OK Igor, you've opened up a real can of worms here... The first thing you need to do is get a copy of Real World Color Management: http://www.peachpit.com/store/real-world-color-management-9780321267221
Now the first question is "is your monitor capable of displaying the color in question?" Even so-called "wide-gamut" monitors only cover around the Adobe 1998 color space, and raw files can go way beyond that. (And just because you like the color you see on your monitor doesn't mean that's "really" the color stored in the file if that color is outside the monitor's gamut.) If you're using color management then your computer is already altering the color you see on screen (through your monitor's ICC profile) to bring it within the gamut of your monitor. Some of the stuff below you undoubtedly know, but I'm being thorough for may own sake (helps keep it straight in my head!) as well as for others who are less familiar with it: >What do you do when the destination colorspace does not have the color you >need? Short version: You re-map the image into the destination color space and fudge *all the colors* to bring the result as close to acceptable as you can. >Let's say you have a photo, you look at the "soft proof" in LR (or in PS), >and you see that the "center-piece" color is way out of the destination >gamut. For example, I have the photo of this red flower >http://42graphy.org/misc/Flower_IR32063.jpg >In reality, that red is more toward orange. SRGB color space does not have >that color. I see how LR is going to change (you can see the result), and >I can change the color mapping (colorimetric or perceptual), but it is >still far from the "reality" (or what I think the reality is). If the "reality" is a color that's outside the destination color space you simply aren't going to get it in your final result and that's that. What the various color management engines do when they convert between color spaces is change not only the out-of-gamut colors but the in-gamut colors as well, trying to keep the relationship between the colors similar enough that the overall effect of the image is preserved. (Well, with most common rendering intents, anyway. There's another can of worms...) >I know that in some cases, especially with soft-proofing for printing, >adjustments of the curve (often brightening or darkening) can help. >Unfortunately, this portion of the gamut seems to be really far away >from the SRGB boundary, so small tweaking of highlights and/or shadows, or >the saturation or luminance of the red channel alone doesn't help. >Is there some trick here that I am missing that could help adjusting the >colors, or, essentially the best I can do is just leave with the >conversion LR (or PS) does? >Previously, I had a similar situation with the carrot-type orange. > >Any thoughts and suggestions? > >Also, - in this case, this conversion of the red makes the top petals >blend together, and I cannot seem to find the "knob" to enhance the >separation. Try this with the original image: In Photoshop use the "Selective Color" tool (Image > Adjustments >Selective Color...") Go through each color range in the drop-down list (Reds, Yellows, Greens, Cyans, etc.) and for each one try tweaking the sliders to change the color balance It's more art than science but you may be able come up with something acceptable. Geet the Real World Color Management book. Trust me. -- Mark Roberts - Photography & Multimedia www.robertstech.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
