Adjusting profile for developing pics

I have just recently got Photoshop 11 CS4 and due to being increasingly disappointed with the reds and greens when snapfish develop my prints I have been in contact with DS colour labs to setup a profile and try to ensure I have some control over the colours of the prints that come out. I have the DS labs profile and their site gives the following instructions (see below). I have followed this but then the color space on the properties of the file changes from sRGB to a number 65535. I am completely ignorant on all this so be gentle with me. Do I need to set the colour settings in some way? Has anyone used DS Colour labs and their printer profile before?

"Editing your Files.

Edit your images in a standard working space such as Adobe SRGB not a printer profile.

Working spaces are designed for editing images, printer spaces are not. From this point you have a file that can be sent to any printer. If you are sending your files to our lab please convert files to our profiles in Photoshop by selecting Image/Mode/convert to profile and then select our profile which will be in the list. For users of Photoshop CS2/3/4 choose Edit/Assign Profile. "

I've never gone through this my self;

I suspect that if you have followed their instructions then what you see is correct. Why not send one of the pictures you were unhappy with at snapfish to DS colour labs (having followed the new procedure) and see what comes back?

How ever the number you get is 2**16 - 1 (the largest unsigned number that can be held in 2 8 bit bytes) and with computers anything that returns a number like that is worrying ... so all may not be well - others please comment.

Also unless you have colour calibrated your screen then what you get (on the printer) is not necessarily what you see (on the screen)

the pictures only are an issue with the colour red and the pictures are as they have come out of the camera. if a picture had just browns and greys mostly it would tend to be fine.

i did speak to DS about it and they had not seen this before but also advised the same to send in tests after following their instructions. I will do so but wondered if anyone had advice on here first.

One thing I am not clear on is the color profile I should use as the workspace before I start. My CS4 defaults to North America, but you can also select Europe, I'm not sure what bearing this has (scratches head).

Huh!
Their instructions don't make sense!!!

Yes, you should edit in AdobeRGB or sRGB (personally, I'd use AdobeRGB) - maybe even in 16-bit. It's up to you. Save your file in your working space, and do all your editing in that colour space.

When you are happy with the image (on your calibrated screen!) then flatten, and use Image / Mode / Convert to Profile.

You should NOT use "Assign Profile"!!!!


Let me explain:
* Convert to profile will take the current working colour space and perform a transformation into the new colour space. It will use the "Intent" that you choose (there are four). Most likely you should use "Relative Colormetric". It will take the pixel 'numbers' and calculate where they should be in the new colour space.

(The Intent is useful where you may need to preserve a specific colour - e.g. for a company logo using Pantone colours. Alternatively, you may want to retain the overall 'feel' of the image, even though some colours may not be able to be reproduced in the new colour space. Relative Colormetric will give you that. 'Perceptual' may also be used - but will give a different rendering for some images. That's partly where the 'Soft Proof' option comes in Photoshop CSx )

* Assign profile on the other hand will just keep the pixel 'numbers' and do no transformation over to the new colour space. You'll get dud colours - how much depends on the difference between the working space and their printer profile.

To illustrate - "Convert to Profile" is like taking pounds sterling and applying a currency conversion to get to US dollars.
"Assign Profile" is just changing the currency character without changing the numbers!! (So £10 will become $10).

If DS don't know that, then I wouldn't expect my prints to be accurate

Try Pro AM Imaging for instructions and an excellent service


EDIT: Regarding the NA or Europe defaults... Photoshop doesn't just cover photography It deals with printing as well - such as colour separations and CMYK conversions etc. Don't worry so much about the choice of NA or Europe for photography (it's mainly a CMYK difference). The main thing you want to concentrate on is the working RGB space - choose either sRGB or AdobeRGB. It is helpful for PS to warn you when you are loading an image that isn't in that space (so you can have the choice of converting, or editing as-is). That's pretty much all you need to worry about

(You'll find my sticky note on Colour Management useful... if you can wade through it all )

HTH!
Matt

thanks Matt, I wonder if my company version of CS4 is different somehow. I tried to find Adobe Gamma for calibrating the monitor, but it is not there and there is no sign of the adobe gamma.cpl file.

just as an update. I contacted snapfish and explained and it turns out my account had a setting for auto colour correcting my uploaded images. They must have seen this problem before because they switched the setting off for me and re-ran my order without any quibble. So I'll see what happens now when I get them back, it might be enough.

Don't bother with Adobe Gamma
You need to get yourself Argyll CMS and dispcalGui - both free
Preferably get a Pantone Huey (cheapest one) as well - it'll work a treat with Argyll.
AFAIK, there are options though for visual calibration which will be better than nothing, and a lot better than Adobe Gamma.

HTH!
Matt