PhotoDisc GettyImages Test Image
DOWNLOAD PDI Color Calibration Target Photos

Faces from PhotoDisc Series #16 "Everyday People" photographed by Barbara Penoyar.

by Gary G. Ballard, an independent multimedia producer and color work-flow consultant, San Diego, USA

I've found several free professional digital reference images and "how to" articles on the Web, but believe this famous PhotoDisc® GettyImages® target with the young girl with three baby faces and neutral grey ramp, is the best reference image available to visually evaluate and troubleshoot digital color on the monitor, Internet and printed media under Mac® OSX and Windows® XP Vista Windows 7 operating systems.

This expert Photoshop layout is extremely useful for quickly evaluating monitor profiles in Adobe® Photoshop®, including verifying printing profiles, color management settings in apps, Web browsers and publishing work flows — the PhotoDisc Image (PDI) has easily become my creative studio's standard reference image.

Can you imagine opening your pictures on your computer and seeing how they will print before you actually print them? This is what a couple simple color management steps and good profiles will do for you.

See my best BASIC PHOTOSHOP COLOR MANAGEMENT THEORY for more information on the easy-to-understand concepts of how to use the PDI color target to test and rule out various color management system (CMS) settings and about HOW TO MAKE PRINTS MATCH MONITOR in professional desktop publishing and multimedia production environments.

My best EXTENSIVE COLOR MANAGEMENT TUTORIAL sets up these five PhotoDisc reference photos on a brilliant Web tutorial and explains the nuts and bolts of embedding, stripping and targeting ICC profiles while effectively demonstrating these top RGB color profiles in action — why sRGB is the ONLY profile you should be using on the Web.

Opening a known good photograph (like these PDI pictures) in Photoshop allows me to instantly evaluate the monitor — comparing Photoshop's monitor "proof" alongside its printed "proof" quickly helps me see where the problem is occurring.

Once we understand these four core statements, the Great Color-Management Mystery unravels pretty fast: 1) In Photoshop (and color-managed applications), the Source Image profile is independent of the Monitor and Print profiles. 2) The monitor can PROOF (display) a source image correctly regardless of how right or wrong the printer is set up, and 3) The printer can PROOF (print) a source image correctly regardless of how right or wrong the monitor is set up. 4) The PDI Source Image contains "known good color" free and clear — Photoshop's Color Management System (CMS) reads PDI's embedded ICC profile and CONVERTS (or maps) it to the target profile space (monitor or printer) — if the target profile is inaccurate, or the CMS settings are messed up, the "proof" will appear with incorrect color.

The PDI Source Image is excellent for what it is — it is used to visually evaluate the monitor and printer profiles and confirm the workflow by opening the PDI image in Photoshop and printing it to compare the two "proofs" (monitor and print).

PDI Target is "known good file" and it should never ever be adjusted to cheat a bad monitor profile, printer profile or work flow — the PDI targets are designed to expose bad profiles and broken work flows by helping you conceptualize, configure and troubleshoot THE COLOR MANAGEMENT CHAIN with a known good professional reference image.

A solid rule is:

If a computer is displaying the PDI picture wrong, it is either applying-assigning-assuming the wrong ICC profile (color space) or it has a bad monitor profile enabled (or some software or hardware compatibility glitch).

For best results, view the PDI rollover below in color-managed web browser like SAFARI 5 for Windows 7 XP Windows Vista and Mac OS X, or a recent version of FireFox, or Photoshop. Most useful PDI Target (Whacked RGB): In my opinion, WhackedRGB.icc color space provides students and professional work flow troubleshooters alike with the best example of a color management test file — because WhackedRGB will most clearly show the problem if its embedded profile is ignored, stripped or improperly printed or displayed on a monitor. Move cursor on-off this PDI example to rollover my point: Tagged WhackedRGB.icc (Hold mouse over photo to rollover Untagged version.) If the rollovers look exactly the same (blue) your Web browser is not color managed. Both Tagged and Untagged rollover files are identical except the top Tagged image has an embedded ICC profile, and its Untagged rollover mate has had its profile stripped for this tutorial. COLORMANAGED web browsers will display the Tagged top image properly BECAUSE the Color Management System is reading the Tagged embedded profile and CONVERTING (or mapping) it to the monitor profile for true color display. COLORMANAGED web browsers will display the Untagged rollover image with a bizarre blue color cast BECAUSE the ICC profile has been stripped from the image and your Web browser (or app) is applying the wrong default profile. UN-MANAGED Web browsers will display both images with the crazy blue color cast BECAUSE the embedded profile is being ignored and the browser is applying the same (wrong) default profile to both images. The full-resolution Whacked RGB image and WhackedRGB.icc profile may be downloaded below.

A somewhat frequent problem that happens on both Windows® and Apple© computers is when color-managed applications like Photoshop do not display the tagged PDI Source Images correctly through custom monitor profiles — review my BAD MONITOR PROFILE article, including how to troubleshoot and rule out a bad monitor profile.

What seems to confuse most people about the "how to make the print match the monitor" process is when their monitor looks good, but their print doesn't match — the PDI photos contain the true color — so the problem would then point to the printer profile or how the print settings are being set up.

In the case of printing, hardware issues like clogged print nozzles and software bugs can affect printing (so be sure to perform a nozzle check and search around the forums for known printing bugs, driver updates, if you are seeing printing problems).

If the PDI color is displaying correctly in Photoshop, but your other images are not displaying correctly, the problem is likely a Source Profile issue (the wrong profile being applied), or they are just funky images — or the image may contain over-saturated, out-of-gamut colors or subtle tones that the printer ink technology can't reproduce on the chosen paper stock....

Lastly, if you are having problems with dark or muddy looking unwanted tones in your print, learn how to optimize your files properly in Photoshop to reproduce well — balancing your color for professional looking results is a craft and an art, and it requires some experience and talent on your part.

My best advice is to train your eye to trust the quality hardware-calibrated Photoshop monitor, and learn how to understand and interpret what you see with your own eyes — configuring a couple settings on your printer is the easy part.

For additional info:

ColorSync www.apple.com | www.color.org | PhotoDisc www.gettyimages.com

Here are my iPhoto Tutorial images set up in a color-managed picture viewer (Adobe Bridge screen capture):

NOTE:

• TAGGED (left column): All the tagged files appear identical in the left column (Bridge read the embedded profile and correctly Converted them to Monitor RGB for True Color display).
  
  
• UNTAGGED (right column): The un-tagged set in the right column all had Bridge's default profile (sRGB) automatically applied/assumed/assigned, so they all displayed incorrectly except for sRGB (sRGB is Bridge's default profile).

If you are still trying to understand how ICC Profiles work — Save the above image to your Desktop — Open it in Photoshop (use the embedded profile) — then Edit> Assign Profile: ProPhoto RGB — observe the color chaos (all the photos go super saturated in the reds EXCEPT for the Un-Tagged ProPhoto RGB, it snaps back to True Color).

If you want an even more bizarre example of how this works — Save the above image to your Desktop — Open it in Photoshop (use the embedded profile: sRGB) — then Edit> Assign Profile: Wacked RGB.

To have "Whacked RGB" available under Assign Profile, you will likely need to have already installed the "WhackedRGB.icc" profile (available in the DOWNLOAD PDI Target(WhackedRGB)ONLY.zip (4MB) for PC and Mac OS-X).

If you are intrigued by all this, please check out my Assign Versus Convert Photoshop Tutorial — this really is the nuts and bolts to understanding how profiles work.

Here is an in-depth on-line demonstration of ICC profiles in action...

PhotoDisc production CREDITS:

Art Direction: Gary Hawkey
Photographer: Duncan Smith
Retouching: Jeff Johnston, Peter Constable
Styling: Ann VanderCreek
The hand: Danielle Wares
Special thanks: Ken Applebaum, Michael Collette, Anson Hosley, Eckhard
Huebner, the International Color Consortium
For more info: ColorSync www.apple.com | www.color.org | PhotoDisc www.gettyimages.com

Note:
PDI_Target images are owned and Copyrighted by PhotoDisc® gettyimages.com.
PDI_Target DOWNLOAD files have been altered by G. BALLARD for this tutorial, in accordance with PhotoDisc's licensing terms. The original unaltered Photodisc JPEG and License are included in all DOWNLOADS.