Re: Photographers, printers, and proofs
Re: Photographers, printers, and proofs
- Subject: Re: Photographers, printers, and proofs
- From: Marco Ugolini <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:51:40 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Bob Marchant wrote:
>On 19 Apr 2008, at 06:36, Mike Strickler wrote:
>> ...it may not be realistic to expect that the time and knowledge
>> (or the purchase of a fast strip-reading spectro) necessary for
>> this will be available at a studio or agency.
>
>Why not ? If it's a reasonable investment as a lone photographer ,
>surely it's not beyond a design group to have the same.
I agree with Bob. The combined cost of a good input/output profiling package (say, ProfileMaker Publish Pro), monitor profiling software (say, basICColor display), plus a reliable inkjet proofing device (say, an Epson 4880, even without a RIP, if one absolutely must save at all costs) is well within the reach of the serious individual imaging professional.
Those costs are even smaller, relatively speaking, for a studio or agency when one considers the magnitude of their overall cash flow and operating budgets. Not to speak of the ROI, which can vary from place to place, but is very likely to be substantial for most adopters.
As I said earlier, these companies are being penny-wise and pound-foolish (cautious with small amounts of money, but careless with larger amounts). The excuse that avoiding a color-managed workflow saves these companies money is laughable. It's more likely that the ignorance of the real costs of *avoiding* color-managed workflows allows them to deceive themselves with such comforting notions.
>I appreciate the need for consultants in many areas, especially
>initial set ups , education and building custom profiles for those
>who are not especially CM savvy, but it shouldn't be beyond the
>capabilities of designers to linearise their proofer now and then. It
>may be that it's more effective cost wise for some agencies / design
>groups to outsource this, but as a sole trader photographer, the
>numbers don't stack up quite so convincingly, and it just has to be
>a matter of climbing that steep learning curve <BG>.
It's a source of puzzlement and amusement to me that companies that wouldn't bat an eyelash when hiring "branding consultants" and "strategists" at outlandishly high fees have such disproportionate qualms about hiring a color consultant who, comparatively, makes pennies on the dollar.
Color management is a technical procedure, and it needs a minimum of technical savvy. Either the users have the savvy, or they should rely on someone who does. If my kitchen sink has a leak, I'll fix it myself if I have the plumbing tools and the know-how, but I will hire a plumber if I don't have the tools and don't know how it's done. Why should it be different for other technical services?
Put in other words, why the hope, as vain as it is oft-stated, that color management should be "completely transparent" and require absolutely no user intervention? That will not happen any time soon, if it ever does.
In the end, it comes down to how much a company cares about the results and wants to commit time and resources to achieving them. The funny thing is that, when one considers the remarkable advantages and returns, the investment is quite puny. But still, what we keep hearing first are the grumbles and complaints about costs and how hard or disruptive it all is. Oh well... :-)
Marco Ugolini
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