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Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
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Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.


  • Subject: Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
  • From: "email@hidden" <email@hidden>
  • Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:03:08 -0400

Hi Uli,

This document from apple highlights some of the decisions that Final Cut Pro makes based upon input media.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93794

Here, apple's own words, is a description of the mess.



Poynton's article on gamma is a good one to review

http://www.poynton.com/PDFs/GammaFAQ.pdf

The choice of the gamma 2.2 is not a simply based upon the native response of a CRT. That was one important, but not sufficient reason.

Regards,
Tom


Uli Zappe wrote:

Hi Tom,

There are very good technical reasons for gamma 2.2 as a native response. These reasons long pre-date the Mac and PC battle.


But what you describe below (HDTV specs) clearly occurred after the Mac-PC battle?!?

Anyway, I think video standards that date back to the days of the CRT are clearly influenced by this technology, which did have a high native gamma (even higher than 2.2, IIRC). You used CRTs for videos, not printers, and you watched videos on ancient things called "TV sets" that had no computational intelligence built in. So I can see how 2.2 was a reasonable choice here.

But this is history. LCDs don't have any inherent gamma; they are constructed to emulate one. Given the CRT model and the prevalence of PCs, they choose to emulate 2.2.

These things happen in the history of technology. Cars driving left or right, meter or inch, trains that use different gauges ...

So maybe we'll still have gamma 1.8 and 2.2 when Mac and PCs are long gone and no-one even remembers CRTs ...

Displays are generally set to around gamma 2.2 native,


Which is an arbitrary decision from a technical POV. They might as well be set to 1.8 or another value, for that matter.

so the "gamma-do-nothing" strategy works pretty well.


It's more of a gamma-do-all-in-display-emulation strategy, isn't it? Technically, this whole gamma thing seems obsolete. You could decide for a visually optimal distribution of data (*L?) and leave it at that. And even this would become relatively irrelevant once 32 bit imaging becomes the standard.

All moving media use a basic gamma 2.2 assumption.


Which is a heritage from PCs and CRTs. But of course, it's a fact now.

Apple's committement to gamma 1.8 means that they must basically change the transfer function in all applications that import video content to gamma 1.8. This would also imply that all applications, must convert from Mac Gamma to some assumed gamma or transfer function based upon the media when exporting. So we have here a platform that universally must "touch" every piece of content that passes through it.


How so? They could leave the material untouched and just adjust the screen display (a fixed 2.2 -> 1.8 display matching, so to say).

            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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  • Follow-Ups:
    • Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments.
      • From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>
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References: 
 >Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments. (From: Andrew Rodney <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments. (From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments. (From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments. (From: "email@hidden" <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Designers, Color Management, and Xrite , some thoughts and comments. (From: Uli Zappe <email@hidden>)

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