How many remember the halcyon days of big color guy parties, such as the Gretag NDA intro of the i1 in Orlando?
Yes, and the i3forum in Laguna Beach and the ACN network of ColorSync Consultants… “ColorSync” really isn’t a relevant term anymore is it? It’s a relic of a bygone era.
It would be interesting to find how many of that gang stayed in the biz through Covid.
Still in the biz and doing more interesting projects than ever. COVID was the wrench in the machine I needed. Putting a stop to being on the road 5+ days a week was amazing and allowed me to think more about what I’d really like to focus my time on. I’ve never been very interested in the G7 offset press calibration side of things. I’ve always been more focused on large format printing processes that picky art market clients use (solvent, latex, UV and dyesub), the artwork capture side of things, and techniques to get perfect reproductions. While getting the most out of aqueous inkjet is long put to bed, people still struggle with solvent and dyesub in particular and the RIPs haven’t raised the bar to help these users, sadly. It’s the capture side of things that's really so exciting and has seen so much improvement in recent years. 4 point lighting systems with exquisite polarization, camera profiling, workflow tweaking and colorimetric ∆E reports is all really exciting to master. This along with today’s 100/400 megapixel cameras allows us to document work quickly at insane detail. Today’s cloud based databases make managing collections a lovely experience and combining gigapixel viewing within them is still just starting to come to market. Adobe has leapfrogged Capture One with a few key technologies. It’s an exciting area where there’s a lot happening… And there’s a lot of imaging workflows that are being moved to the cloud. I’m seeing my larger clients intake customer files online, process images in the cloud (including color management) and run through the appropriate printer RIPs often with CM turned off. The cloud is the smart big brain and the RIPs are dumb passthrough workstations. So that’s another exciting area seeing a lot of growth right now. On a personal level, I’m fairly excited at how much better the i1Pro3 is from the 1Pro2 and how easy it is to take M3 measurements with the i1Pro3plus. These tools are fast and affordable and the end results speak for themselves. And Apple Silicon! ColorSync is gonna rock on that M1Max 16” laptop next week I'm sure… Getting the Quadra 660av was the last time I was as excited about getting a new machine.
Conjecture and chatter are that we are down to perhaps 10%.
Thank god for that ;-p I think the argumentative big egos and chest beating have driven people away. I do so miss those early days of inquisitive discussions with open sharing. Tip of the hat to all of you - you know who you are. Scott Martin www.on-sight.com Imaging Science for Art