Thanks for the response, trouble. Just to follow up on a couple of
your points, I do shoot only in RAW, I am familiar with Photoshop
basics, and I own Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS3 book. It's a great book
by the way!

I don't know if I was clear in my original question as to what I hope
to achieve. I just want to find the best way to get my photos that
look different after monitor calibration looking the way they did
before calibration. Since I do shoot in RAW I should have pretty much
post-process flexibility. Also, I've saved all the PSD files with the
modifications I've made, so in my mind, I should just need to add the
appropriate adjustment layers to get this corrected. I was just
curious to know if anyone has gone through this process before and if
there's a standard way of handling it.

Thanks,
Shannon

trouble, 10/7/2008 07:29 hrs:

With respect, that is not right.  The purpose of monitor calibration is
to remove any color casts or errors in the monitor display, so the
displayed image matches the original image color as closely as possible.

This why the calibration software displays a series of varying colors on
the screen which the colorimeter measures, and the difference between
the known RGB values of the displayed color and the screen color is then
corrected by the calibrating software producing a 'monitor profile'.

Subsequently, images on the monitor are displayed via the profile which
corrects the screen colors *for visual purposes only.  The original
image values are not altered by this process.*

Likewise, a printer profile is generated by printing a known series of
RGB values - some hundreds of different shades of color - on a given
paper with given inks.  The print is then analyzed in the same manner as
was the screen to produce the printer profile.  Subsequently, any image
to be printed is corrected by the profile on its way to the printer.  It
should be obvious that different inks and different papers will need
another profile; any one profile is only for the ink/paper combination
it was generated with.

Profiles can be generated for cameras, scanners, monitors, and printers.
 The purpose in every case is to correct RGB errors in the equipment,
and is always done with accurately calibrated standard images or targets

If you can be bothered to follow this post a bit further, consider the
case of an uncalibrated system handling an image from your camera.

Let's say the task is to take and print a photograph of a Kodak grey
card.  We set up the card outside in sunlight, with the camera white
balance set to auto. For simplicity, we shoot a jpeg shot with the card
filling the entire frame.

Next, we load the image into Photoshop, and find it looks a bit greenish
on the screen.  Immediate question: is it really greenish, or is the
monitor just showing us that color because of monitor errors?

So we open Window/Info (F8) and use the eyedropper to look at the RGB
values in the image (which should be a uniform grey - if it is not, you
have other problems!).  Since the image should be an 18% gray, we can
expect RGB values around 128 if the exposure was correct.

The eyedropper gives us values R 128, G 120, B 121.  As the eyedropper
is looking at the image and not the screen, we deduce that the camera
image is a bit reddish, so right at the start the camera auto white
balance is a bit out.

We have no way at this point of measuring the screen color except by
eye, but as it looks greenish even with a reddish image, it is clear
that the monitor is not reproducing colors accurately.

However, we press on, and adjust the screen color with
Image/Adjust/Variations and choose the nearest to grey by eye that we
can.  Now, the screen looks to be a fairly good grey, so we decide to
make a print.

But, what has happened to the image in the meantime?  We reduced the
green cast by shifting the image balance - by eye -  toward the magenta,
correcting the displayed image on screen, *but this move has added
magenta to the already reddish original image*.

So, we come to doing a print.  The printer, with its canned profile from
 the manufacturer, will print a reasonably acceptable print, so, fed
with a reddish-magenta image, it proceeds to print a reddish-magenta
print, nowhere near the grey we have on the screen.  Worse, the print
comes out very dark, much darker than the screen image.

Why did we get a dark red/magenta print?  Well, as we saw, we
deliberately pushed the balance towards magenta in an attempt to make
the screen look right, but we failed to notice that the screen was too
light because the gamma was wrong and the brightness was too high.

So, in summary, we have a camera that is a bit red, and a monitor that
is too green and too light.  Only the printer is about right - and it
gets the blame for the bad print.

Translate that scenario into taking regular images and printing them
with that setup.  Not surprisingly, we are dismayed and confounded by
the results.

Practically, the camera and printer can be taken as reasonable, but the
monitor will be the main cause of poor printing. Monitor calibration is
essential for good prints, with printer and camera calibration next in
that order.  If you scan color material, you should profile your scanner
as well.

If you have persevered this far, congratulations.  I hope it clarifies
the situation.

Colin D.

Thanks to everyone for your responses! I know you spent a lot of time
on them, which I do appreciate.