Re: fine art reproduction questions
Re: fine art reproduction questions
- Subject: Re: fine art reproduction questions
- From: neil snape <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 19:35:26 +0200
- Thread-topic: fine art reproduction questions
on 2/05/10 18:47, Ben Goren wrote :
> Not only do I not assume it's a linear file, I've had to do a *lot* of
> experimentation and tedious work to reliably create a linearized file from RAW
> to feed to the profiling software.
>
> I'd like to use Canon's DPP, but there's no good way to set white balance.
> Until they fix that -- and I have reason to suspect that it's on the radar of
> Canon engineers -- I'm using Adobe Camera RAW. If you use the Camera Faithful
> DNG profile, set all the sliders to their zero (not default) position, and use
> a linear tone curve, the result is surprisingly close to a colorimetric match.
> For non-critical work, it qualifies as ``good enough.''
So you've seen some of the things I've seen although we are probably looking
for different reasons.
>
> It's perhaps overkill, and I'm not especially looking forward to the tedium of
> making it, but it picks the best bits of everything else I know about and
> addresses the shortcomings of each as best I can.
No it's not overkill. You are trying to find a solution that is as tight as
it can be. That I admire. And agreed Argyll has great advantages in the
builds of source adapted profiles.
I do think you're still trying to fetch what you can out of your single
exposure copy that could have it's benefit with a multiple exposure version
for difficult to render paintings due to the limitations of the camera and
software. I didn't say that any of this is necessary for MF or better as
there is more depth in the images to start with. The difference between
single and multiple shoot MF makes a night and day difference on these same
difficult scenes, all of which are within a DR of the painting.
I suppose we are back to a more sound footing. Although you think that
because I don't do copy work any longer it makes my experience invalid for
today's workflow. The reason I said a 50 mm lens is not the right lens to
use, and yes I know from the beginning you are using a very fine lens for
copy work is because unless you have absolutely flat surfaces all the
reflections of the texture will have reflection angles that will be
detrimental to the copy quality. If you are copying a photographic print or
very flat art work with careful lighting that is fine. In some cases like
wall sized painting texture or not you have to. Yet when you can for reasons
of reflections and how the light plays on the surface texture it is indeed
optimal to use a longer lens. Especially true if you use cross polarizer and
a Polarize filter on the lens. Lighting art work for repro hasn't changed a
bit since the book I still have from Kodak was written, you might laugh but
about 1965 or so. No date on the book but references to some films that were
around in the 70's.
What is good is no more preflashing or filtration, or copying directly to
copy film ( oh that was fun), or making masks on litho.
Yet I do think that copy work still requires interpretation beyond any dumb
( I meant it as dumb vs smart ) CMM for it to maximise the potential on
difficult to repro art.
With what you are doing for many art work copy It is probably very good. As
good as it can be within the limitations of the camera and software , and or
ICC profiles and CMM. Yet I am convinced that there are some tricks that can
give you better results that really do optimise DR with a lower S/N in the
areas that DSLRs have problems. HDR is allows the highest level of
extraction of the info from the raw processor. It is not limited to only
high contrast and out of range images. It is though a pain to use, and as
you know difficult to have an easy control on camera profiles etc.
Building your own charts could be interesting. If you have the same pigments
as the art work it'd be optimal. I am interested in how it goes just the
same.
I have seen custom charts with spectral matching working well, but using
smart CMMs outside of today's ICC structure. They were made for specifically
art repro.
I'd better leave this, all I wanted to say as I said you will have better
results with a longer lens if you can macro of course or flat field, and if
you have artwork that has a lot of brights or darks you can by using
multiple exposures a way to optimise the information that correct for
compression in the raw software.
Regards.
Neil Snape
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