Can you suggest a website that assumes people know nothing about this, and goes on to explain it in a way that newcomers will understand and feel comfortable with. I’m pretty sure it’s worth taking the time to learn and understand. Maybe tomorrow I’ll search for something that starts off with very basics, and goes on from there.
…added later.
I found these videos that I think will explain it to me in a way that will make sense to me. Here is one of them:
The color cube is a simple way to explain a color space, so it is a good start. Going a bit further, color can also be mixed using different coordinates. You already know the HSL tool in PhotoLab. The HSL color space is a cylinder rather than a cube.
We see image in RGBK: Our brain gets r, g, b and k (brightness) signals. In low light, we don’t discern colors any more because the color receptors are less sensitive than the brightness receptors.
And then came TV. It started out as b&w, color was added later. TV uses Yuv coordinates, they are closer to how TV works than, say, a color cube. Y represents the b&w part of the TV signal, u and v the color components.
While color models contain lots of colors, the color spaces we talk about in photography are a means to depict what colors our eyes can see, our monitors can show, our printers can print. We usually see flat images of color spaces. Two-dimensional images of a three-dimensional color space (think of Star Trek)
Take a look at Color management: Implementation part 1
It is quite old but very good and talks about Picture Windows Pro which is now free software.
I do it in a dark room, window blinds closed. I use an Eizo monitor with the color navigator software and a spyder 4 device. Part of the calibration is the brightness of the monitor. If the Mac is changing the brightness according to ambient lighting you are going to have problems. You need to turn the variable brightness off if feasible and if possible edit in a room where you control the ambient light. You need to calibrate both monitors and make sure that they both display the images in the same way. If they have different color spaces then you need to choose the color space common to both. (Or only use one for editing and viewing images)
My test for a properly calibrated monitor is if my prints match the image on the screen for color and brightness.
Note that calibrating your monitor will not guarantee that others will see the images as you do, on the web, for example. Their monitors may not be calibrated, and most PCs are set by default to have thier monitors far too bright for use in office environments.