Re: There is no place for individual taste in screen appearance.
Re: There is no place for individual taste in screen appearance.
- Subject: Re: There is no place for individual taste in screen appearance.
- From: José Ángel Bueno García <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 00:17:35 +0100
Good. The workflow at the institution is absolutely standard. Most of the
users of the photography facilities have never seen a print (from an twelve
inks inkjet printer) match a display, and I do that with low effort but
with the necessary tools. Yes, I know the tools and the glossary. My only
question/proposal is why the first answer to the question wasn't "you must
buy a colorimeter if you want to know what you are seeing".
And yes, I take spectral measurements of the light sources involved in the
reproduction of art to build profiles. And many more.
Salud
2014-06-06 23:47 GMT+01:00 Ben Goren <email@hidden>:
> On Jun 6, 2014, at 2:26 PM, José Ángel Bueno García <email@hidden>
> wrote:
>
> > Are you are saying that if I measure RGB values in PS of achromatic
> patches of a ColorChecker, the numbers are lying because I haven't profiled
> my MacBook Air display?. Or that I can't define a white value on a scene
> with different light sources?.
>
> Both, actually.
>
> The ColorChecker Passport is a superlative target for field use...but even
> its neutral patches aren't perfectly spectrally flat. Hell, even Spectralon
> isn't perfectly spectrally flat. That means that a properly white balanced
> image of a ColorChecker won't have patches with perfectly equal RGB values
> (even if there are circumstances where rounding reduces them to the same
> values). (Incidentally, that's also why using an eyedropper to set white
> balance is always an approximation...though you _can_ build a profile from
> an image of a ColorChecker and then query the profile to determine exact
> color balance.)
>
> And then, after questions of the (lack of) neutrality in the neutral
> patches, you get into a really deep quagmire of questions over color
> balance and adaptation and illuminants and the like once you consider
> actual photographs of actual ColorCheckers (original or Passport or
> otherwise) in actual lighting when viewed on actual displays in actual
> environments with their actual ambient lighting.
>
> What's the purpose you're trying to achieve? To exactly reproduce the
> light reflected off the original ColorChecker? Can't do that, not with an
> RGB display. To exactly create light that creates an equivalent tristimulus
> response? Within gamut and brightness limits, that may be possible, but,
> unless ambient light conditions (including monitor brightness and white
> point) exactly match the original, it's going to look weird. To make the
> onscreen photograph and the ColorChecker look the same when you hold the
> ColorChecker up to the screen? That's the main goal of color management,
> and it's possible to do that quite well. To do the same, but capture the
> "mood" of the original lighting (such as a landscape at sunset)? That's
> also possible, and is what most photographers strive for.
>
> But a big part of the problem in this discussion, I think, is a
> misunderstanding that there's an actual color we can call "white" -- or,
> indeed, any actual color at all. Instead, what we have are light sources
> with their spectral power distributions; reflective surfaces that reflect
> different wavelengths in different proportions; and tristimulus values that
> are very much dependent on ambient observing conditions.
>
> Fortunately, in practice, most of all that chaos resolves itself and
> things "just work," at least if you have a decent color-managed workflow.
> But you can very quickly drive yourself crazy chasing after ever better
> "matches" between things that, even in principle, can never be the same.
>
> My general advice: profile everything to standards, and deviate from that
> only if you have good and specific reason to do so. If it's "close enough,"
> leave it at that. If not, first question again if it's "close enough" --
> and do so by reminding yourself of the environment in which the images will
> be viewed. _National Geographic,_ for example, has exemplary color...but
> their images look like dark mud in the typical living room in the evening
> when lit with an incandescent bulb, and they look equally bad in a doctor's
> office lit with cheap fluorescent bulbs. Their industry-best standards are
> wasted on the overwhelming majority of their readers. Unless your own
> audience is more critical than that of _National Geographic,_ obsessing
> over minor variations that you have to seek out is serious overkill. If the
> print looks "just fine" in the light through a window, you're already at
> the point of diminishing returns.
>
> There's one notable exception, and that's when you know _exactly_ what the
> viewing environment is going to be, and you can measure the light with a
> spectrophotometer and build your print profile using that measurement. In
> other words, when making prints specifically for an exhibition in a
> particular gallery. In that case, you really can dial in things as much as
> your heart might desire and reasonably expect to see all that extra work
> come to fruition. But if it's your generic magazine or Web site or even art
> fair print...if your workflow is color managed and it looks "good enough,"
> it _is_ good enough.
>
> Cheers,
>
> b&
>
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