DVD

Color Management without the Jargon video: now available!

[Note: I now have a newer video, Color Management for Photographers and Designers (2014), that updates what I covered in Color Management without the Jargon (2009). Color Management for Photographers and Designers includes more current information about color-managing Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Creative Suite applications as well as demonstrations of profiling a display, a printer, and a camera.]

Are you a photographer or designer and still not quite sure how color management works? Confused about how to use color profiles? Have you tried to read books and articles about color management, but are overwhelmed by the terminology?

Color Management without the Jargon cover

Now you can better understand color management with my DVD and online video, Color Management without the Jargon: A Simple Approach for Designers and Photographers Using the Adobe Creative Suite. I created this video as an approachable introduction to the ideas behind color management and the basics of a good color management workflow. While there’s a lot of good material about color management out there, I feel that much of it jumps into jargon and abstract concepts too quickly. I saw an opportunity to explain color management in the simplest possible terms. I intend Color Management without the Jargon to prepare you for and to complement the deeper, more comprehensive, but also far more challenging material out there.

What you’ll learn

This 1½ hour training video helps beginning and intermediate Photoshop, Bridge, InDesign, and Illustrator users understand the basics of color management, including how to profile monitors and create consistent color in a production workflow. This video provides technical background without being overwhelming, and presents concepts and steps that are easy to follow.

How to watch

You can order Color Management without the Jargon as a DVD from your favorite bookseller or store, or you can watch it online as a streaming video from Peachpit Video. Here are some links to get you started:
DVD on Amazon.com
DVD on Peachpit.com
Watch online at Peachpit.com

More info

Below is the publisher’s marketing copy if you want to learn a bit more…

Every digital photographer or graphic designer knows that color management is important, but many still do not calibrate their computer monitors or understand how color works in different spaces. This 90-minute DVD will help beginning and intermediate Photoshop, Bridge, InDesign, and Illustrator users understand the basics of color management and how to create consistent color in their workflow.

Highlights of this accessible and easy-to-follow DVD video include:

  • Calibrating your monitor and digital SLR camera
  • Tackling color profile detective work in Photoshop and InDesign
  • Assigning, converting, and embedding profiles
  • Managing color output for print and the Web
  • Integrating raw files and Lightroom into your workflow
  • Handling color conversions between video-editing software and Photoshop

The supporting 48-page printed reference guide provides additional links and content.

Cannot read CD or DVD from Windows Vista

If you get a CD or DVD from a Windows user and it seems blank, or you can’t read it on your Mac (or non-Vista version of Windows), and the Windows user swears the disc was burned successfully, the Windows user probably burned it using the default settings in Windows Vista. With the default settings, the disc may not be readable on older versions of Windows, or on non-Windows systems such as Mac OS X and Linux. The files may actually be there on the disc, but they may not be visible on the unsupported system.

If you are working with a Windows user who knows how to re-burn the DVD with different settings, have them re-burn it using Mastered Format instead of the default Live File System. Mastered Format is more compatible with the rest of the computing world. (So why does Microsoft make Live File System the default in Vista? Apparently it has some useful features that make DVD burning a little more flexible than it is on other systems.)

An alternative to wasting another disc is to open the disc in a copy of Windows Vista or Windows XP running in virtualization on your Mac (such as in Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion) and then drag the files over to the Mac side. That’s ultimately what I decided to do; I was able to see the invisible files in my up-to-date version of Windows XP running under Parallels Desktop.

Or, if you happen to have a PC that you can reach over the network from your Mac, you could also try putting the DVD into the PC and grabbing it over the network from the Mac.

Update/note: I do not know if this issue with default burn settings also applies to Windows 7 or later. If you know, tell us in the comments!