ZBrushCentral

Color management issue

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hi Guys! Would you kindly share your experties regarding color management as to guide me further here to obtain the best possible setup to eliminate the increase in color saturations that always manifest after exporting rendered images created from ZB into Photoshop for final touch-ups. I would love to have consistency from one application to the other and juging from past threads on the subject, very few of you seem to have this problem and I don’t think that it has anything to do with ZB or its setup!

Here is my situation:

-I have a Dell FP2007 20", 1200 x 1600 pixels res., set 32 bit color quality;
-a ATI radeon X1300PRO graphic card with the latest driver update fron Dell;
-using WindowsXP Home Edition (32 bit) OS;
-the FP is being calibrated in the advanced mode (using RGB controls) with the Spyder3Elite from DataColor every 2 weeks;
-Photoshop is set to the sRGB color space profile as my working space which matches to the closest originals created in ZB; Choosing AdobeRGB1998 or ProPhoto color spaces as alternatives increases evenmore the saturation problem respectively!

The only way I obtain consistency is if I set the color working space of PS to my calibrated Dell monitor color profile created by SPyder3Elite which seems to be an absolutely no-no in the photo editing industry. Assigning another color profile (i.e. AdobeRGB1998) to my monitor seems to be out of the question as well.

Someone in a past similar thread suggested that it might be a hardware issue with the monitor or that I may have some sort of video card specific setting overiding color calibrations but just don’t know how to go about it if it is the case!?

Would anyone be able to shed some light on my situation as I am getting confused and frustrated :confused: !

Looking forward to your responses,

#2

I’m assuming you’re using Adobe Gamma. I’ve never owned an ATI, but your graphics drivers may have some sort of control panel where you can adjust gamma and some other things. That may be conflicting with Adobe Gamma. My understanding is that the ICC profiles in Photoshop are meant to give you consistant colors between your monitor and printing devices, not to give you consistancy between Photoshop and other software. I don’t believe they effect other software at all.

http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1332853

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

#3

Dustin,

Thanks for your reply! I do not have Adobe Gamma as I am using a calibration tool from DataColor to calibrate my monitor and according to my research, apparently it is preferable to rely on a physical calibration device rather then the eye to adjust colors of your screen for accurate results.

Yes, there is a control panel for the ATI graphic card but my understanding is that once the color profile has been created by the Spyder3 calibration tool, I shouln’t have to adjust anything else but maybe I am wrong!?

My ultimate goal is to use ZB as my creation interface, knowing that once my monitor is well calibrated, I can choose with assurance colors within ZB for my creations and maintain the integrety of these colors through out my workflow. I this moment, it is not the case and I am still under the impression that ZB relies on your monitor color profile to determine its color source!?