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: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:01:57 +0200
Am 19.04.2008 um 23:28 schrieb Marco Ugolini:
I don't know which movies you are watching, but the ones I play on
my Macintosh and view through my display -- calibrated at gamma 2.2
-- look terrific.
Maybe your DVDs are dirty or sumpin'...? :-)
Hardly so.
Really, I don't know what to say to those of you who bring this up. So
this will be my last trial with regard to this specific point. Let's
try to deduce the argument:
1. Gamma 1.8 and 2.2 look *very* different, i.e. they represent a
difference that everyone will see immediately, without having to take
a closer look.
2. Movies are produced with a certain visual appearance in mind.
Contrast is part of this, and is certainly part of the aesthetic
vision of the director.
3. Mac movie players are not color managed.
4. Mac movie players assume a gamma of 1.8.
5. 1&3 -> Movies on a Mac will look very different if you switch from
gamma 1.8 to 2.2 and vice versa.
6. 4&5 -> Movies on the Mac look as intended with a gamma of 1.8.
7. 2&6 -> It is important for the aesthetic vision of a movie to play
it with a gamma of 1.8 on a Mac.
Now, where do we disagree?
Again, if movies look "just the same" to you on a Mac with gamma 2.2,
then I don't understand why you care about color at all since you just
do not seem to look very precisely. If, on the other hand, you spot
the difference, but do not care, then you have little respect for the
aesthetic integrity of the movie, in which case you do not seem to
care much about movies (in contrast to images, where even color
nuances are important to you). Which is fine, of course, but then
that's your personal preference, and not an argument against the
necessity that movies can be watched correctly.
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
I wish to echo my dear friend Mark Segal in warning people about the
too-liberal use of the word "obvious" when referring to something
that isn't.
If the change in the appearance of the Mac GUI (or any other non color
managed part of the OS, for that matter) when switching from one gamma
to the other isn't obvious, then I don't know what is. *Everyone* can
immediately see this. (Besides, the users we talk about here are so
sensitive about these issues that they even want color management.)
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?
In the words of someone much better than myself at explaining such
things, the late Bruce Fraser:
"[W]e recommend that you calibrate your monitor to a gamma of 2.2,
for the simple reason that, in all our testing, we've found that
calibrating to around gamma 2.2 produces the smoothest display of
gradients, with little or no visible banding or posterization."
(Fraser, Murphy and Bunting, "Real World Color Management", 2003,
page 135)
Yep, I know this book inside out, but that doesn't mean I agree with
everything. I know it's considered a bible by many, but it's not
flawless, you know.
As I said, other experts I respect as much argue for gamma 1.8 or
gamma *L.
In any case, this book aims at experts. The ColorMunki aims at
prosumers. And the latter group will *not* accept issues with other
parts of Mac OS X just to get a tiny bit of even better color
management quality (assuming Frazer et. al. are right about gamma 2.2
providing for this).
Incidentally, most of the web is aimed at PC users, whose systems
use... (I'll be durn) ...gamma 2.2!
I already pointed out that this argues for nothing.
And I myself am sorry to say that your argument is quite overstated
("ugly as hell"? "completely"? "obvious"?), besides unconvincing to
me in any practical sense that I have become familiar with in my
almost 20 years as an imaging professional.
As a professional in this industry, your attitude might well suit you.
That's exactly part of the problem: the needs of prosumers in the year
2008 might be quite different from those of an industry veteran. If
you find my argument so overstated, one reason could be that in 20
years of work (which probably means you were even a user of the
"Classic" Mac OS) you have become accustomed to certain things that
new users simply refuse to become accustomed to. And yes, a DVD on a
Mac with gamma 2.2 does look as ugly as hell. I could certainly not
stand to sit two hours in front of this. But if I had to bear with
this for years, I might get accustomed to it. It's just that out of
respect for the director's work, I would strictly want to avoid
getting accustomed to it and losing this sensibility I now still have.
Just keep in mind, the future of color management depends upon *new*
target markets beside industry veterans.
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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