Re: ProfileCity ICC Scan Query
Re: ProfileCity ICC Scan Query
- Subject: Re: ProfileCity ICC Scan Query
- From: Edward Kleinbard <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 18:16:26 -0500
Neil wrote:
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Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 00:57:50 +0000
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From: neilB <email@hidden>
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Subject: Kodak IPB profiles
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To: email@hidden
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Guys
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[Snip]
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I was considering buying ProfileCity's own scan profile generator, anyone
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tried it please??
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thanks
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neil
I recently added ProfileCity's ICC Scan to my Museum of Mid-Priced Color
Management Solutions (the "MMPCMS") (how else to explain my random impulse
purchases of duplicative color management software, none of which is really
top drawer?). I've worked with ICC Scan a bit, and based on this preliminary
work can say that to date I've been very pleased with the profiles it
generates. When converted into the proprietary format used by ColorSynergy
(on your right, as you enter the exhibit "Color Management:The Early Years"
at the MMPCMS), and analyzed with ColorSynergy's profile checking feature,
the ProfileCity profiles actually get a bit better grades than profiles
generated by MonacoProof (the feature exhibit in the rotating exhibition
"Color Management: Can One Package Ever Do It All?" at the MMPCMS). The
ProfileCity web site also has a very interesting and lengthy article on
making scanner profiles, although I have not had much luck yet with its
suggestion to set my scanner's gamma to 2.8 (!), and therefore have stuck
with a more traditional 2.2
Due to an unfortunate administrative oversight, the MMPCMS has somehow
failed to round out its collection with Kodak's IPB, but the curatorial
staff no doubt will investigate that too at some point in the future.
Neil also wrote:
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Message: 5
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Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 00:56:32 +0000
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From: neilB <email@hidden>
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Subject: Trident 4
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Guys
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Anyone else out there having trouble profiling a scanner with Howtek's Trident
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4 ?
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[Snip]
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If we scan the IT8 with full cast correction [using cast corrected black and
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white eyedroppers and including the useful mid tone eyedropper] and run a
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profile from that IT8 scan then the numbers are right in Trident but, all
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subsequent scans must now be cast corrected for the profile to work [not so
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good if you're scanning a sunset with no neutrals in it??].
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[Snip]
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Of course we save the IT8 scan settings we used when making each profile for
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use as a staring point on subsequent scans.
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I don't use a Howtek (it falls outside the scope of the MMPCMS's mandate),
but on my Imacon I seem to get the best profiles by following the same
procedure-- that is, by setting the Gray 0 square in the IT8 target to
5/5/5, and the G 23 square to 250/250/250. This obviously shifts the color
balance a little, but the ColorFlex software remembers the settings used to
accomplish setting the black/white points, and I leave them untouched.
Logically, the resulting profile should give accurate scans of subsequent
transparencies without regard to the original's color cast, or lack thereof,
so long as one does NOT cast correct those subsequent scans -- the
combination of the base correction/calibration (white point/black point) and
the profile together should obviate the need for that, so long as you start
from the premise that the IT 8 target itself contains a pretty neutral white
and black -- and my personal experience is consistent with that logic. (I
do sometimes need to move the scanner black settings a bit further out on
some very contrasty scans, where the original seems to have a bit more
dynamic range than the IT 8 target itself, but in doing so I preserve the
relative R/G/B values. ) I should point out, however, that my Imacon
salesman vociferously disagrees with this approach, and does all his
profiling with the software in a completely "raw" state.
It is interesting how infrequently scanner profiling is a subject on this
list. I'd be very interested in learning whether there is a consensus among
the ColorGods as to the optimal way to prepare a transparency IT 8 target
for profiling.
Thanks.
Edward Kleinbard