PSElements 4 color mgd workflow HELP!

I am just drowning. I have read everything I can find on color management here, at DryCreek Photo, on Norm Koren's pages and at Adobe, and I'm stuck. I just can't process all this stuff.

What I have done is purchased the Monaco OptixXR Pro and profiled my monitor; purchased Photoshop Elements v. 4; downloaded the printer profile for my local Costco Noritsu printer.

I was using DPP, saving files as TIFFs, then using the DryCreek Photo profile and conversion program (the Noritsu won't accept imbedded profiles, you have to convert), then reconverting back to JPG because Costco won't take TIFFs. It takes HOURS! Works, but I can't keep doing this. I'll go back to shooting JPGs and let the printer do what they will with them, I just can't keep working like this.

In Elements 4, I don't see the color management controls I see for Photoshop CS and nobody does tutorials (detailed ones, anyway) for Elements. The screenshot below is all I see from Element's Edit Color Settings dialog.

My monitor is calibrated properly using the Monaco system. Can't I open a RAW file in Elements, and convert and save it as a JPG using the Noritsu printer profile in one step? What am I missing?

I have the end pieces -- calibrated monitor and a downloaded printer profile -- I can't get the middle figured out and my brain HURTS!

Thanks folks.

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Just a thought - probably irrelevant....
In PSCS2 you can only Save from within Adobe Camera RAW to one of four profiles -
AdobeRGB, sRGB, ProPhotoRGB and ColorMatchRGB. So, even in PSCS or PSCS2 you would still have to perform that one next step "Edit->Convert to Profile" in order to deliver it to Costco with the profile that you say they need.

In other words, the Color Management System that you, yourself, say you need in order to convert from your default RGB working space to the correct profile for printing, apparently isn't available in Elements. Doesn't that say that you need PhotoshopCS version 8.0 as a minimum - or am I missing something?

Hmmm. Banging my head on this further, I see that in the Edit area I can select Image>Convert Color Profile, and then I have 3 choices. Remove Profile, Apply sRGB Profile, or Apply Adobe RGB profile.

If I'm printing to my own printer, I found the print preview area where I can select a printer profile for my Canon iP6600D. But I can't print directly to Costco, obviously.

My main gripe is that I didn't (may still not) have any tool for mass converting of file formats. If I edited 72 RAW photos in DPP, I'd have to save each one after editing, then open all 72 one at a time, and save them as TIFFs so I could use the DryCreek conversion program. Their program allowed me to select a whole folder of photos, so that would convert to the Costco Noritsu printer profile. Then I had to go back to DPP and open each TIFF one at a time, again, and save them as JPGs. Then send them to Costco.

Even if I still have to use the DryCreek conversion program, If I could do the converting back to JPG as a group, I could deal with it.Does anyone know if I can do that in PSE4? In other words, once I have a folder full of TIFFs ready for Costco, can I select all the images in that folder and tell PSE4 to convert them all to JPG in a batch?

If I can't do that, I'm going to have to abandon a color managed workflow. I'll keep my monitor profiled and adjust in either DPP or PSE4, and when I send them to Costco I'll select no processing, but I simply cannot continue to bang out TIFF to JPG conversions one photo at a time. I've got a life outside of this photography thing. A way to batch convert a folder of images from TIFFs to JPEGs would get me there.

I'm so CLOSE! Thanks for your help, Bob.

John

EDIT By the way, if I have no interest in web publishing, or at least how accurate images are there, and I only care about printing, should I have my whole system set to Adobe RGB? Camera, PSE4? Thanks.

Dear John,
Wish I could be more helpful, but I have no access to Elements and do not know what features it has/does not have.

From your description of the overall workflow problem, it appears to me that your overriding issue is Automation or Batch. Photoshop uses both terms to cover batch processing. Either Elements has some batch processing capabilities or it doesn't. If it does, then it seems to me that you will have to get an understanding of how to set up a batch process to do that one step from Tiff to JPG - not forgetting to do the mode conversion from 16 bits to 8 bits at the same time.

If there is any batch capability in Elements at all, then that ought to be a slam dunk. I use "Actions" that I created to do such conversions all the time, and they can chew through a folder of images in short order.

Your overall work flow issues involve products from different companies. The only way I know of to automate that is though scripting, and I couldn't figure out how to do anything useful in VB scripting. If someone were handy with Java Scripting, it might be a little easier, but I doubt it.

In regard to your question about what working space to use since you are primarily interested in printing and not in Web publishing - I would say that it will not matter which working space you choose between the main 4, because all of them have a larger gamut than what you have in the printing profile. So, if you are comfortable with Adobe RGB, or ProPhotoRGB or ColorMatchRGB and want to use one of those instead of sRGB, that should be fine for everything right up to where you have to convert to the profile of your printer.
Sorry, that I can't be of more help.

Bob, It's all helpful. My head is overflowing and I can't quite put things together yet, but the more I read, the more the fog clears a bit.

I've decided that to really get into this whole hog, I'll have to invest. So I just bought Scott Kelby's Elements book and subscribed over at PhotoshopElementUsers.​com. I'll get there in time.

I don't need to "automate anything" or get scripts, if I understand you correctly. If I could just batch process the conversion from TIFF back to JPEG, I'd be delighted. That's my biggest issue. I simply will not go through all the PP work, saving in TIFF and then spend hours more converting TIFFs back to JPEGs. Batching that would solve my problem.

For now, I've waded in deeper than I should have and I'm playing with everything and my PS Elements results are simply horrid. I'm putting the program away for a while and going back to DPP and printing at Costco -- with my monitor now properly hardware calibrated and the DryCreek profile, I'm getting stellar results from them. I appreciate your comments, even though I don't fully understand this stuff.

Cheers,

John

Finally a small victory! I found a "Process Multiple Files" command in the PSE4 Edit area that lets me specify input and output folders and mass convert from JPGs to TIFFs and back again at the touch of a button. Together with the DryCreek profile, I'm in business!

I'm still using DPP, for now, but at least I can learn PSE at my own pace now and still get good results at Costco. I'll give up on printing at home until I learn PSE.

I'm going to have to toss all my cheap paper and get Canon, I guess. I'm told that trying to get good color results with the Canon almost requires their ink and paper.

Thanks, Bob!

John

I am very glad that you found the batch capability.

I'm sure that you will get some mileage out of that, and you won't have to give up on Elements.

I appreciate the feedback.