Macbeth gray vs. Kodak gray?
Macbeth gray vs. Kodak gray?
- Subject: Macbeth gray vs. Kodak gray?
- From: Brian-Sys Admin <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:46:52 -0600
- Organization: Blauvelt Photography
I have recently purchased new monitors, camera and other hardware,
changed labs and begun using the new "er" pictrography donor which has a
different look to it than the old material. I have had so many recent
changes I have decided to throw out all my profiles and start completely
over. My first step was to have a roundtable discussion with my labs
manager, their color specialists and a respected Kodak color specialist.
I went into the meeting thinking I had a clear understanding of how
color management should work. I left the meeting questioning if I
really know what I think I know and the rest of the world is wrong or if
I am stubborn and totally off base. I get very different solutions from
different highly knowledgeable people. Can someone please set me
straight?
My understanding has been that a 50% gray patch on a Macbeth color chart
was a given standard, it could be measured, it was scientific and if no
one could agree on anything else, at least they could agree what neutral
gray was. Then if everyone would calibrate to reproduce a neutral gray
then at least we were all playing in the same ballpark.
At our roundtable meeting I was shown a Kodak target print and was told
that this was pretty much the portrait industry standard and that about
70% of the portrait labs used this as their target. However, the gray
patch on the target was about 15 points more red than a Macbeth patch.
Their suggestion seems to be that I should calibrate my monitor to match
Kodak's target print and make my printer reproduce this target. I am to
maintain my pictrography printer profile so it matches the target print.
They maintain their printer profile so it matches the target print.
This way I do not need their profile to soft proof in photoshop because
the monitor already matches both printers. I agree this is fine and
dandy as long as I stay within the loop. However, there will be times
when I need a larger print (my lab can only make a 20" print) or when I
must provide a client with a color corrected file that they intend on
using for reproductions etc. Now I am outside the loop. What standard
am I now shooting for?
I was under the impression that I should maintain all my hardware to
produce Macbeth 50% gray. Then I should maintain a profile for each
outside lab, soft proof the image in photoshop and all my prints match
regardless of where they are printed. Their position is that the lab
should maintain the profile because it may change periodically and as
long as both our target prints stayed the same this would keep me from
chasing a moving target. The problem again lies with what to do when
using another lab that may have a different target.
Now take the lab I have been using for larger prints. When I asked them
to send me their profile so I could soft proof in photoshop I got this
understanding of their work flow. They have a frontier printer for
their smaller prints which apparently uses profiles a little differently
in that they cannot be extracted out of the frontier. (I am not sure I
am saying this correctly) Anyway their solution is to build a profile
that forces their lambda to match their frontier instead of making both
printers match a "known standard" Macbeth gray. So sending me their
profile would not be beneficial. They say I should make my monitor
match their calibration print. But I am suppose to make my monitor
match my other labs target print???? And if I send an order that has
big prints and small prints they print them on both machines, one of
which has a built in profile that cannot be extracted. So to match they
must use their profile on their lambda. If I built a profile they would
have to apply another profile which would then toast the file.
AAAAAUUUGHH? Am I nuts? This just isn't the way this is suppose to
work is it?
Also, as long as I am starting from scratch, can anyone tell me what
color space I should work in. I have been using colormatch and my
primary lab has begun to use colormatch. However, they have a proshots
set up and have just been told that proshots does not recognize
colormatch. Proshots has told them that srgb is becoming the industry
standard. The lab wants to use the same colorspace throughout and think
they are about to change everything to srgb. This seems a little odd to
me. Should I use srgb?
Sandy Blauvelt
Blauvelt Photography
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