Practical Colour Management Guide
Available both as a physical book for £8.99 (only in the UK) and as a FREE e-book – please see the bottom of this page for details of how to obtain your copy.
NOW UPDATED FOR 2011, WITH EXTRA INFORMATION!
This book is designed to give you the information you need to colour manage your workflow, whether you are a photographer, graphic designer or a printer.
Parts will be relevant to anybody using any digital colour device and parts specific to certain industries or users. It’s been written by our Technical Director Rob Griffith and reflects his long experience both in the graphics industry and in colour management in particular.
The approach, as the name suggests, is mostly practical rather than theoretical and the bulk of the book concentrates on how to apply colour management to a range of typical photographic, prepress, design and print workflows.
It has a readable and approachable style and is designed to fit between the brief manuals you get with software and the weightier more theoretical specialist books on colour management.
The chapters are:
Light, Human Vision & Colour
A short introduction to the basic physics and biology of colour along with an explanation of colour measurement and colour models.
How Colour Management Works
Explaining the processes and techniques of colour management in general terms this chapter demystifies such things as rendering intents, the difference between calibration and profiling, and how computers apply colour a management.
Calibrating & Profiling Monitors
Covers everything from the differences between a hard and software calibrated monitor through to colour temperature choices and how to test a monitor profile.
Colour Management & Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is at the heart of most colour managed workflows and this is a comprehensive review of the colour management features of Photoshop covering versions form 6.0 onwards.
Profiling Scanners
How to get the best possible colour accuracy from a scanner including how to apply scanner profiles in a workflow.
Colour Managing Digital Photography
This chapter covers the three main approaches to colour managing digital photography; camera settings, RAW conversion and custom profiling. It also has sections on the colour management features of Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop Elements.
Profiling RGB Printers
Everything you wanted to know about profiling desktop inkjet printers and dye subs.
Profiling CMYK Printers
The chapter covers profiling inkjet and toner based printers that use a RIP and includes linearisation and ink limiting.
Press Profiling & Proofing
Printing presses are the most expensive, and sometimes the most variable element in some colour workflows and this chapter covers press standards, custom profiling and proofing.
Colour Management & Graphic Applications
Building on the chapter on Photoshop’s colour management this chapter covers the rest of the Creative Suite – Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat and also Quark Xpress.
Glossary
An explanation of the many terms you’ll come across in colour management.
The PDF version of the book is free to download but obviously for the hard copy version we have to make a charge to cover the printing costs. The book is A5 in size and over 100 pages long. The hard copy version is currently only available in the UK.
Additions to 1st Edition in the 2nd Edition.
- Revised and updated to reflect changes in products and software.
- Extended chapter on Colour Managing Digital Photography including sections on Lightroom, Aperture and Elements.
- New chapter on Colour Management and Graphics Applications covering Illustrator, Indesign, Acrobat and Xpress.
- New glossary of colour management terms.
To purchase the ‘hard copy’ physical book, please click here (you will be taken to our ecommerce partners, Native Digital).
To obtain the FREE pdf version, use the form below:
