Color management and workflow for triple-use photos

[sigmed]

I'm sort of a novice, but I want to make as much of a professional attempt as I can at a project that I'm working on. I'm editing about 125 collegiate sports photos in Elements 4 for triple-use consideration: (1) on a website, (2) as inkjet prints, and (3) as part of a collage in a poster-size offset.

Do I need one color management setting (Optimize for Web) for (1) and another one (Optimize for Print) for (2) and (3)? I'm guessing that I do, but does that mean that I must start from scratch after completing one task, since, for example, the range of colors for (1) wouldn't necessarily be the same as those available for print output?

I've set up the following workflow in consequence. If anyone could critique it or suggest shortcuts, I would be most appreciative. All the photos were imported from a Canon 10-D at 180 pixels/inch at the highest quality setting (3072 x 2048 pixels each). The location was indoors with external overhead flash (lots of red eye, unfortunately; I've since purchased one of those angled brackets). I was up close to the action, and all the shots are tight.

1. Open duplicate of original.
2. Do a rough crop.
3. Clean up dust, scratches, blemishes.
4. Save as PSD.

5. Reopen (copy of?) PSD and optimize color management for Web.
6. Crop exactly.
7. Using adjustment layers, edit for color cast, contrast, red eye, and levels and then sharpen.
8. Change the resolution to 72 ppi and resample in stages (using Bicubic Smoother) down to Web output size (550 pixel maximum dimension), sharpening more at each step.
9. Save as JPEG.

Questions: Is there any harm in leaving the resolution at the original 180 ppi? Do I need to make a copy of the original PSD and work on that?

10. Reopen (copy of?) saved PSD in step 4, and optimize color management for printing.
11. Crop more loosely than for Web, to allow for more flexibility in print sizes.
12. Adjust for color cast, contrast, levels, red eye, and sharpening.
13. Change the resolution (?). No resampling.
14. Save as JPEG.

Question: Scott Kelby, in his PE4 cookbook, seems to suggest that 180 ppi is sufficient for print, but is that the experience of any others? What would the recommendation be?

Thank you for any responses.

-- Steve

[Codebreaker]

Steve.....

If these images are all taken with a Canon camera then they will be embedded with a Colour Space profile unless you used a Raw setting, which since you don't mention processing Raw I guess you're not. So, did you set the camera for sRGB or AdobeRGB.

The descriptions in the Colour Settings preferences are misleading. The one to avoid is No Colour Management. Any of the others will be ok because as soon as you have an embedded profile in the image that's the colour space that's being used.

For images going onto the Web and being viewed through a browser, the best colour space is sRGB. This is because most browsers are not colour managed and sRGB is supposed to represent a typical monitor. sRGB will also give good prints because many printers have a colour space which is actually less than this anyway.

For the Web images it's best to think in terms of Pixels rather than resolution. Each persons display is going to be set at a particular pixel dimension, 1024 x 768 is fairly typical. Providing any more Pixels means the image wont fit unless it gets re-sized by the viewer. In my opinion it's better to re-size before you post them as Elements does a good job at this. You'll now run into the problem that the Portait and Landscape images need to be considered seperately and the fact that the Aspect Ratio of your source image is 3:2 and most screens are either 4:3 or 5:4.

I would suggest re-sizing Landscape shots to have a width of 1024 and the Portrait shots to have a height of 768.

For Printing the key is to provide enough Pixels to give the Physical Size with a resolution of between 200 - 300. You can go lower - printers are very good this these days and if your viewing at a distance it's not too critical.

Don't forget the resolution has no significance until you want to set a physical size to the image. It's the number of Pixels to consider first.

If you need more help, please come back.

Colin

[sigmed]

Colin:

Thank you for your response; it was most helpful. My Canon is set to the standard color space (sRGB), and I think that I will simply leave it that way in Photoshop, based on its widespread use in monitors.

I resized the photos destined for the Web down to 550 pixels (maximum dimension) only because that is the limit used in an existing on-line gallery, to which mine will be added. Otherwise, I would have been more generous.

As for the print versions, I don't foresee anything larger than 8x10 inches being requested, so it sounds as if the quality should be acceptable as long as the total number of pixels is at least 1600 x 2000.

-- Steven

[Codebreaker]

Steven....

Just a follow up.

When you shoot Raw, the colour space setting in your camera has not effect on the image. This is because you will process the Raw Data external to the camera and determine the Colour Space in Elements.

In Elements :-

If you have the Colour Settings as Optimise for Screen - when you process the Raw image it will finish up as sRGB

If you have the Colour Settings as Optimise for Print - when you process the Raw image it will finish up as AdobeRGB.

Colin