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color profile for creating books within Aperture #1
HMCA's picture
by HMCA
March 14, 2013 - 10:36am

When creating a book in Aperture, what color profile is recommended….ADOBE RGB or sRGB?

Thanks,
Helen

HMCA
Aperture 3..5.1, PE11, PSCC for photographers : ) , NIK, Topaz and OnOne Plug-ins

gfsymon's picture
by gfsymon
March 14, 2013 - 9:16pm

sRGB is much closer to the colour gamut of most book services (HP’s Indigo press).

HMCA's picture
by HMCA
March 14, 2013 - 11:08pm

Making sure I understand you correctly……..if I am having my book printed with Aperture’s printing service, it is better to convert the color profiles to srgb? The reason I ask is because I recently used this feature for the first time. While I was certainly happy with the quality of the book itself, I felt most of the pictures didn’t have the rich color that I saw on my screen. When I checked the profile of the images used in the book, I saw that they were Adobe rgb. I want to make another book……on a smaller scale just to see if I get better results. So you are saying that I should convert the profile to srgb before I send it off for print. Can I do this as a batch processing once I have all my pictures selected?

Sorry this is sooooo long…….as you may guess, I’m not really up on all of this.

Thanks,
Helen

HMCA
Aperture 3..5.1, PE11, PSCC for photographers : ) , NIK, Topaz and OnOne Plug-ins

Chris Hoch's picture
by Chris Hoch
March 14, 2013 - 11:45pm

Hi Helen,

Have you calibrated your monitor, using something along the lines of the Spyder? I ask because if the colours on your monitor are off then what you see on screen will probably not be what you get in the photobook.

HMCA's picture
by HMCA
March 14, 2013 - 11:57pm

I was afraid someone might ask that……..I have never gotten into calibration….but I have made books before using Shutterfly and have been pleased with the color. I know that calibration plays a big factor….but if we could ignore that part of it for now…..would your advice be to send the book to the Aperture service using Adobe rgb or srgb? If after I know I have used the correct profile, I still am not happy with the results, I’ll look into color calibration.

I appreciate your advice…..

Helen

HMCA
Aperture 3..5.1, PE11, PSCC for photographers : ) , NIK, Topaz and OnOne Plug-ins

Butch Miller's picture
by Butch Miller
March 15, 2013 - 1:11am

“….but if we could ignore that part of it for now

That may sound good in principle … but it won’t cure any color mismatch issues … Even though most Mac monitors are quite close in color rendition out of the box … they do vary and while they can do a pretty good job of rendering full on Red, Blue and Green … if you compare the canned monitor profile to a calibrated profile, the differences in the more subtle hues can be quite apparent.

If you are not seeing a true and accurate color rendition of your image color data on your monitor … it matters little which, if any, color profile you send to the printer. Not to mention most monitors, including Apple monitors default settings, are extremely bright. Which can cause issues with overall tone and contrast as well between monitor view and the final print rendition.

That said, for most consumer printing services, when in doubt go with sRGB … for most machine printing and short run sheet fed systems, sRGB has become ubiquitous … I am not familiar with the default Aperture book printing vendor or Shutterfly … but it may be possible that they apply some form of automated image processing to your file before they print it … or not …

You must keep in mind, that even with a high resolution, wide gamut calibrated monitor, you will NEVER achieve an exact rendition between the monitor view and a printed version … they are quite different mediums so most often what we are looking for is not 100% color accuracy, but pleasing color and tone.

HMCA's picture
by HMCA
March 15, 2013 - 2:46am

Thank you Butch for taking the time to provide such detailed information. As I am just a hobbyist, I haven’t ventured into color calibration….although I understand that it is certainly the recommended route. For now I appreciate that you have confirmed what gfsymon stated initially, and for my next book I will make sure that my images are all srgb.

Helen

HMCA
Aperture 3..5.1, PE11, PSCC for photographers : ) , NIK, Topaz and OnOne Plug-ins

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