Re: Color Accurate Camera Work
Re: Color Accurate Camera Work
- Subject: Re: Color Accurate Camera Work
- From: "Russell Proulx" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 00:00:42 -0400
- Priority: normal
On 14 May 2001, at 17:19, Abe Hayhurst wrote:
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What I am looking for:
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Information on finding a way to have artwork either shot to
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transparency so that the transparency matches the original, OR finding
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a company that can do color accurate digital photography of artboards.
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This does not seem to be rocket-science to me, given that it is
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digital photography in a fixed lighting setting, but the vendors I am
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aware seem to be ignorant of these things.
Abe,
I think you can only hope to get close (at best) to what you're looking for.
Color reproduction really is a bit like rocket-science and is a lot more
complicated than what it seems at first glance.
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/e73/e73.shtml
As you can read in the above Kodak tech document, film is not (and will
probably never be) perfect. Three emulsion layers cannot reproduce all
the colours visible to the human eye. If life was so easy art stores would
only need to sell 3 colours of paint.
The only way I know to really match an original is to have it sitting in front
of you while output the print an then make adjustments as required. With
many artworks it's a matter of compromises and "getting real close" is as
good as it often gets.
Colour management can only adjust devices to be as close as those
devices are capable of. If they're incapable of reproducing certain
colours then no color management can help. For example, many purple
tones reproduce very poorly on many color films. Some pigments also
contain optical brighteners that can play havoc with attempts to reproduce
them. It's not a question of skill, it's the "rocket science" nature of the
beast.
Russell Proulx
Photographer
Montreal, CANADA