Viewing Nikon D1X photos (long)
Viewing Nikon D1X photos (long)
- Subject: Viewing Nikon D1X photos (long)
- From: Rob Galbraith <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 09:31:33 -0600
Hi All,
Here's a question that has me positively stumped:
How can I configure my Mac/PC so that what I see on screen is the best
approximation of the colour Nikon's colour scientists intended when
designing the D1X digital SLR?
This seemingly simple question rotates around, for me, the discussion of
Gamma on the two platforms, where a Gamma of 1.8 is *supposed* to be optimum
for Mac, and a Gamma of 2.2 is *supposed* to be optimum for PC.
Background info: The D1X includes two different colour processing modes, one
which does the CCD-to-finished-file colour mapping in the sRGB colour space,
the other the AdobeRGB colour space, both of which have a Gamma of 2.2. To
simplify things here, assume that everything is shot and colour mapped
through the AdobeRGB space in either the camera or the Nikon Capture 2
software.
If I calibrate my Mac to 6500K and a Gamma of 1.8, then choose Monitor RGB
in PS 6's colour settings (thereby turning off any on-the-fly conversion of
colours as they're displayed on the screen), a D1X image on screen will look
to be about the proper density for the exposure/histogram/lighting, etc. If
I choose AdobeRGB in PS 6's colour settings, or assign this space to an open
D1X photo, and that photos has lots of midtone/shadow detail, the photo will
go very murky and usually way oversaturated. The picture looks bad, in other
words, whereas in Monitor RGB, the same picture looked great, very clean and
natural.
If I calibrate my Mac to 6500K and a Gamma of 2.2, then switching from
Monitor RGB to AdobeRGB produces only a slight difference, where the
difference is things like skin tones increase in saturation. Sunsets become
overly saturated. All in all, the colour boost is slight, but unwelcome.
In all photos that I've examined, the Monitor RGB rendition simply looks
better, and the difference isn't so subtle that I could chalk it up to
photog preference; I believe that most any professional photographer,
presented with the Gamma 2.2 Monitor RGB and AdobeRGB versions of the same
photo would prefer the natural appearance of the Monitor RGB version.
All of this makes me think and wonder about the following:
It would seem that I'm getting closer to what Nikon colour scientists
intended by calibrating to a Gamma of 2.2 on my Mac. Most of what I've read,
including my bible, Real World Photoshop 6, suggests that a Gamma of 1.8 is
right for this platform, because it's the native Gamma of the Mac (what that
actually means I'm not sure).
It would seem that I'm getting close to colour that I prefer, and colour
that I imagine that the Nikon colour scientists would prefer too, by viewing
the photo in Monitor RGB, without any conversion of the D1X photo on opening
into Photoshop.
Given all this, what do the colour experts on this list think is the best
way to view Nikon D1X photos so that I'm seeing what Nikon colour scientists
saw when preparing the colour mapping for this camera?
If this happens to be Monitor RGB and a Gamma of 2.2, what problems am I
causing when I switch mindsets, from wanting to set up the Mac to evaluate
my photos' colour, exposure, etc, to wanting to proof and print them in a
fully colour-managed workflow?
Am I making any fundamental mistakes here that are sending me down the
garden path to colour hell?
FYI, I've calibrated my two 17 inch Apple Studio Displays with the
ColorVision Monitor Spyder and Optical software. All of the above
assessments are based on viewing 100+ photos on both monitors (connected to
different Macs) from within Photoshop 6.01. I've done this testing with OS
9.2.1, Colorsync 3.04.
Another FYI, in case this helps: With my monitor set to 6500K and a Gamma of
1.8, switching between Monitor RGB and ColorMatch RGB produces only the
tiniest of on-screen differences.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
rgds,
Rob
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Rob Galbraith Little Guy Media, Inc.
5455 Patina Drive SW Email: email@hidden
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Voice: +1 403-246-7474 Fax: +1 403-242-2564
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