Re: What color space to use for an image archives
Re: What color space to use for an image archives
- Subject: Re: What color space to use for an image archives
- From: neil snape <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 07:37:18 +0200
on 07/06/2003 3:48, Niemann, Andy wrote :
>
The Royal BC Museum and BC Archives imaging department is thinking of
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converting all their digitized image collections to a common colour profile.
There is also the possibility to use a color image processor such as iQueue
or Helios , or Praxisoft etc to do scripted batch conversions over a network
or not...
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1) Is this advisable? My feeling is that it would be better to just leave
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the images with the profile of the scanner. Doing conversions would be one
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more manipulation of the data in 8 bit format, possibly damaging or going
There usually will be some degradation however slight even within matrix
based profiles. Some purists like to leave the images ready for Device Link
profiles going direct to the destination. This would be valid for production
imagery , not for images to be colour edited. With a Color Server you can
leave the archive in scanner space. On demand clients then would receive the
images processed into their working space. It should be noted that any
colour correction is safer and easier in idealized rgb= values = grey.
>
2) If we do go with a common profile then which one would be best for an
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image archive? Is the Adobe RGB 1998 profile appropriate? The majority of
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customers using images professionally would be using Photoshop anyway (I'm
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making a grand assumption here! ;^), it seems a nice balance between too big
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and too small and is widely available.
All of the above gives me reason to believe that you could use a color
server. Archives should be in the highest quality from the start. Even
though I use Adobe 98 for all my image manipulation , I wouldn't recommend
it for the highest quality archival work. The best person to contact on this
would be Joseph Holmes and talk to him about his well studied Ektaspace
profiles (well much more than just a profile).
>
3) Another idea being tossed about is to store the images stripped of their
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profiles to save download and storage size, and have the profiles available
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for download separately. This makes sense from the point of view of storage
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and download speed, but I wonder if it will become a management nightmare
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as new profiles are generated over time for the various input devices,
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which will include digital cameras.
The profile size is small compared to the file size. If it's just Adobe 98
it's a matrix profile that is tiny so no problems of file size growth. Again
new devices can be normalised in a Color Server.
>
4) One of the scanners is used in 'auto' mode so as to do as much colour
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correcting as possible while still in the 12 bit scanner driver (its a fully
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automated scanner, so no manual correction per image). Is there any point at
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all in trying for a profile here?
Auto is not something desirable for archiving. Raw scanning ; locked down
and later processed though is common for scanning apps that don't have all
the color controls or speed of the best scan apps.
>
5) Maybe it is best to leave things as they are: not colour managed. Many
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images are old and not exactly the best quality, so the changes that a
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profile will make might be minor at best compared to the changes people will
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want to make to the images anyway.
You'll need legacy default workflow spaces for these. Calibrate your
monitors then!
>
Sorry about the lengthy post. It's a serious issue for us with long term
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consequences.
It is serious when it comes to archiving collections. Like in the FileMaker
manual it says before making a database , think about it a lot before
starting , as you can't go backwards afterwards.
You're not far from a great person to orchestrate this for you. Steve Upton
at Chromix.com (Seattle) has the experience and soft/hardware set ups to
move you into this direction.
Neil Snape
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