# Color Management Settings in Windows 7/Vista



## b_gossweiler

I know this is not exactly the right forum to ask, but I also know  that some people very knowledgable in color managment read/write here:

Can somebody explain to me what the setting of "Device Profile" in "Windows Color System Defaults" really does/affects:




Beat


P.S: I've also posted the same question in the U2U forum, but this is my prefered place for answers


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## gregDT

Unfortunately colour management is a big topic and certainly one I wouldn't be able to sum up in a paragraph very well. However the setting you mention is one that tells windows how to treat colour in images. There are a large number of presets that will each display colour slightly differently. The idea is that depending on what you want to do with your images (post to the web, print to a certain printer) you pick a specific 'profile' that will show you on your monitor how the colours etc will appear within that hardware environment.

For example when I installed my Epsom pinter it added a colour profile. If I select that profile and then view an image, I will see it as it will appear when printed on my Epsom. I can edit the image on the screen and be confident that the colours I can see will be reproduced exactly the same on the printed page.

Personally I use third party tools to do all my colour management, so I've never adjusted any setting from that control panel. Hope this helps?


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## b_gossweiler

Thanks for your reply, Greg.

What you say makes somewhat sense by looking at the setting isolated, but what I'd like to know is how it interacts with other components of color management.

If I have


  an image encoded in AdobeRGB
an AdobeRGB ICC profile embedded in the image
a display profile from calibration assigned to my monitor
my understanding of color management is that


the AdobeRGB data from the image is translated into Lab or XYZ (the PCS) by use of the AdobeRGB profile
the Lab or XYZ data is translated into the values needed by my monitor by using the calibration profile
Where and how does now the setting mentioned (i.e. the sRGB profile) come into play?

Beat


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## gregDT

These are other profiles for achieving other results. You mention Adobe RGB. This profile tries to cover the colours available on a CMYK colour printer, but is still only covers half the colour range available to LAB i.e. the human eye. However if you're working on an image that is only going to the web then Adobe RGB is not suitable, as a web image viewed on a computer monitor will never be able to display all the colours present in an Adobe RGB image. Therefore you work on the image as a an sRGB image. In this way you're confident that what you create will represent properly on any web connected computer. Obviously this doesn't take into consideration that fact that many peoples monitors are not properly calibrated and therefore the image they see won't necessarily be the same as the one you created and sent to the web. However as sRGB also covers the colour range avialble to most ink jet printers it's a very popular profile and one that many people use as a default.

Using these profiles depends on your requirements. For much of my own photography colour management isn't critical as I work inside the sRGB profile range and just hope that people who view my images on-line have a properly calibrated monitor. However much of my commercial work is product work of which a proportion is lighting and lighting effects. Here the clients are very particular about the colour accuracy of the images I produce and so I have a strict colour management regime from the moment I take the shot right through to the final product. None of this uses any of Windows built in profiles, hence I ignore them completely.

I'm not that familiar with Colour laser jets but assume they print like inkjets and so work within the sRGB colour space? therefore I'd not worry too much about the profiles as you're unlikely to step outside them. My lighting work aside, I know I rarely do.


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## b_gossweiler

Sorry, but there's a missunderstanding here. I know what AdobeRGB, sRGB and Lab color spaces mean and represent and (I think) I know how color management works. And I'm not looking on enhancing my color management workflow, but trying to understand (in theory) what the settings affects.

In my simple example

Image Data encoded in AdobeRGB -> {AdobeRGB.ICC} -> Lab Data -> {Device Profile} -> Device

which I think is a reasonable color managed flow of data, where does the mentioned "Device Profile" in "Windows Color System Defaults" come into play? The AdobeRGB profile is specified within the image tags, the Device Profile is specified in Windows Color Mangement by assiciation with the device.  So what's this setting for?

Beat


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## gregDT

Ah I understand sorry. That field on my PC refers to the profile used by my monitor. I use a Datacolor Spyder 3 calibration tool to make sure my monitor displays colours accurately. The profile my Datacolor tool creates is the one selected in that field. The others are Windows defaults that I never use.

So in my case at least, it's a profile that tells my monitor how to display colours etc. If you also have a profile created specifically for your monitor then it should be selected in that field. If you use one of the defaults then it's going to effect how your images appear on the screen.

So it doesn't directly influence your AdobeRGB selections but if your monitor is way out of calibration then it's going to make it hard to produce consistent images that end up looking the way you want on other monitors, printers etc.


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