Re: Metamerism
Re: Metamerism
- Subject: Re: Metamerism
- From: email@hidden (Bruce Fraser)
- Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 12:05:29 -0700
At 3:02 AM -0700 10/27/01, Wire Moore wrote:
on 10/26/01 8:26 AM, email@hidden at email@hidden wrote:
In a message dated 10/26/01 10:14:58 AM, email@hidden writes:
C. David may be correct, but I fear if we allow this to happen, we risk
diluting the original and correct meaning of the term. Maybe this is
advancement, but in my opinion, it is not. Apparently I am one of the
"Technically Minded" folks he refers to.
The universal objection to changes in language. Personally, ten thousand
people who know a new meaning for metamerism is preferable to a few hundred
knowing the old one. The other factor here is that standing against new word
uses tends to prove futile...
C. David Tobie
Design Cooperative
email@hidden
Consider the confusion that Timo Autokari causes with his idiom "accurate
image manipulation" and the consternation felt when AIM memes impede efforts
to assist others in the forums.
A culture is at risk when the most experienced and knowledgeable people
can't teach or clearly convey a subject because deep knowledge is obscured,
overshadowed or drowned by dogmatic or narrow idioms.
While it may be unavoidable that experts of some minds will promulgate the
inkjet-print meme as an idiom because its utility within their niche,
experts of any mind can recognize and convey the relevant range of meanings
when responding to list queries.
When the subject of color appearance shifting with the Epson pigs
under different light sources came up, I immediately thought of it as
a metamerism issue, but some folks were uncomfortable with using the
term 'metamerism' since we were discussing one sample -- a single
inkjet print.
It's clear that the phenomenon is intimately related to the metameric
nature of most color matches that we create.
The discomfort is the absence of two different spectra that create
the same tristimulus values, which is the strict definition of
metamerism.
One fudge for this is to treat the desired appearance on screen as
one sample, and the print under the lighting that "works" as another.
Then you have a classic case of metamerism, as defined above.
It's also likely that if you were motivated to do so, you could find
two fairly similar but different illuminants under which the print
would still appear to match. Again, you'd have a classic case of
metamerism.
But the bottom line is that language continues to evolve. When King
Charles congratulated Christopher Wren on the completion of St.
Paul's Cathedral, he called it "awful, amusing, and artificial." That
may not sound like a compliment today, but back then "awful" meant
"awe-inspiring," "amusing" meant "amazing," and "artificial" meant
"showing a great deal of skill or artifice."
I fight my own rearguard actions agains degradation of the language
-- it's a spelling checker, not a spell checker --but I don't think
this hill is worth dying on...
Bruce
--
email@hidden