Colour management is an important topic for photographers. Initially, you would not notice that anything was missing if you ignored this topic. Why even bother in the first place? Something that many photographers do not realise is that not every (digital) monitor displays images in the same way. It is possible that the same file looks different whether it is displayed on a laptop or the monitor at your office. And the image appears once again different when viewed on a tablet computer at home in the evening. Why? A lack of colour management.
Colour management and calibration
Colour management for photographers
What is colour management and why is it important?
Photographers usually notice that colour management is missing if one of the following two situations occurs: People will approach the specific photographer over and over again commenting that the images on their website are always too light, too dark, too loud or have too much contrast. Or they will print their images for the first time, discovering to their disappointment that the final print deviates from the monitor display and in turn from their own expectations.
But what exactly caused these deviations in the display and the image output on the website or on paper? The answer is not immediately clear to the photographer. Worse yet, the countless options to configure the software, the monitor or even the printer are more confusing than helpful.
Sam Jost, author of the book Colour Management for Photographers, gives us a comprehensive overview of the topic in a 12-part series as a guest author in our practical expertise section, and of course also many useful suggestions.
An overview of the episodes
About Sam Jost
Sam Jost loved cameras, even as a child, and he enjoyed putting pets in the limelight and making little picture books from the photos. Once he started earning money on his own, he bought a simple SLR camera and started taking pictures at parties, festivals, theatre performances – basically everything he could capture in his viewfinder. He developed the photos himself. When the first digital cameras were available on the market, he wanted to edit his own photos on the computer as soon as possible and move on from the chemical processing aspect. It took a few more years before digital cameras finally became affordable. He bought his first compact camera in 2000, but he only really started taking professional photos when in 2004 he bought his first DSLR. Since then he has been moonlighting as a photographer, writing books and offering workshops, time permitting.
Sam Jost
