Pete started off his recent posts by saying that colour management is one of the cornerstones of digital photography, but often misunderstood. Let me describe what you can reasonably expect from a sound colour management system consistently applied (certainly not miracles!). What you can expect 1. A reasonable indication of what your final print will look like (assuming you're sending the files print-ready). 2. To avoid gross errors (an Adobe 1998 file treated as if it's sRGB will look strikingly different, especially if colours go out of gamut). 3. Predictability: You can send your files to the other side of the world, have Queensberry print them for you sight unseen and feel confident about the results. These three amount to TRUST. It's the basis of our business with professional photographers around the world. What you can't expect 1. To know exactly what your prints will look like. There are too many variables to expect an exact match, including such basics as lighting conditions, and the fact that your screen is backlit and your prints aren't. 2. With so many things that could go wrong (an inaccurate profile, forgetting to soft proof, assigning a profile instead of converting etc) you can bet they sometimes will go wrong. But follow colour management principles and they tend not to. Ignore them and they definitely will. 3. For us to know what you like: Colour management is a science, colour preference is about taste (that's why, if we're colour correcting for you, we talk about Queensberry Lab Standard, so you know where we're coming from). 4. To be able to make up for any faults there may be in your files (generally we can, but sometimes the quality isn't there). 5. Consistent colour, especially these days where effects are applied to so many of the files we receive. Colour management doesn't create consistency, colour adjustment does. Be careful because individually images may look fine, but put them together in an album and they can look confused (that's why we look at album layouts when we're correcting, rather than just the individual images). How to avoid colour management woes Three words: Full Colour Service. If all you want to do is get someone else to do the work... If all you want is another set of eyes to check (and maybe tweak) your work... If all you want is to live in blissful ignorance of colour management (not that we recommend it!) we'll get you a good consistent result - as long as the basic quality is there in your files. The whole business becomes our responsibility, not yours. Won't that feel good? Here’s the link to our Knowledgebase articles on colour management. And thanks for reading - do tell us what you think :) Cheers, Ian