I was preparing some files to upload today and was annoyed that the results did not look correct on the web site.

After re-running the process and getting the same result I looked a bit further and realised that Microsoft Internet Explorer does not correctly colour manage when displaying images. When I say not correctly, I mean it does sort of handle colour managed files but it does not correctly represent your monitor profile.

This issue is really only noticable on high colour gamut displays like the HP DreamColor monitors. These monitors have a very wide colour range and can display colours way outside sRGB and outside AdobeRGB when they are configured in Native Colour Mode.

There are a number of websites that have test images for checking your monitor but this one is a simple check and I can demonstrate the difference between IE and Chrome.

Check Your Display

As the page says if the two images look different your browser is not colour managed. But look at what IE (on the left) and Chrome (on the right) looks like on my display.

I read that the new Microsoft Browser “Edge” is better and I will go check that out. But in the meant time, if you have a high colour monitor try Chrome for viewing images. Especially mine!

You might say “why have the monitor in native mode”. The reason is that Epson printers can print colours outside the AdobeRGB range. So I want to see those on my display.

UPDATE : 26/6

I use Zenfolio for my image gallery and note that the slideshow does not display the colours correctly in either Browser. It appears this is due to the slideshow using Flash, and Flash does not colour manage at all. Zenfolio renders all images to sRGB when they are uploaded on the basis that most displays are calibrated to sRGB (or used to be).

And here is a more detailed page from a different Website.

Check This one!

There are plenty of articles about how to adjust images for uploading to Facebook. But I just found one on a forum with a succinct response which appears to come from a Facebook employee. I also remember a previous article that suggest a JPG compression of 6 or less. Something to do with the colour compression. But here an important factor is also the maximum size of 100kb.

“We automatically take care of resizing and formatting your photos for you when you add them to Facebook. If you’d like to use more advanced techniques to make your photos look better, try these tips:

Resize your photo before you post it. These are the sizes (width) we support:
Regular photos 720 px, 960 px, 2048 px
Cover photos 851 px by 315 px
If you use a 2048 px photo, make sure to select the High Quality option when you upload it.

To avoid compression when you upload your cover photo, make sure the file size is less than 100 KB.

Save your image as a JPEG with an sRGB color profile.
Posted about a month ago by Binny Rutherford”

Source : https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=368348509959095

Here is a simple explanation of the three places you can sharpen in Lightroom written by Scott Kelby.

http://lightroomkillertips.com/three-different-places-sharpen-lightroom/

As he explains the second one is optional and last one not used if you transfer the file to Photoshop. And usually we do the last step for you when you send files for printing.

A lot of the time people ask what is the best way to send files for printing. And there are few items that relate to this so we will try to address them one by one.

Working with Photoshop we recommend using 16 bit at all times. It is easy to demonstrate that details are lost when you make adjustments to an 8 bit file in Photoshop. It is harder to prove that everyone can see the difference in the final print but we recommend that starting with the best information results in a better print.

Even if you start with a JPG file, converting this to 16 bit in Photoshop will increase the quality of adjustments made to the file. In fact if the PSD is still layered you can convert to 16 bit after you have made all the changes because Photoshop re calculates all the layers.

To change an existing file to 16 bit simple use the Photoshop menu “Image” then “Mode” and then click 16 bits/channel. (Note that 32 bits is entirely different and you should not use this unless you are doing HDR).

But of course everyone is shooting RAW now right. RAW files offer the highest quality conversions for editing and provide a huge latitude for adjustment after the image is captured. Unless you are shooting high numbers of images say for weddings or sports and need to save disk space or conversion time shooting RAW is the way to go.

So, to set up Camera Raw so that it opens your RAW files in 16 bit you need to configure it for each camera. To do this simple open your RAW in Bridge or Photoshop so that the Camera Raw dialog appears. In these examples both AdobeRGB and ProPhoto RGB profiles are used. Either is fine, you are limited if you leave the profile as sRGB which has a smaller colour range.

At the bottom of this dialog you will see some blue underlined text like

Adobe RGB (1998); 16bit; 3280 by 4928 (16.2MP); 360 ppi

Clicking on this text will bring up the settings which you can configure for all RAW files for this camera. Adjust the settings to look like the ones below.
Note that you will need to set this for each camera that you use as Camera Raw remembers them separately.

If you use Lightroom you can export any file, including PSD files from within Lightroom and the settings below will work. If you don’t use Lightroom you will need to export a flattened TIFF file to upload to us. It is important so that you do not lose your precious layers and edits when you do this.

So if you have your Photoshop file currently open, save it to make sure your latest changes are saved. Or open up the file you wish make a copy of.

Then use the menus to save a new copy of the file. The easiest way is to select ‘File” “Save As”

The garish red markers show the items you need to change, or check are set correctly.

Change the file type to TIFF

Click the “Save As a Copy” check box

UNCHECK the layers check box. This will flatten your image in this new copy to make the file smaller for upload.

And leave the profile tick box selected

Change the name to something you understand and can relate back to the original file. You might say change “File1.psd”  into “File1-Print.tif” for instance.

For Lightroom we need to edit the preferences for sending files to Photoshop and for when we export images. For the Photoshop settings open Lightroom and using the menu select “Edit” and “Preferences”. Then click on the “External Editing” tab and set the values for ‘Edit in Photoshop’ like the image below. (Click to enlarge).

Lastly we need an Export profile that creates a 16 bit TIFF file ready to upload.

From the Library module select any image and press the export button. This will load the Lightroom export settings dialog. Carefully set all the values on right to match the image below.

Once that is done you can click “Add” at the bottom left to create a preset so that the values are available quickly next time.

Once that is done you can export the image and upload it to Evoke for printing.

You can send multiple files through our Hightail upload service. The link to this can be found on our upload page.

https://evokestudio.co.nz/upload/

Some very useful tips here for users of any camera system.

I have talked to many people about the need for backups and a few years ago did a small presentation to some NZIPP’ers on the tools to help. You would expect that I used a few of these techniques myself and I do. Recently we returned from a lengthy holiday and turning on all the computers turned out to be a sad few minutes and the ruin of my first week home.

For a fast re-cap we all know that we have to backup. And the paranoid people know that you need to backup more than once. These rules were tested for me this last week and it is such a good (or bad) example I thought I should share it with you. When I powered up my array of servers, three of them had hardware faults that resulted in lost data.

Everybody remember RAID for disk? (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disk). This is our first line of defence. The disks are grouped so that one (RAID5) or two (RAID6) drives just keep a checksum of the data and can be removed or fail without losing anything. If one does fail you can replace it and the system rebuilds the check sum and you are back in business.

So one of my backup systems (a NAS) uses RAID6 because I had so many drives failing in pairs I did not trust RAID5 anymore. But this week, THREE drives failed when I turned on this unit. So this became a dead box and all data on it was lost. I installed some new, larger, drives and recovered it from the second copy of this data I keep on another NAS.

A second backup unit had single drive failure so being RAID5 I just swapped it out and it rebuilt itself. Sadly some corruption meant that it was not possible to access the system using the standard shares. I tried to find a way to solve that problem and keep the data but failed. So even though I did not lose any data a corruption meant I still had to rebuild the machine and copy the data from the second and third tier backups.

This third machine was my main file storage, which is a Windows server that uses RAID5 and mirroring. This lovely machine has run non-stop for 6 years without a hitch. UNTIL last Saturday when I turned it back on. I always say computers fail when you turn them ON so best to leave them on to minimise the opportunity for failure. Luckily my healthy paranoia and the lack of space on this six year old machine (Phase One files are large!) meant that I had planned a replacement server and it was commissioned just a week before we went away. The only service that was not migrated was the domain controller function (controls logons). Of course I have two machines serving that role so everything still worked and I was able to build a new one quickly, ignoring the old server all together. I don’t know what is wrong with this machine but I was expecting it to fail sometime and will not bother to fix it.

I have 4 copies of pretty much everything here. The servers are backed to a NAS and that NAS is backed up to another. So when the NAS was rebuilt I just copied the data from the third level backup and we are back in action. As a last resort there is of course the off-site backup. I am a little lazy with this one and don’t make them as often as I should. But as some else commented recently if the studio burns down we won’t be so worried about getting everything back.

What is important from my experience, if you don’t want to lose data or think about it as your income stream, are three things.
 
1. Backup up everything, including the backups
2. Plan to replace equipment before it’s expected life term.
3. It’s not if you lose data, it’s about when and what you can do about it.

There are many considerations when framing a photography and not really any specific formulae that can be applied that works in every case.
The best thing to have is a good framer who can work with you to select the options for each specific image. We use Mark Moore from Papakura Picture framers who is excellent (and patient) when helping sort through all the options.

But in a a response to a readers question, Mike Johnston posted these two articles with some more information.

Q&A: How Should You Frame a Photograph? Part I

Q&A: How Should You Frame a Photograph? Part II

Watch the Image Quality Professor explain the new features for local adjustment in Capture One Version 7.

Also note that version 7.0.1 has been released on to the Phase One website for download.

Watch the Video

If you are matting up images for the IRIS awards they should pretty much be done now. But I know a few people are still finishing up.
But this reminder applies to any of the PSNZ or Easter show exhibition events where images are displayed just in a matt.

When you or your framer sticks down the matt to the backing board you need to use a strong, permanent adhesive or tape. Some of the cheaper ones do not withstand the heating and cooling that the prints will be subject to during these exhibitions.

We have had this problem ourselves a few years ago where the front matt starts to lift. No harm is done but it is not very professional.

Papakura Picture framers does all our framing and matts and we have been perfecting the results. The IRIS prints produced this year look better than ever.