Giclee Printing Color Tuning

More often than not, local color corrections are necessary to match the tones of the original art to a giclee print.

Scanners and digital cameras "see" the pigments used by artists very differently than the eye. CCDs are so sensitive to the chemical composition and consequent spectral properties of oils, acrylics and watercolor media that seldom a scan can be printed straight out as a giclee and be perfect in any way.

This issue poses a post scanning involvement by a skilled technician in terms of general and local color correction. Some rare earth pigments so loved by artists may look one way when seen with a naked eye and a complete different way on the screen after being scanned. Furthermore, the giclee reproduction process throws in a curve in regards to the inherent gamut of papers and pigmented inks.

Generally speaking the first step is not make a general correction if necessary. This step is only necessary if the file is too flat, too bright or dark or if there is an overall color cast. A good scan, with no highlight or shadow clipping should not make overall corrections necessary.

Local corrections on the other hand may have nothing to do with how well a scan is produced. A giclee proof may be perfect in tonality and colors except for areas where a particular pigment is used. The only step that can be taken is to isolate such areas and color correct them in Photoshop.

Most of the time these areas have no defined hard edges. Tools such as the magic wand are useless for such purpose. Use instead color range, save the mask as an adjustment layer or alpha channel, and refine the mask with a brush to account for uneven feathering. Another technique is to use the Quick Mask tool and manually create the mask.

Once the mask is created, it is time to decide which type of adjustment layer is to be used. Often it can be a combination of two or more layers such as hue/saturation and curves or levels. Please stay away from brightness/contrast or color balance. These tools do not have the necessary control to achieve the best correction.

The beauty of keeping the corrections in adjustment layers is the freedom to go back and edit the color without further degrading the background layer. Also, these layers have many options themselves such as opacity and multiply, screen, darken etc. Photoshop books have extended sections regarding the subject. It is definitely time well spent reading and practicing these techniques if you decide to have full control over your digital files for giclee reproduction.

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