Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
- Subject: Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
- From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:18:16 +0200
Am 19.04.2008 um 01:10 schrieb Andrew Rodney:
On 4/18/08 4:54 PM, "email@hidden" wrote:
The other day Steve Rankin pokes his head over my cube and askes me
if we
should put a preference in to set the gamma to 1.8 in the CM
software. Before
ripping into him, I politely asked him why, if we were trying to
make this
easy for an end user, should we complicate it, by introducing a gross
distortion into most standard non color managed workflows. He
pointed out
that a magizine review was going to give us "one star" for not
complying with
the Mac OS "requirement" of 1.8 . The reviewer pointed out that if
a user
calibrated his screen to a gamma of 2.2 the image from the DVD
player on the
Mac would appear incorrect because it did the gamma conversion . I
did a
little checking and sure enough, it's true. They also do this in
all their
motion applications.
Steve needs a good bitch slapping from me (and people like Chris
Murphy...
Chris, if you're not too busy moving, let's gang up on these guys).
Steve apparently is a MARKETING product manager right? Otherwise who
gives a
rat's ass about what a reviewer says over what the customer says?
You might as well slap me as I'm the reviewer. :-)
In this day and age, aiming a product like ColorMunki to a new group
who doesn't
know Gamma from a banana, why on earth do we (X-Rite) need to go
down this path?
To make a long story short, my point was *not* that the ColorMunki
software needs to offer a (possibly confusing) choice between 1.8 and
2.2, my point was that it might as well be fixed, but if it is, it
must be fixed to *1.8* on the Mac. And this is *especially* true for
the ColorMunki's target audience, i.e. non-experts and prosumers.
There are few simple reasons for this:
1. The ColorMunki targets "non-experts". Those are more likely than
experts to use their Macs for a variety of tasks, not all of which put
color management above everything else. In other words, it is
essential that basic Mac functionality remains unaffected in its
integrity if the ColorMunki is used. Now like it or not, the reality
is that some important areas of Mac OS X are not color managed, most
notably everything movie related and the GUI. Movies and the GUI look
*terrible* with a gamma 2.2 on a Mac. Now explain a non-expert why a
product that is supposed to improve color quality on his Mac seemingly
does the very opposite in two areas that become immediately obvious
(well, at least one of them, the GUI). If you try, you'll find
yourself mentioning the word "gamma" faster than you'd like. Which
proves that this is *not* the way to go to avoid gamma confusion.
2. Keep in mind that one argument for the ColorMunki is its ability to
profile projectors. Why do you profile projectors? Mostly for a better
DVD quality in your home cinema. Only that your DVDs now will look
horrible if you use a Mac. Please...
3. Prosumers who are willing to spend $500 for better color are most
likely connoisseurs. As such, they might have bought their Mac for,
among other things, the aesthetic quality of the GUI. This quality is
completely ruined by a gamma of 2.2. And this because you just spent
$500 for a device to *improve* color??
4. If anything, color management should make the requirement to use a
specific gamma outdated, because a color-managed image looks OK on
both 1.8 and 2.2 systems. So how is color management an argument to
willingly go against the default value of a platform, evoking all
kinds of issues?
5. Apart from the home cinema argument in 2.), don't tell me that
graphics&design people are generally not interested at all in movie
media (with correct colors ;-) )
6. One argument that seems ubiquitous on the web is that the web
mostly isn't color managed. But this isn't a valid argument against
platform consistent gamma values. It's really no big deal to edit a
color-managed image on a 1.8 Mac, and when you're finished, in a few
steps to create a copy without a profile that looks correct on 2.2
systems (and too dark on the Mac), and to upload this on your site. So
where is the problem? (Yes, web designers should know what they do!)
There is no problem here that couldn't be solved by the user, contrary
to points 1-5.
So to sum up, it's mainly an issue of being a good guest on your host
operating system and stick to its rules where possible. In the case of
gamma, it certainly is possible (*because* of color management). And
the default gamma on a Mac is 1.8. Argue with Apple if you don't like
that, but this is nothing a consumer should have to take the rap for,
and the only way to guarantee this is a gamma 1.8 for a Mac app.
Frankly, I was completely stunned that a vendor could even think of
offering an entry-level color management application with a fixed
gamma of 2.2 on a Mac. You seem much too involved in color management
internals to be able see how absurd an idea this is from an outside
POV for promoting color management to a broader audience (which is
what this review is all about). Yes, I'm the reviewer, but as a
reviewer for a general purpose Mac magazine, of course I try to speak
on behalf of many potential customers and try to get things right for
them.
Professionals like you who use a computer for one specific
professional task might decide to twist the operating system to their
needs, and they should know what they do. For everybody else, going
against the operating system is simply a recipe for trouble. (Which,
BTW, seems to be some strange kind of obsession in this market. Never
before have I seen a market segment where seemingly all apps from all
vendors so completely disregard the basic interface guidelines of
their host operating system, up to such a grotesque GUI like the one
from i1Share. In this regard, I consider the ColorMunki software a
huge step in the right direction; though it has a few bugs and
shortcomings, it's the first (Mac) app I've seen in this market that
sticks to the HI guidelines and is really intuitive to use (apart from
the gamma 2.2 ;-) ). And it's a Cocoa app, finally! :-) If this is a
hint of further things to come from X-Rite, I'm really looking
forward ...)
And really, do you think that between the option of making a
really easy intuitive product or getting a few less stars in a review,
assuming that would happen is justification for this?
My whole point with this gamma issue is that for a really easy
intuitive product, the Mac version absolutely needs a gamma of 1.8.
Sorry, Andrew, a product supposed to improve colors that immediately
makes the GUI of the whole operating system and all DVDs and movies
look ugly as hell may be all kinds of things, intuitive it is most
definitely not.
Bye
Uli
________________________________________________________
Uli Zappe, Solmsstraße 5, D-65189 Wiesbaden, Germany
http://www.ritual.org
Fon: +49-700-ULIZAPPE
Fax: +49-700-ZAPPEFAX
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