Color management in C1

Homo_erectus

• August 13, 2016 15:37

Long term LIghtroom, and other Adobe product, user here. I've been using C1 for about six months now and it's become my primary RAW development tool recently.

I've spent a lot of time watching videos, reading the manual, blogs and forums and I have only one really burning question at this point. How do I set up and verify color management in C1? My background is in commercial printing so I don't need an explanation of the basics. I just can't find any resources that really explain how C1 handles color management.

What is the purpose of the Proof Profile? Is it for Soft Proofing? What should it be set to? If it's for Soft Proofing why does it allow me to choose RGB color spaces and Monitor profiles? Should I choose my display profile? A standard color space profile like sRGB or AdobeRGB? A target output printer profile? What does C1 do if I choose "No Proofing"? Should I see any change at all of how the image is displayed when I switch between these profiles?

I have no problem digging into a technical manual, I'd love one honestly, but I can't find any canonical information on this topic.

Thanks 😊

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  brianmerwin

  • August 15, 2016 05:24

  Basically... you might just be overthinking this a bit.
  
  As you guessed, the Proof Profile setting is for soft proofing. Nothing mysterious there.
  
  What you're going to set this to depends really on how you plan to use the images once you've processed them - but my recommendation is to simply leave it at No Profile.
  
  Provided that your display has been calibrated with a colorimeter or spectrometer (you HAVE calibrated your display right?) there isn't much to think about with regard to color management within Capture One. If your display hasn't been calibrated well...it won't much matter what you set it to because it won't be reliable.
  
  The only reason to tinker with the proof profile setting in Capture One is if you intend to print images directly from Capture One. Most of us however, are going to do our raw processing, and then open the image in Photoshop for finishing - at that point you're going to soft proof for whatever color profile is appropriate for the print process you're going with (sRGB or a CMYK conversion most likely).
  
  If you ARE trying to bypass photoshop, then by all means use the appropriate target color profile for soft proofing in Capture One before processing out your files - but I don't recommend this approach.
  
  I would urge you to do your soft proofing in Photoshop. It's just a tool that is more mature in this area. Capture One, for example, doesn't have a way to give you any out of gamut warnings, which are somewhat important. Especially if you're doing CMYK conversions.
  
  Hope that helps - good luck!

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  Homo_erectus

  • August 15, 2016 16:43

  Thank you! That clears things up considerably!
  
  I do keep my displays calibrated. As I said, my background, and education, is in commercial printing so I know the ins and outs of color management. I just wanted to make sure the software end of things was set up correctly as I have been troubleshooting some issues.
  
  Thanks again 😊

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