Re: Digital Camera: Raw Data + ICC profile = one very bad idea....
Re: Digital Camera: Raw Data + ICC profile = one very bad idea....
- Subject: Re: Digital Camera: Raw Data + ICC profile = one very bad idea....
- From: email@hidden
- Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:28:33 EST
Great post Tom... sorry that I'm not really addressing it directly here,
since this is a different set of observations... but I certainly agree with
much of it.
In a message dated 2/24/03 7:57:28 AM, email@hidden writes:
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I've been reading some comments about Raw Data and ICC profiles and I
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thought that I would make some comments here in that regard. As the subject
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heading indicates, I think that using custom input profiles with digital
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cameras is a bad idea EXCEPT WHEN IN A STUDIO SITUATION.
Well, there are assorted schools of thought on that issue; including the
"fixed situation defined by a profile" crowd, that you have just claimed to
belong to; and the "lighting agnostic, general camera profile" crowd, that
expects a lot less (or is it a lot more?) from a profile. Without taking
sides in that issue, I would point out that the fixed situation crowd would
certainly find CameraRaw tempting (especially for uncontrolled site
shooting), since profiling is so much more brittle a solution for them. On
the other hand, the agnostics are already in need of controlling for
differing light sources, luminance etc... since that is not dealt with by a
profile, or should I say it needs to be carefully controlled for by them,
since the profile does not cover it. From that angle, CameraRaw would be
tempting since it allows after the fact adjustment from raw data.
Then there is that other group; the "numbers are all that matter" crowd.
There is no absolute, objective relationship between the real world and what
a camera records; what Lab or spectral value represents a patch on a target
is a fairly fixed thing for a scanner or a spectro in contact with the patch;
but not for a camera viewing the patch, so I don't get too enthusiastic about
this position. But by the "absolute numbers" theory, a profile would be
preferred since it offers one, theoretically correct, set of numbers. But
when those numbers don't match (and I can't imagine that they will, in any
circumstance), it would seem to me that the best system for adjusting them to
match would be desired... and the controls in CameraRaw might well be that
tool. Using a profile instead of adjustment controls is rather like that old
riddle about preferring the stopped watch that is correct twice a day, to the
slow watch that is correct only twice a year; if your standards are absolute
enough they can defy practicality.
C. David Tobie
Design Cooperative
email@hidden
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