Color Correction Woes

I’ve developed a nice little workflow over on the photoblog; My entire editing process happens in the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color space, and the final JPEG that goes online has the correspondng ICC profile embedded within. Recently, I realized that none of the thumbnail images had color profiles; the result was a small difference, but one that bothered me nonetheless.

While batch processing the thumbnails to add profiles I was surprised to realize that the early photos not only didn’t have profiles, but that I didn’t save the photoshop files with the editing adjustments, just the original TIFF files. The lack of profiles makes some sense since I didn’t get a colorimeter until May 2005, and the Nikon D70 until June. But the idea that I didn’t save any of my editing intermediate work is totally alien since I always save them now.

As a result, on some rainy day I’m going to have to go through all of those photos and redo the editting and add color profiles. Not fun, but I’d rather have some control over the look of my photos.

For those of you who care for your photo work, consider developing a workflow and buying a color calibrator. If there’s any interest I’d be happy to post a DIY guide to developing a reliable, basic color workflow.