop, displaying images with accurate color.
• As you use the i1 Display 2 Software, you will be asked to enter some parameters. We recommend starting with a target Whitepoint and Gamma curve of 6500k and Gamma 2.2. These are only recommendations; you may find that your viewing environment has warmer lights, in which case you could experiment with a Whitepoint of 5000k. You can order Calibration Prints at no charge from us to help you determine the best settings.

Photoshop Settings

Additionally, you need to make sure that you are embedding an ICC profile into the files you send to BAY PHOTO. We recommend that you use either sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998) as a working colorspace.

Below are the directions for proper setup of your Photoshop Color Settings:

1. Open Photoshop
   • For Mac Users:
     • In the Menu Bar go to Photoshop > Color Settings
   • Windows Users:
     • In the Menu bar go to Edit > Color Settings
2. Go to Working Spaces and for RGB Files select either "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" or "Adobe RGB (1998)"
3. Under Color Management Policies next to RGB select “Convert to Working RGB"
4. Next to Profile Mismatches check “Ask When Opening” and “Ask When Pasting”

Whenever you open a file that is in a color space other than your working space, Photoshop will prompt you to convert to the working color space. If you would rather not be prompted when opening a file with a different imbedded profile than your working space, you can uncheck the “Ask When Opening” box and the “Ask When Pasting” boxes next to Profile Mismatches. Photoshop will then apply your working space to files that are in a different color space or with a missing profile.

VERY IMPORTANT: When you save your files, make sure to check the “Embed Color Profile” checkbox in the Save dialog box or your working profile will not be embedded and we will not know the colorspace of your files leading to inaccurate color.