O....kay - Can someone critique my settings please?

I've just done my first wedding and wan to get my colour settings right for printing.

Equipment used:

Spyder 3 Elite with calibrated profile
Canon 5D MkII, images taken in sRGB
Canon Pixma Pro9000 Printer
Ilford Gallerie paper and correct printer profile for the paper.

Software used :

Lightroom 2 setting - Edit in Photoshop CS4 with PhotoRGB colorspace - (Does this matter if I use the 'burn full sized Jpeg' option)?

Photoshop CS4:
Proof setup = Monitor RGB,
Working Spaces: RGB : sRGB - Option there for 'monitor RGB'

If I go to assign a color profile it is set to Working RGB: sRGB, however if I look I can assign a profile that is the printer profile for my Ilford paper, but selecting that makes the image a bit washed out?

Any help is, as always, appreciated.

Gel wrote in post #9482652
Proof setup = Monitor RGB,

No, this wants to be your paper ICC profile.

Gel wrote in post #9482652
Working Spaces: RGB : sRGB - Option there for 'monitor RGB'

sRGB is correct as long as your image is sRGB and not ProPhoto RGB.

Gel wrote in post #9482652
If I go to assign a color profile it is set to Working RGB: sRGB, however if I look I can assign a profile that is the printer profile for my Ilford paper, but selecting that makes the image a bit washed out?

Don't use Assign Profile. If you are trying to softproof then set your paper profile in View > Proof Setup then set proof colours on with View > Proof Colours. If you are trying to convert to a different profile then use Edit > Convert to Profile. Assign profile will attach a profile to the image without changing the colours to the new profile which will cause all kinds of problems.

If you shoot Raw, it doesn't matter what you've set as color space in camera. That setting will only affect in camera preview and histogram (same goes for any other parameters)

Gel wrote in post #9482652
Lightroom 2 setting - Edit in Photoshop CS4 with PhotoRGB colorspace - (Does this matter if I use the 'burn full sized Jpeg' option)?

If you use jpg, DO NOT use ProPhotoRGB. It should be used 16bpc only.

Gel wrote in post #9482652
Photoshop CS4:
Proof setup = Monitor RGB,
Working Spaces: RGB : sRGB - Option there for 'monitor RGB'

DO NOT proof for monitor. That is the same as viewing non-colormanaged on your monitor (so it will tell you nothing about what anybody else will be seeing.)

Gel wrote in post #9482652
If I go to assign a color profile it is set to Working RGB: sRGB, however if I look I can assign a profile that is the printer profile for my Ilford paper, but selecting that makes the image a bit washed out?

DO NOT assign. Ever.

Have a read in the links from my sig.
Until you understand color management, do yourself a favor an use sRGB as working space everywhere.

HankScorpio wrote in post #9482956
No, this wants to be your paper ICC profile.

So a good methodology would be, for printing, to assign the paper icc profile but for web work to go back to Windows or Monitor RGB?

Gel wrote in post #9483493
So a good methodology would be, for printing, to assign the paper icc profile but for web work to go back to Windows or Monitor RGB?

Where are you assigning this profile?

Only use your paper profile for soft proofing (View > Proof Colours).

For web, your image should be in sRGB (Edit > Convert to profile).

Never use the Attach profile option (Edit > Attach profile)

Never convert to your Monitor profile or use it for soft proofing, EVER!

In photoshop it's in :

View -> Proof setup

If I go into Custom I also have: Spyder profile and the Ilford paper profile as a selectable option.

Before that it was set to Monitor RGB

Randomly changing settings is not the way: You need to understand what you are doing....

One of the links from the "Color problems?" link in my sig, about color managed printing

http://people.csail.mi​t.edu …on3800/printwor​kflow.html

And another:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps10_prin​t/ps10_print_1.htm

These are about Epson printers, but the essence is the same.

Gel, when you use the "soft proof" of Photoshop, it doesn't convert your image, it just adjusts the preview to give an approximation to what your image would print like, if you set the Proof settings to your proper printer/paper/(ink) profile. Once you get out of the Proof Colors view, you go back to the "normal" Photoshop view.

Something you also need to grasp is that for your purposes it would be simplest to convert to sRGB as part of the "Open" process. Two ways of doing this: the simplest: in your Lightroom Edit in Photoshop dialog, switch the color space to sRGB (by default it is ProPhoto). Photoshop will open it in sRGB now. The second is in your Photoshop Color Preferences: you can set the Photoshop color space to sRGB and then check boxes to assure that an image that is not in sRGB will be converted. You can have yourself notified of this, or just do it automatically.

As has been said, Convert, don't Assign. Assign is for very specific situations that will not apply to an image out of your camera or out of Lightroom.