Digital Photography Tips - Pare and Focus

What is Color Management? A Free (and cute!) Infographic

So, you’ve heard the words “color management” being tossed around, and now you’re asking “What is color management?, and why should I care?”.

Let me ask you this – Have you ever printed a photo, or uploaded one to the internet, and thought that it looked way too dull? All of your hard work, and beautiful colors, seem wasted on these bland prints and digital images. That, my friend, is why you should care about color management.

So, what is color management exactly?

Color management is a way to keep the colors in your pictures consistent as you transfer them between different devices and programs. So, when a picture makes its way from your camera, to a photo editing program, to an internet browser, and a printer, the colors look as similar as possible.

To explain the concept more fully, I put together this free infographic about color management.

Please Pin, Stumble, email, embed, and otherwise share this infographic! The more people that see it, the more people it can help. Please remember to include a link back to this page. Sharing means caring, but stealing is no bueno. The embed code at the end of this post already contains a link to this page, so you’re all set if you use the embed code on your site.

More Info About Colors

If you want a more technical explanation of what color management is, I highly recommend checking out Cambridge in Color’s tutorials about color management. They should help you start to decide the best way to manage your own photos.

And, if you’re curious about calibrating your computer monitor and/or your printer to make sure the colors you’re seeing in real life match up to what you see in print or on screen, check out this post from Adorama.com about calibrating devices to get perfect color.

If you’re just curious about choosing a color space in your camera, the best place to start is your camera’s user manual. If you don’t have the manual, don’t worry. Camera makers like Canon, Sony, and Nikon usually have digital versions of their user manuals available. To find yours, do an internet search for your camera’s make and model, plus the word manual (IE “Canon 50D manual). You can also try searching for instructions on how to set the color space in your camera with something like “Canon 50D color space”. And, if your camera doesn’t have a color space option, it probably already uses sRGB, so you should be all set.

Last but not least, if you’re interested in how to color manage your photos in GIMP or Photoshop, try these links:

• Color Management in GIMP
• Color Management in Photoshop

Share the Love

I really hope that sheds some light on what color management is. Remember, I made this whole website to help you. If you have any questions like “Hey, Kat, what is color management anyway?” I’m happy to try and help! If this infographic helped you, please share it with your friends and followers along with a link back to this page, or just use the embed code below.

Thank you!