Re: Color management in web browsers
Re: Color management in web browsers
- Subject: Re: Color management in web browsers
- From: Olaf Drümmer <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:13:07 +0200
Hi all,
from about 15 years of working in the field of color management, printing, PDF, .... the one thing that has become more and more obvious is that NOBODY (sic!) really and honestly cares about interoperability. This is ironic as the ICC architecture is all about making (color) interoperability easier. But nobody took (all) the necessary steps to make it really happen. A lot of players - small and big vendors very much alike - always insisted to be chasing the next better thing (admittedly usually driven by the market, though one could argue about short, medium and long term success/ROI...). Downside is: better != good -> inconsistent.
This all got worse because overall our eco-system got more powerful and actually works better. But it also became much more complex.
Just an example: does a PDF "have a color space"? NO. It simply doesn't. It's not a TIFF (BTW - even the more modern JPEG2000 does not necessarily have just one color space anymore...). Rather, it has objects inside it on pages where each object has its own color space. On top of that you have blend spaces once transparency is involved, so each object having its color space actually has to go through some other color space to determine its color appearance. and it doesn't stop here. In the graphic arts industry (think PDF/X) you have an OutputIntent destination profile - yet another potential transform before the page content actually hits anything like a printing or display path... Add to that the fact that there is still no clear commonly accepted understanding about what shall be rendered when on which way, as in: rendering intents, transforms, ... Not a single incarnation of the PDF specification or now ISO standards says a single prescriptive word about how a PDF has to be rendered. Nobody pays any real attention in order to achieve consolidate this mess. or would anyone really pay for the necessary effort.
In the whole complex game, vendors actually became better at doing what they were doing. The stuff needed by the graphic at industry was always only possible through ill documented back doors. In quickDraw you had to learn how to pass through PostScript to remain in control. The same story continues. Printing architectures become more powerful - and more encapsulated. There is probably no single internal switch anymore that could turn off color processing - because the whole processing just got (much better overall but also) very complex. The reason Windows is easier to get along with for some vendors is that the OS still carries with it more of the old backdoors (GDI.. isn't that even older than QuickDraw?).
Customers didn't help either in the whole adventure. Nobody wants a proof of a newspaper ad to be displayed correctly. Because it just looks ugly (just think of the voodoo being done with how to display black in more recent applications from Adobe or others... An: pleas don't blame Adobe and those others, they are just delivering what customers are requesting).
What I do not understand in the year 2011: why don't printer manufacturers offer a web based access to their device, and take it in certain data directly, e.g. a device RGB or device CMYK TIFF. The smart phones we carry around with us (even the cheaper/less powerful ones) have all the technology built in that would be needed to make a device listen to interaction over USB, WLAN, IP, .... Could it be that nobody is actually honestly interested in this direction? When the Laserwriter 8500 came out, rumors were out that it would offer web server based printing - 15 years later we are still waiting for it (most MFPs have something in this regard - none f them do a good job though). Maybe AirPrint or CloudPrint or iPrint or whatever it's called gets us closer to that but I do not hold my breath.
Finally, especially many of the color experts' eyes glaze over when it comes to that ultra next thing. Often it's like chasing spectral technologies while not even having solved 10% of necessary definitions when to use which concatenation of transforms using currently wide spread technology. To me it's like talking about how to prepare a lobster when you don't even know how to make water boil.
Until we have a clear commonly accepted (and successfully adopted/enforced) concept of interoperability - and which paths have to work in which way, including direct rendering, simulation rendering and pass through rendering - day by day ever more fecal mater will hit the rotating device.
Have a nice weekend!
Olaf Drümmer
CEO callas software GmbH
Chairman of the ECI
DIN/ISO expert for TC 130 (printing industry) and TC 171 SC 2 (PDF standards)
PS: Just as an example - I proposed and tried to introduce a graphic state parameter into the next PDF standard version that indicates that color shall be passed through - I received 95% opposition (also from the majority of printing industry experts involved, or at least next to zero support from them). My conclusion: even if certain individuals or organizations invest and fight to get stuff right - the printing industry as a whole just doesn't deserve any better than the mess we have today (BTW - I intentionally mean to say that this implies YOU and ME). And the "display industry/market" will be happy with whatever glossiness is the hype of the day.
PS 2: Why does one need either an extended training or an engineering degree in technology to successfully operate a print dialog?
On 30 Apr 2011, at 17:52, edmund ronald wrote:
> Tom,
>
> Does this mean that the ICC has no interest in defining guidelines
> and standards for web and on-screen display color management ?
>
> Edmund
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