Re: Silly question department, Display Media White Point
Andrew, I have seen your video and I do have some issues with it but I'll have to let it pass for now. I know what you are getting at as I have worked with a multitude of devices over the years. All I am saying is what I see in high volume production houses. Not art houses. In general, I do not have an issue with the validity of your method but I still don't understand why you want to work in a colour space that hardly any device can reproduce including wide gamut monitors.
I find the main reason people use AdobeRGB is because they have been told bigger is better.
Depending on the output, it most certainly is!
That's exactly what I'm saying however, most of the high volume digital printing devices do NOT have a wide gamut. We're not talking about 11 or 12 colour inkjet printers here or even about contract proofing.
I've got the prints to prove it.
...and so have I but I was also talking about the relevance to cross media publishing where the primary concern is some sort of consistency across the different platforms, not getting the most 'faithful' or most colourful rendering. In this environment you are constrained by the 'lowest common denominator'. The priority here is that the images are 'good enough' to match across a host of devices, some colour managed, some not, that will be viewed under a range of conditions. It's a bitter pill to swallow for those of us who have put so much into making ICC colour management work but that's the way it is. Not the way we would like it. I've got a file to prove it to (question, do you have an output device
which will greatly suffer using sRGB)? You can prove it to yourself with the file and a decent output device:
Done it many times over. I also have devices on which these wider gamut spaces are just wasted.
The benefits of wide gamut working spaces on printed output:
NOT including high-speed commercial offset.
This three part, 32 minute video covers why a wide gamut RGB working space like ProPhoto RGB can produce superior quality output to print.
All well and good but the problem is that high volume production houses do not have the time for it. They are already an endangered species. They want OPTIMUM quality that is predictable and consistent on a range of devices, not necessarily 'high' quality, at least not as we know it. Their margins are already paper thin (pardon the pun). It's just not an option for economic viability. How many newspapers would do this? They just dismantled the biggest presses here and literally sent them for scrap! It's called 'horses for courses'. Remember, I'm not talking about high quality photographic prints of archival quality. Relatively speaking, that's a niche market. In summary, a system is only as good as it's weakest link. If it was hi-fi sound you would not connect $10k speakers to a $50 amp. Most images aren't even being shot on what we would consider pro equipment these days. Our 'entry level' CANON 5Ds has supplanted the medium format studio cameras because the majority of the images either go online and or into a catalogue printed on coated toilet paper. The means has to be justified by the end result. Regards, Mark
On Feb 21, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Mark Stegman <mark.stegman@gmail.com> wrote:
That's exactly what I'm saying however, most of the high volume digital printing devices do NOT have a wide gamut.
Fine, convert to a smaller gamut output space (you have to anyway). IF you have a wider gamut output space, you've got the data. Simple as that. 95% of my images start as raw. In a converter that uses a ProPhoto RGB color space gamut for processing. Some images exceed sRGB, some don't. Some exceed Adobe RGB (1998), some don't. The rendering engine ALWAYS uses ProPhoto RGB in all above cases. Rendering in anything but ProPhoto RGB only buys color clipping and makes inferior prints to the device I use often that also exceeds Adobe RGB (1998). Concisering the source data and the the output, why would anyone using a similar workflow use anything smaller in terms of gamut than wha the raw converter is producing?
...and so have I but I was also talking about the relevance to cross media publishing where the primary concern is some sort of consistency across the different platforms, not getting the most 'faithful' or most colourful rendering.
I can still do the same with my wider gamut original data. All I've done is not clip colors that can and will clip if I use anything but ProPhoto RGB in my raw converter of choice.
In this environment you are constrained by the 'lowest common denominator'.
We all are! I've got to deal with sRGB output all the time (to the web, mobile devices etc) and again, the original wide gamut data that again goes through ProPhoto to get to sRGB presents no issue working with this even l lower 'lowest common denominator' working space. I just don't clip when I need something a lot better. That's often the case. Again, the print output in the video, the prints you can make yourself to a similar or identical device which is neither expensive nor rare proves the wider gamut working space produces a vastly superior print. Anyone who downloads the test file can then use it on whatever devcie they wish and make their own conclusions. For output to a desktop inkjet, sRGB is awful, Adobe RGB (1998) is better but inferior to using ProPhoto RGB. Again, it is rather simple and the proof's in the print.
The priority here is that the images are 'good enough' to match across a host of devices, some colour managed, some not, that will be viewed under a range of conditions.
That's why both of us and others implement color management in the first place. The wider gamut working space from my raw data doesn’t change that. It actually provinces more options! One reason I use a wide gamut display system much wider than sRGB.
NOT including high-speed commercial offset.
Actually it does if we discuss the 'lowest common denominator, sRGB option so many recommend to dumb down all this topic. At least with the offset profiles I've built, they exceed sRGB gamut but here is where Adobe RGB (1998) is a better option and will produce like my video, better output if the colors are provided that do fall outside sRGB gamut we both know falls within Adobe RGB (1998) gamut. But there are no prefect RGB working space or we'd all use just one. You've got three that are common, pretty well known and in the case of a raw workflow with one manufacturers product, used for rendering. So we have to pick. sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), ProPhoto RGB. Picking the wrong one clips colors that COULD be output. Please provide a test whereby I can see the downside to using that wider gamut space renderd from my raw when converting to sRGB to make it simple. For output to the lowest common denominator: images on a web page.
All well and good but the problem is that high volume production houses do not have the time for it.
The video isn't about issues with production volume house and their lack of time to produce the best possible output! The video is for the photographer shooting raw who's been told sRGB is the best answer for their output. Hogwash. The prints says otherwise. If you feel a rebuttal is necessary from the side of the production house to claim sRGB is as good as it will ever get, I look froward to that video.
They want OPTIMUM quality that is predictable and consistent on a range of devices, not necessarily 'high' quality, at least not as we know it.
And they can get that using a wide gamut working space. If they don't know the difference between sRGB and ProPhoto RGB nor have any care to do so, I have a rather short video expactly for them and you have my permission to send it out to all such customers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9JxXL_arbA Less than 2 minutes. Perfect for those customers who have quality and attention difficulties in terms of color ;-)
In summary, a system is only as good as it's weakest link.
Yes it is. A smaller gamut working space is a weak link when the output can improve by using a larger one. Andrew Rodney http://www.digitaldog.net/
participants (2)
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Andrew Rodney
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Mark Stegman