Chris Triance-Martin wrote:
My question is, should I be calibrating everything? Should I be working in Adobe through the entire process? Should I stick with ProPhoto and why? I need images for the web and for printing. What would be the best option?

That requires a complex answer to a seemingly simple question, unfortunately.

The short answer is that you need to calibrate your display to 'standard', or you have no real visible control over colors, and your output needs to be defined as well, either with a custom profile (description of how the printer behaves) or use a standard profile (such as sRGB, Adobe RGB, or ProPhoto) which your lab or printer understands.

Check out Leo's lll's Best Camera Monitor LCD Lighting Power List, which has links to some pertinent discussions about calibration, or today's sRGB or adobeRGB thread, which contains links to some external sites.

Zave Smith wrote:
Think of Adobe 1998 or any color space as a language.  Then think of all your equipment has having accents.

Profiling your equipment, your monitor and your printer, are a way of making sure that they are all speaking the same language and understanding exactly what each are saying.

Some languages are bigger than others, allowing more subtle emotions to come through. SRGB is a small language,  Adobe 1998 is larger and ProPhoto is the largest.

What profiling does is making sure that the red on the monitor comes out the same red as your printer, somebody else's printer or monitor.

Adobe 1998 has become the de facto language of graphics, high end stock agencies and reproduction.  Srgb has become the de facto language of the web.  Pro Photo is a language that people with really good personal printers use to maximize the large range that these printers have.

My worklfow:

1. Start with Raw files and convert to Adobe 1998 since most of my work ends up with art directors or stock agencies. 

2.  If an image is going to appear on the web. I convert to Srgb.

I profile my monitor monthly and reprofile my printer whenever I try a new paper.

Hope this helps.  Color management is not easy to understand.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith
www.zavesmith.com

I can totally relate to this. Well put. Thanks.

PYPI wrote:
It's a mistake to buy so much storage unless you can use over 50% of it right away. Drive prices will drop by 50% every 18 months. Only buy what you will need. Personally, I would take 1 of those 2 terabytes and mirror the drive externally using eSATA.

Yeah, I get that. I'm just starting with 500 gb, though I'm thinking it will be increasing relatively quickly. It was double the store price to get more at the source. I swear I can see the 0's and 1's leaking out of my external drive. That filled up after 8 months, but only after the laptop and desktop topped out. That's 500 gbs right there. That God the prices are dropping :-)

Michael DBA Expressions wrote:
Sounds like several thousand dollars worth of gear. Why in the world would you spring for that much and only plan to use half the ability of the system?

Especially in light of the fact that calibration and profiling of your gear is relatively cheap and easy to do?

And no, that monitor doesn't show "80% of the color gamut" of sRGB. Most monitors costing over about $50 can show more than sRGB.

It might surprise most folks to learn that those of us who have properly calibrated and profiled monitors can tell in a heartbeat who hasn't just by glancing at their MM profile. It might also surprise most folks to discover that we rarely have to reprint an image because the color wasn't right.

So, should you calibrate and profile, you betcha. Without it, you are completely wasting all that money spent on that system.

Well, for speed and storage really. Yeah, I could have spent less and just bought external drives for just storage, but aged equipment really starts showing the age when the file sizes grow ever larger and the software increases in processing need. Plus, I think you actually spend more over the long term through incremental upgrades. One of the best things I learned from another photographer was simply, if you need it now, get it now. You'll end up upgrading again in 3-4 years likely anyway.

There was also a $500 off deal. That helped a LOT.