[Digikam-users] [OT] Color Management Profiling

[Paul Waldo]

Hi all,

Hopefully this is not too off-topic...

I have vowed to get Color Management into my workflow, but I am having 
some conceptual issues.  Hopefully someone can right me ... :-)

I have a Canon Digital Rebel camera and have purchased an IT 8.7/2 
target.  My plan is to photograph the target and create a profile for 
the camera using lprof.  That got me to thinking about White Balance 
settings and how they relate to a profile.  It seems to me that target 
and profile are only accurate for some specific lighting setup.  If this 
is so, and if I understand CM correctly, it makes for some disturbing 
implications:

    * I need a specific profile for each WB setting (sunny, cloudy,
      incandescent, etc.)
    * I need to capture the target once for each WB setting, and the
      lighting has to match WB (eg. must wait for a cloud to pass over
      before snapping that Cloudy WB target pic)
    * Camera, Manual and Auto WB cannot have a profile, because software
      (on the computer or camera) dynamically adjusts the WB in
      unpredictable ways.
    * When taking a photo, I must manually set the WB and then use the
      correct profile when converting it. 
    * As a scene deviates from the ideal for a given WB setting, the
      conversion will become less accurate.  For example an outdoor
      scene that is bright and sunny, except for the cloud that is
      casting a shadow over the main subject.  Neither Sunny, Cloudy nor
      Shadow WB settings would be totally approriate.

Somebody please tell me I have a fundamental flaw in my logic!  If not 
this becomes quite a cumbersome system to use!



So now that I have the input device problems off my chest, we come to 
the output device, an Epson Stylus Photo Pro 1280.  I need a profile for 
this printer, but I don't know where to get one.  Epson provides ICC 
profiles for this printer *when printing with ColorLife paper*.  There 
is no profile for any other type of paper, such as Matte Heavyweight.  
It is my guess that, even if Epson did provide profiles, they would not 
be accurate because they would be created using their Windows driver.  I 
use Kubuntu Linux and gimp-print. 

So, the questions are:

    * Is there a printer profile for my setup
    * If there is not, is this a weak enough link in the chain that
      going through the trouble of profiling all of my other devices is
      not worth it?


Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!

Paul