Working with digital images

[Sharon Garza]

I have a Canon EOS Rebel. When I view my pictures on the computer screen, the color looks great. When the picture is printed (mainly people's skin tone), the skin looks real red in the printed picture. Am I doing someting wrong when I print them or is there a way to fix this. How can I make the printed photo look like what I see on the screen?

[ShutterbugGail]

I have a Canon EOS Rebel. When I view my pictures on the computer screen, the color looks great. When the picture is printed (mainly people's skin tone), the skin looks real red in the printed picture. Am I doing someting wrong when I print them or is there a way to fix this. How can I make the printed photo look like what I see on the screen?

Hi Sharon,

Welcome to the Q&A Board!

A few questions, so we can give the best reply.

What printer driver are you using to print the photos? Are you using Canon Software, Photoshop, whatever? Also, are the photos you reference taken in full outside light are you using a flash? Have  you changed any white balance settings?

In ohter words, please provide us with a bit more information so we can offer a viable optionl

[Sharon Garza]

The photos were taken inside using a flash. It was also inside at night.

I printed them first with HP imaging software that came with my computer. I then loaded the software for my digital camera and used that. The color of the skin is still red looking.

I have not changed any white balance settings.

[Deb]

Uh oh, do we dare venture into a discussion here of "color management" ShutterbugGail?  

[ShutterbugGail]

Uh oh, do we dare venture into a discussion here of "color management" ShutterbugGail?  

Of course. Would love to learn from your vast knowledge about this.  

[ShutterbugGail]

The photos were taken inside using a flash. It was also inside at night.

The color of the skin is still red looking.

I have not changed any white balance settings.

Sharon,

Chaning the white balance to match the main souce of lighting when taking inside photos with a flash can help minimize the reddish flesh tone. But even doing so, there is no guarantee that results will be pefect.

Deb said she will provide some information about color management which can help. But I'm also wondering if the image editing software that came with your digital camera (or any you may own) lets you adjust color.

If not, or if you're unfamiliar with post processing (image editing) techniques, I highly recommend you download the free program, Picsa. www.picasa.com

It has some very effective editing tools. In your case, I would use the Color Temperature Slider under the Tuning Tab to reduce the reddish color cast. Then reprint your photo. You may have to experiment a bit before you get it right, but it will be well worth the effort.

As I said, this is a common problem with inside, flash photos and often some minor editing is the only solution.

[ShutterbugGail]

Here is a red-eye and color correction I did using Picasa. It took about two minutes. The photo was taken inside, with flash on, using a Canon S2.



Also, I apologize, but I'm unfamiliar with most digtal single lens reflex cameras and digicamhelp pretty much concentrates on compact digital cameras. But I did a quick review of the specs of your camera and was wondering, when taking inside flash photos, if tweaking any of these settings would help:

- Processing parameters

- Custom parameters (such as reducing saturation and color tone).

[Deb]

Hi there,
I'm not an expert at this but ... Okay dokay, ShutterbugGail, here comes an intro into the wacky world of Color Management. Though it'll seem confusing and bizarre, it really is pretty cool stuff.

Each device (monitor, scanner, digital camera, printer) reproduces colors differently. That's why what you see on the monitor sometimes isn't what you get when printed. Color management is the process whereby your monitor, scanner, printer, and digital camera are profiled and/or calibrated so that each device can translate the "real" color value into the same red/green/blue value.  This is accomplished with what are called "profiles". What you see on your monitor IS what you get when you print your digital photo file or have it sent out for printing from a color managed workflow.

How is this accomplished? Well, the first step is to calibrate the monitor. This can be done either with a free application like Adobe Gamma (software approach) or more sophisticated methods using devices such as ColorVision Spyder, Gretag/Macbeth Eye-One Display, Monaco Optix XR Pro, etc. (hardware approach).

Once the monitor is calibrated, a large color palette ("color space") is selected from within your photo editing software to work/edit in like Adobe RGB for example.

When the image is ready to print, the specific ICC profile is chosen matched to the printing device and photo paper combination you are going to print to. These profiles can be ones that come with your printer or can be those that were custom made. The ICC profile performs the task of describing to the printer what the properties are of the color space you selected.

Ok, that's color management in a teeny tiny nutshell. The main point is that in a color managed workflow colors are less likely to shift or deviate so what you see on the monitor is what you get when printed.

Hope this made some sense and piqued your curiosity. There are tons of online resources that do a tremendous job of explaining, in detail, the "what is ... " and the "how to's" of color management.

[Sharon Garza]

Thank you all for your help, I will definitley do some looking into the suggestions you have made. Just out of curiosity, I took my camera disk to H.E.B. and used their Kodak machine reading the pictures off my CompactFlash from my camera and printed the same picture there. It came out perfect, just like what I see on my computer screen so I know it is just a matter of figuring it all out when I want to print them at home.

Again, thank you all for your help.

[Deb]

Hi there, it sounds like the snafu you're experiencing at home has to do with the configuration of your printer/software then since the prints from an outside source turned out dandy. Could be a setting is incorrect or color management is turned "on" on both.