Color Management

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Color Management for CG Artists Update

I’ve made a massive update to the Color Management article I posted about a month ago, now it spans a whopping 8 pages. The article is expanded with a full color managed workflow for LightWave 3D with display proofing, a generic color managed workflow for all other 3D applications that lacks full color management. A…

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Color Management: Applications & Conclusion

I’m ending this article by mentioning a few more color managed applications that I find useful in my CG workflow. Feel free to chip in if you know of more useful color managed applications that I am not aware of that will make life easier in our line of work. I haven’t been able to…

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Color Management: Compositing & Film Editing

So far we’ve only discussed a color managed workflow when dealing with still images coming from the renderer and brought into Photoshop. The beauty of all this is that it doesn’t differ very much when dealing with animations going to film or video. Everything we’ve learned so far applies just the same when importing the…

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Color Management: Soft Proofing the Render Display

At the moment LightWave 3D is the only application that I am aware of that can do true soft proofing in the render display to any color space and use the monitor profile for display compensation. This is something I hope will become standard in every application as wide gamut displays are becoming more common…

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Color Management: Linear Workflow

A linear workflow is when you gamma correct all your colors to be in gamma 1.0, linear space. Gamma correction is one aspect of color management, but it has nothing do with different color spaces. Still it’s an important aspect of a color managed workflow that will work in your favor if you adopt it,…

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Color Management: 3D Renders in Photoshop

A color managed workflow when dealing with 3D rendering can be handled in a few different ways, depending on your application and rendering methods. Almost none of the 3D applications in 2009 are color managed at this point. LightWave 3D can be color managed through a plugin, and then you even can use ICC profiles…

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Color Management: Photoshop Setup

I wasn’t sure if I should begin with walking through how to deal with 3D renders or with Photoshop. I decided it was more logical to start with Photoshop, as that’s where most renders end up, and having Photoshop under control helps understanding the 3D part later on. I’m working with Adobe Photoshop CS4, but…

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Color Management: Display Calibration & Profiling

Okay, so now we have gone through why colors differs between applications, why color management has become such an important concept these days and hopefully I’ve successfully explained how everything that happens with colors fit together. The first step to get started with a color managed workflow is to have the display profiled and calibrated….

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Color Management: Wide Gamut Displays in a CG Workflow

Everything you always wanted to know about color management but were afraid to ask.
I’ve recently done some extensive research about color management, ICC profiling, “mysterious” color changes when leaving Photoshop and how it applies to a 3D workflow, as well as photo or film workflows…

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