Re: Feedback on success, creating a camera profile
Re: Feedback on success, creating a camera profile
- Subject: Re: Feedback on success, creating a camera profile
- From: MARK SEGAL <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 04 May 2013 07:33:36 -0700 (PDT)
We have differing ideas about what constitutes explanation and justification. I'll leave it at that. The Adobe folks would be better positioned than me to address these contentions scientifically, if they chose to.
Mark
________________________________
From: Ben Goren <email@hidden>
To: MARK SEGAL <email@hidden>
Cc: "email@hidden List" <email@hidden>
Sent: Saturday, May 4, 2013 10:09:59 AM
Subject: Re: Feedback on success, creating a camera profile
On May 4, 2013, at 4:48 AM, MARK SEGAL <email@hidden> wrote:
> I was struck by this statement:
>
> "run away from DNG profiles and anything else to do with Adobe's processing of raw images and color profiling as far and as fast as you can."
>
> As most of the imaging community world-wide is spending gazillions of time and money using this stuff, I'm not sure such a bald, dismissive sentence with no explanation and no justification should pass unnoticed. Perhaps you would care to elaborate?
I provided exactly that explanation and justification in the introductory clause to the sentence you only partially quoted, as well as the preceding sentence.
Here's the full paragraph again:
> If you understand that colorimetric accuracy is *not* the goal of DNG profiles, they serve their intended purpose rather well. But if you're looking for colorimetric matching, run away from DNG profiles and anything else to do with Adobe's processing of raw images and color profiling as far and as fast as you can.
The key thing to understand is that Adobe's raw processing software is not and never has been intended to create colorimetric renderings. Its oft-stated goal is instead "pleasing" color. Which is a good thing for shareholders, because most of Adobe's customers are much more interested in "pleasing" color than accurate color.
Or, at least they *think* they are...but that's a rant for another time. The short version is that virtually all of the complaints that photographers have, all of the holy grails they keep chasing, are a result of the compromises necessary to achieve "pleasing" color. For example, That S-curve that virtually always gets applied to "enhance contrast and give an image 'pop'" is what destroys shadow and highlight detail. It *has* to; TANSTAAFL.
Anyway, the end result is that there's no way to get colorimetric accuracy out of Adobe's raw processing software, and even getting in the ballpark is a challenge. But with different software, it's quite practical to, for example, photograph an artwork and make a print such that the artist herself has to very closely and carefully examine the two side-by-side to spot the differences.
A similar workflow can produce superlative results in general photography, including landscape and portraiture and the like. The key there is to always shoot in good light, which means finding or making good light. Which also means seeing good light and being able to recognize what is and isn't good light. Many of those techniques used for "pleasing" results are really just tools to fix bad light in post-processing. But that's yet another rant for yet another time....
I should also add: so long as you don't rely upon Adobe products for the colorimetrically-critical parts of your workflow, especially raw development and profile conversion, you'll be hard-pressed to find better tools for the rest of your editing tasks, from noise reduction to sharpening to cleanup to geometry corrections to compositing to layout and design to all the rest. You're especially not going to find anything else as comprehensive and as well integrated. It's just that Adobe's engineers are solving a different problem from the one of colorimetric accuracy. They solve the problems they're intending to solve rather well, but that (of course! TANSTAAFL again) creates insolvable problems for those seeking colorimetric accuracy.
TL/DR: Use the right tool for the right job, and Adobe products are great tools designed for uses that exclude colorimetric accuracy.
Cheers,
b&
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