Re: Zooming in on Fabrics
Re: Zooming in on Fabrics
- Subject: Re: Zooming in on Fabrics
- From: "Bruce J. Lindbloom" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 09:24:42 -0600
Jeff Harmon wrote:
>
I also used a Spectrolino and scanned a hundred Pantone/Scot-Dic fabric
>
swatches twice, averaged the LAB values, then threw them throught ICCLabCalc
>
Pro to get CMYK percentages for my offset press. Almost all the colors
>
printed perfectly. A little off in the light tans and browns, but nailed 87
>
out of 90. (So I've determined that a 45/0 spectro works just fine for
>
Pantone textile swatches.)
Here you use the term "scanned" while referring to measurements taken with a
spectrophotometer. If I understand you correctly, no scanner was used in
this part of your tests.
Jeff continued:
>
I just thought I'd ask what expectations I should have for a completely ICC
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workflow with little/no human color correction on fabric scans and what
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anyone would recommend for better scanning. I'm about to scan several
>
hundred pieces and would love to hear anything any of you have to say. I
>
was shocked that the rasters were so much worse off than the vectors. What
>
could have happened? Could it have been at the RIP?
Here when you refer to "scanning", it appears you are talking about using a
scanner to scan actual fabric samples. If this is true...
When you make a scanner profile using a photographic calibration target
(e.g. an IT8 target), you are training the scanner to "see" photographic
originals in the same way your eye sees them. After doing this, the scanner
is all set for scanning photographs. However, when scanning any other types
of materials, for example cloth fabric, all bets are off. The spectral
response of scanners is different from that of the eye, and they can only be
properly trained (profiled) by using calibrated targets that are made from
the same dyes or colorants as the originals you will be scanning.
Photographic dyes which your profiled scanner can see properly are very
different from the dyes used in cloth fabric, and thus the results are
disappointing.
--
Bruce J. Lindbloom, Pictographics Intl. Corp.