Some Color management questions

[pesa]

Hi,
I would really appreciate if I could get some pointers on some of these q...

I was recommended "Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murthy, and Bunting"
I have looked at it but for me it's to many screendumps off Photoshop dialogs.
Being "scientifically schooled" I much prefer a theoretical approach,is there one?
(I do - up to a point - actually implement CM in my own software so I need a theoretical understanding)

The ProPhoto color space "uses" gamma 1.8. Is it possible (practical) to use that on a setup where the screen has gamma 2.2? Or is that the wrong way to think about it?

Is there a way to set up epson 3800's windowsXP driver to accept input in proPhoto in ICM mode?

Finally, say you have a printer with pretty good (I think) profiles from the printer manufacturer - for example an epson pro 3800 - how much of an disadvantage (for an advanced user) would it be to use windows built in colorSpace2printer conversion engine? Is the 16 bit internal resolution an disadvantage? (I understand PhotoShop has a 20 bit engine)

[KentDub]

Finally, say you have a printer with pretty good (I think) profiles from the printer manufacturer - for example an epson pro 3800 - how much of an disadvantage (for an advanced user) would it be to use windows built in colorSpace2printer conversion engine? Is the 16 bit internal resolution an disadvantage? (I understand PhotoShop has a 20 bit engine)

If you find a good book, let me know (I'm a software developer for the day job). If your output device accepts a 16-bit image (My Canon printer does, and has a special driver for it), then the color management will need to map from the source 16-bit image to the destionation 16-bit image. This is a non-linear conversion, so to preserve optimal quality you will need to do the transformation into a higher bit depth, and then compress it post-transformation back to 16-bits. The "compression" is controlled by the rendering intent of the conversion. The Canon I own saves the trouble by directly accepting AdobeRGB images as a fully printable profile.

[Colin Southern]

I was recommended "Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murthy, and Bunting"
I have looked at it but for me it's to many screendumps off Photoshop dialogs.
Being "scientifically schooled" I much prefer a theoretical approach,is there one?

I'm not sure what book you were looking at, but if it has "too many screen dumps of Photoshop dialogs" then it wasn't Real World Colour Management (2nd edition).

Seriously, if you want to learn colour management theory then there's just no getting away from this book -- nothing else even comes close.