Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory
Dan’s Photofinishing Test for PP5E
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Mon May 15, 2006 7:52pm(PDT)
Subject: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Before my last trip, I started a thread called
"Has Anyone Tried This?" in which I said I was going to test
photo labs and also cheap providers of photofinishing services, sending
them a set of RGB files with a view to finding out how the degree of color
variability in their prints would compare to sending CMYK files to a
commercial printer.
I said that I suspected that variability would be at
least as bad, but the list did not have a consensus. Some people thought
the match would be very close. I have now done enough of the testing to be
able to give a conclusion, which is, the variability is considerably worse
than that found at commercial printers.
My test consists of 25 real images (one contains a
computer-generated gradient; one is an RGB grayscale image; one has clearly
inadequate resolution. The rest pose every kind of challenge, and were
specifically picked to check on all aspects of the provider's work. One
image is duplicated, once with an sRGB profile and once with an Adobe RGB
profile assigned and embedded.)
I said the test would be of a dozen facilities, but I
intend to have some of this work done when I am on the road, so that it
would not just include New Jersey. So I only have seven packages so far.
Four are done by photo labs or by shops that service serious photographers.
One charged me 49 cents per print, another 39, and two charged me 39 cents
for the first 20 prints and 29 cents thereafter.
I also went to a large chain store, where they have a
serious photofinishing department with full-time personnel and high-end
equipment. They charged me 29 cents per print. I also went to self-service
photo kiosks in a drug store, which also charged 29 cents, and at my local
grocery store, which charged 23 cents.
The equipment came from four different manufacturers,
six different models.
Here are the findings.
*Taking the three low-cost providers as one group and
the photo labs as another, the low-cost providers kicked butt. The single
best result came from a photo lab, but two of the four produced
unacceptable work.
*Of the seven providers, I would say that one delivered
first-rate work, approximately what I expected. A second, which used the
same equipment but different paper, was distinctly cooler. Fleshtones
looked disturbingly blue. A third provider had a greenish-yellow bias. Much
of the time this actually made the pictures look better, and in fact a
layperson might well prefer this package to the one that I would say did
the better job. However, in an image of a blond (the same one in Chapter 16
of Canyon Conundrum) the hair came out slightly green, and the B/W image
clearly was yellow. Nevertheless, I rate all three of these packages as
acceptable. They are in line with the variation one might get from
commercial printers.
*I rated two others as marginally acceptable. One was
basically OK but plugged shadow areas badly. The other pumped color into
saturated areas, which generally looked good, but whenever I had to hold
detail in a vividly colored area such as a flower, it turned into a blob.
Again, it was generally pleasing color, and a layperson might actually
prefer this package to the one that I think is the best.
*The last two were not acceptable because one was
grossly dark and the other grossly light. By "grossly" I mean
that if the file were in CMYK, the dot gain setting would have to go up or
down 8-10% to duplicate these results.
*One package had banding in the gradient and the other
six did not.
*One B/W image came out just right; three others were
off slightly; three others were very far off and clearly would not be
accepted by anybody as B/W work.
*All seven providers ignored the embedded profile.
*With the exception of one provider where highlight
detail was totally blown out, all these systems seem to have similar
capabilities. I could write an action that could make any one of them match
any other in from ten minutes to one hour, depending on how eccentric the
initial conditions were.
*I was treated courteously everywhere.
*The employees at the photo labs seemed knowledgeable.
I have no clue how their companies make any money by doing this type of
work.
*****************
Conclusion. I will be putting a couple of these images
in the next edition of Professional Photoshop in a chapter about how to
cope with the realities of printing conditions. I will show half a dozen
variants and compare them to the results of giving the same CMYK files to
half a dozen printers.
I must say, after doing this test, that I am even more
disgusted, if possible, at the tactics of the mindless color management
apologists who are always saying that all printers are brain-dead and that
there is an industry conspiracy whereby printers don't calibrate because
they want to make money on reprints. What this test appears to demonstrate
is that if you just send a CMYK file, without further information, to a
random commercial printer, unless there is a process control problem you
will probably get a more predictable result than if you send a properly
tagged sRGB file to a photo lab.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "David Riecks"
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 9:02am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan:
First off, thanks for sharing your results. I think
you'll find once you are on the road and testing others, that the results
will be pretty similar to what you have learned already.
This is one of the main reasons why I helped to get the
Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines coaltion started. We
released version 1.0 of the UPDIG guidelines last October in order to
address these very issues. For anyone that is interested, the website is
http://www.updig.org/ and there is a PDF version for download as well.
I'm giving a talk tonight in Chicago for the American
Society of Picture Professionals and will use your findings as one more
example of the problems with sending out digital files.
Another example I will relate regards a
"Professional" lab that I auditioned recently. The first test did
not meet my expectations, so I called and got through to the senior most
tech person in the lab. What she told me completely contradicted what the
sales staff told me, and explained the problem with my unhappiness of my
initial test.
In this instance, the sales staff told me that they
could handle AdobeRGB files. However the tech person said to convert all
files to sRGB and then send!!! Since I'd sent Adobe RGB files and the
printer simply ignored the profile, the results were a very flat color
response.
My second test and subsequent actual print runs were
right on the money, and have remained so since then.
Contrast that with having prints made at my local drug
store on their Fuji Frontier machine. I knew that I would have to supply
sRGB files, so converted files before taking them in. Provided I stuck with
reasonable end points for highlights and shadows, my initial tests were
very positive. I had little to no interaction with the staff, and the
result were very pleasing. This was because I assumed they would not know
the answers to my questions, and I converted my files to the "lowest
common denominator."
I've always made it a point to speak directly to the
prepress people or most knowledgeable press person when sending CMYK files
to a 4 color printing firm. This direct communication helps me to determine
what the type of file and specifications that are needed. The sales people
at these firms are often operating with old knowledge, and are not up to
speed with what is happening in their own plant. Nearly everytime I've
trusted what a saleperson told me I've ended up with results that I was not
completely happy with.
It appears that I need to apply the same methodology
when sending in RGB files to any local printer, be they professional lab or
consumer minilab. Assume the lowest common denominator, and the results
will be reasonable. Assuming anything more is asking for trouble without
extensive testing.
Thanks,
David
--
David Riecks (that's "i" before
"e", but the "e" is silent)
http://www.riecks.com , Chicago Midwest ASMP member
Chair, SAA Imaging Technology Standards committee
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "George Reis"
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 9:19am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I haven't been to a photo lab in quite some time, and
maybe that's why I'm confused. Are you saying that "shops that service
serious photographers" are providing prints for 49 cents each or less?
I looked up one of the labs I used to use (Photomation in Anaheim, CA) and
found that they charge $9.35 for a 4 X 5 inch "Digital Master"
print.
If you aren't comparing professional photo labs in your
test, that's probably where my confusion lies. But, it would be interesting
to see if paying 20 times your current highest price gives you better, more
consistent results.
George
--
Imaging Forensics <http:
//www.imagingforensics.com
Forensic image analysis, digital imaging &
photography.
Consulting, training & litigation support.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "jimbean"
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 10:13am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
a few comments, most 1-hour labs may have one
semi-knowledgeable tech on staff, with several more part-time students
filling in... no real training or suprise there.. the facts are: most
consumers not only do not know what they are looking at... but if there
were problems... who do you think they blame? they blame themselves, not
the lab, not their cell phone camera.. little black dogs that are now
unnaturally blue, unbelieveably thin/underexposed/impossible flash shots
that look incredibly good, family 'portraits' where everyone looks
radioactive.. an everyday experience.. the vast volume of photography is
generated by people that are happy to see any likeness from their
efforts/regardless of the 'quality'...
several area professional photographers do utilize
these labs.. and each shop also 'writes an action' or similar to dan's in
an effort to help the output... I believe the biggest challenge yet is to
produce images not for the 1-hour guys.. but for commercial printers and
larger offices that output to a variety of 'digital presses' via a variety
of rips (cmyk?)...
additionally, several comments continue regarding
artificial/naturally occuring gradients... if you want to see variation in
output.. send any form of gradients to several of the newer generation
printers.. 'the possibilities are unlimited...'
best, jim bean
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Howard Smith
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 0:20pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
David,
Your comments gave me a clue as to why I used to get
such pitiful results from professional labs, whether they were developing
film, scanning from transparencies, or directly from the originals placed
on an oversided flatbed scanner. I was dealing with a different kind of
lowest common denominator--the sales reps and desk clerks. Had I gone to
the experts in charge, perhaps the outcomes would have been far better. The
lcd's routinely brushed off complaints by arguing that the results were
outstanding and that I just didn't know what I was talking about. To be
fair, one established printing firm called out the entire staff to argue
that a marked fluorescent green cast in an offset job was all in my
imagination.
There's just no substitute for investing in the
equipment to do your own work whenever its feasible. At least in the case
of having digital photos printed, your suggestion about using sSRGB for the
files may solve a lot of problems for all of us.
Howard Smith
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 4:54pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Howard, you are absolutely correct in stating that good
communications make the difference. I've run a quality custom photo lab for
thirty years, and I can categorically state that without proper
communications with the customer, it's impossible to give consistent and
predictable results. However, it isn't that hard to give or get the right
instructions if both parties are willing. Unfortunately, most minilab
operators are completely helpless where it comes to color management issues
and they wouldn't know what to do with the correct info anyway.
As I've said before, there's no way to simply put a CD
in the average machine and come out with perfect color. With our Agfa
digital lab, we must stop in Photoshop first, do a profile conversion and
then utilize the almost unknown "repro mode" to send the files to
the machine, bypassing the front end "intelligence" of the lab.
It's the only way to get predictable color, even with this top-of-the-line
equipment, and I don't know of anyone else in the business who knows about
it let alone takes the trouble to do it. The problem is that photographers
have become the worst consumers and want all labs to be cost competitive
with Wal-Mart and Costco. How much service can you offer for nineteen
cents?
It's a sad commentary on the business and the economy
that so many people like yourself have decided that they have to do their
own work if they want it done right. This is because the best labs have
been driven out of existence by the likes of Walgreen's and those who think
that it's all the same except for the price.
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
fairfield, nj
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Adam L (CT)"
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 8:45pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan,
I've tested Wal-Mart 1 hour digital prints (19 cents
each). I found each of 3 locations to be very contrasty. 33, 33, 33 went
completely black, and 240 was pure white. Midtones were reasonably good for
a test print, but not critical matching. There is no image enhancements,
they just print it as is, however, I didn't ask about the profile, but on
the other hand, I always gave them Srgb.
I just came back from a 5 week trip to India and have
selected 500 prints in the first cut. I need prints to edit it down
properly, and Rite Aid seemed to do a well enough job with highlights and
shadows, color, etc... to have a good enough feel to continue editing down.
Cost: 19 cents for 50 or more prints, and when friends put their sticky
fingers all over them, I won't worry.
The biggest problem I found are in the edges of fine
detail, (like palm trees backlight against a sunset, or a salt and pepper
colored beard), the blacks go greenish at Rite Aid, and at Wal-Mart black
and white images turn slightly reddish in hard edge contrasty areas.
I would never give this quality of print to a client.
Adam Lejak
562.972.4157
Ready To-Go!
AdamLejakPhotography.com
Photo & Digital Assistant
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "David Harradine"
Date: Tue May 16, 2006 9:24pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1780
Hi Dan
Did you return to see if they were at least consistent
with their unique settings ?
If so you could easily profile them and have their
number.
David Harradine
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Shangara Singh"
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 4:16am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 16 May 2006, at 16:58, David Riecks wrote:
In this instance, the sales staff told me that they
could handle
AdobeRGB files. However the tech person said to
convert all files to
sRGB and then send!!! Since I'd sent Adobe RGB files
and the printer
simply ignored the profile, the results were a very
flat color
response.
David
I had a similar experience with a pro lab in the UK. I
went to them because they were supposed to be fully color managed. They
looked into it when I complained and found, though they were color managed,
the printer used for my job wasn't setup to honour profiles automatically.
They then did the conversion manually before sending the files to the
printer and all was fine.
My second test and subsequent actual print runs were
right on the
money, and have remained so since then.
Ditto.
Contrast that with having prints made at my local drug
store on their
Fuji Frontier machine. I knew that I would have to
supply sRGB files,
so converted files before taking them in.
Ditto.
Shangara Singh.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Lee Clawson"
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 7:09am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1780
on 5/17/06 12:18 AM, David Harradine wrote:
Hi Dan
Did you return to see if they were at least consistent
with their
unique settings ?
If so you could easily profile them and have their
number.
David,
I as thinking the same thing. Without repeating the
tests, that is, knowing if the results are repeatable, none of our
conclusions are going to hold up. In addition I'd like know we aren't
seeing differences (if any) between poorly calibrated/maintained equipment
vs standard working methods.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 9:48am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
David Harradine writes,
Did you return to see if they were at least consistent
with their
unique settings?
I will be doing that in about a month, but I know that
at least two of these sources are repeatable. I would be quite surprised if
repeatability is a problem here, the way it is on a press.
If so you could easily profile them and have their
number.
Now that I've seen their output I could certainly give
almost any one of these labs files that would match the reference ones, and
I could do so this afternoon, if necessary.
That, I think, is a side issue. The more interesting
observation is that for all the braying about how printers need standards
and printers are brain-dead and printers are Luddites, the printers seem to
be a lot better color-managed and a lot more standards-oriented than the
photo labs are. If you give an untagged CMYK file to a random printer, it
appears that you get a *far* more predictable result than if you give a
properly prepared sRGB file to a random photo lab.
It goes without saying that there are good printers and
bad ones, and likewise good and bad photo labs.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Henry"
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 5:02pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 17, 2006, at 12:37 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:
The more interesting observation is that for
all the braying about how printers need
standards and printers are brain-dead
and printers are Luddites, the printers seem to
be a lot better color-managed
and a lot more standards-oriented than the photo
labs are. If you give an
untagged CMYK file to a random printer, it
appears that you get a *far* more
predictable result than if you give a properly
prepared sRGB file to a random photo
lab.
One consideration is that the mechanical aspects of a
press give cause to the employees to be concerned about the size and
quality of the dots they are printing. Gee whiz, they walk around with
loupes and study dots - they troubleshoot at this level.
In the case of fairly hands-off, self-calibrating
photoprint machines, one would figure that there would be more time and
attention given to workflow since they aren't spending time grinding out
mechanical issues. This test is revealing that in some cases even no
attention is given to workflow. But, it may not matter - except to a small
population of customers.
One poster suggested that most photoprint customers
care more about the subject in the scenes than the precision of the color
and contrast, and pros are finding that swimming with the masses is hit or
miss with regard to quality and repeatability. Now, I'm not suggesting that
all print houses are excellent, but they do have a tradition of process
control that hasn't yet evolved with the photoprint shops. The question for
labs is how many different workflows they will develop and ride herd over
for each of their customer's differing needs. There will be one or two
workflows for the pros and another for the general public, as well as a
method for figuring out how to do future reprints so that they match. It is
a mess already, and gets even messier when juggling the solutions.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 6:34pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan,
Was there any instruction given to either honor or not
honor the profiles? Some technicians may take it upon themselves to
"improve" an image and others may not. I've had professional
photographers yell at me for NOT changing their images to make them better.
They actually said that just because there was an embedded profile we
didn't have to honor it - for less than fifty cents a print, mind you. This
paradigm is appropriate when printing from negatives where the darkroom
tech actually creates the image, but with digital I expect that the
photographer has done his job to his satisfaction before I get the file.
Still, there are those who assume that we fix everything and want us to do
so, and then there are those who want us to not change a thing. In short,
we have to be told.
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Henry"
Date: Wed May 17, 2006 6:59pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 16, 2006, at 7:52 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
Unfortunately, most minilab operators are completely
helpless where it comes to color management issues and
they wouldn't
know what to do with the correct info anyway.
This might also be a suitable description of *most*
minilab customers -- just as the big boxes predicted.
Kudos to you for offering a higher level of service. Do
you have many customers that are not pros? I would be curious to know
if they are put off by customer service talk about color management and
what profiles are or are not embedded in their files etc. Questions
from print service providers about file prep in CMYK make some novice print
designers/buyers uncomfortable, so I am guessing that it could generate
some discomfort. I try to bone up whenever I go to the auto parts store so
that I can answer their questions about my car, but I wouldn't have guessed
that going to get pictures would have become as complicated.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 3:05am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Those who lack time or curiosity generally want us to
correct their images to print a 'pleasing result' and that's the end of the
discussion We get pros as well as the general public in this category and
they are made to understand that we're deciding how their files look as we
print them.
Those who want to know more are never put off by the
discussion. They like to do their own color adjustments and are instructed
that they must use a calibrated display and embed a proper profile. Some of
them also go further to actually convert to our output profile and crop and
size their images to the 400 ppi necessary for output. These folks get the
most predictable results.
To answer your first question, there are just as many
non-pros as pros who understand these issues. There are also far too many
pros who are only concerned with price. These are generally wedding
shooters who do such volume that saving a few pennies per print means a lot
to them at the end of the year. They generally wind up being customers at
big box stores like Costco.
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:01am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John Castronovo writes,
Dan,
Was there any instruction given to either honor or not
honor the profiles?
Some technicians may take it upon themselves to
"improve" an image and
others may not. I've had professional photographers
yell at me for NOT
changing their images to make them better. They
actually said that just
because there was an embedded profile we didn't have
to honor it - for less
than fifty cents a print, mind you. This paradigm is
appropriate when
printing from negatives where the darkroom tech
actually creates the image,
but with digital I expect that the photographer has
done his job to his
satisfaction before I get the file. Still, there are
those who assume that
we fix everything and want us to do so, and then there
are those who want us
to not change a thing. In short, we have to be told.
Most of the files in my test were tagged sRGB, some
were untagged, and one was tagged Adobe RGB. The vendors were not informed,
and, as I expected, the tags were ignored, although I did think that there
might be enough remembrance of the resistance-is-futile days that maybe one
or two sources might either honor the profile or at least raise a question
about it.
I agree also that you have to be told, but if I
remember correctly this is a slight change of view on your part. We had
this problem a couple of years back. We had one long thread where the
printer honored a CMYK embedded profile without discussing it with the
client, and the job was ruined and the client wanted it redone. We had a
second where the printer ignored an RGB embedded profile without discussing
it with the client and the job was ruined and the client wanted it redone.
In both cases the list was asked for advice. I said that I believe the
first printer has to rerun the job for free , but by the same token the
second client is out of luck.
If somebody else wants to reverse it--say that the
printer has to eat the cost of the second job--then it seems to me that as
a matter of intellectual consistency they have to tell the client to eat
the cost of the first. The amazing thing was that some people wanted the
printers to eat BOTH jobs.
That is, whichever decision you make, if it turns out
wrong, you pay. Easy solution, they said--educate the client! When each
file comes in, check it out to see if it has a profile. If it does, call up
the client and find out whether he knows what he's doing, and if he
doesn't, educate him. But certainly, don't charge for it.
Under these circumstances I think the logical response
is the one you state above.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:02am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John Castronovo writes,
Those who want to know more are never put off by the
discussion. They like
to do their own color adjustments and are instructed
that they must use a
calibrated display and embed a proper profile. Some of
them also go further
to actually convert to our output profile and crop and
size their images to
the 400 ppi necessary for output. These folks get the
most predictable
results.
There's only one problem with this scenario, as several
other graphic arts segments have found out. You give out a lot of free
advice, because you are a full service provider, and it makes the client
more knowledgeable, which is good. It also empowers the client to get good
results from Costco, and no matter how loyal and ethical the client is,
sooner or later that knowledge will come back to bite you.
I am not certain this is a viable business model.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Ric Cohn"
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 9:10am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 18, 2006, at 8:47 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
It also empowers the client to get good
results from Costco, and no matter how loyal and
ethical the client
is, sooner or later that knowledge will come back to
bite you.
I am not certain this is a viable business model.
Sad and probably true. I've heard it said "no good
deed goes unpunished". This is an ongoing process with both
Photographer's and Labs (and I'm sure Printers). As far as I can see, the
only solution is to continually adjust like an antibody to the disease.
Once the disease is out there, ignoring it is not an option. Unfortunately,
sometimes the "cure" can be fatal.
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Tom Judd"
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 9:53am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I'm not sure that a business model that depends on
hiding a better solution from your clients is viable either. They will
eventually find out that they can get adequate results at far lower cost in
cases where that makes sense, and their resulting anger will be directed at
you.
I sympathize with print vendors who are struggling to
make a go of their rapidly changing business. They are concerned with their
bottom line, but so are their customers. Loyalty and ethics don't count for
much in today's business climate, unfortunate as that may be. Receiving
good perceived value is what makes me come back to a vendor, and I don't
think I'm unique in that respect.
I think Ric has the correct approach. Conventional
photofinishers will have to adapt to the new technology. As digital
minilabs become ever more automatic, the indifferent/untrained operators
will become less critical. I personally get good results from sending sRGB
files to Costco and Walmart in those cases where I just need a large number
of snapshots. The critical work I print myself but I can't afford the time
or materials to make 4x6 prints myself in quantity.
So if you want to compete in the 4x6 market, get the
best digital machine you can find and run it better than the guy next door.
But don't expect to compete with 59-cent prints when 19-cent prints are
(nearly) as good. Otherwise, find a niche that the guy next door doesn't
fill and keep your costs reasonable.
Tom Judd
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:17pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan - you are so very right on this. Truer words are
seldom said, yet I don't know how to avoid doing it. Yours is the best
model, "If you want to know, come to one of my courses or buy my
book". In my case, I'm standing right there with someone picking my
brains for a half hour for free. I've actually had to defend our scanning
work after someone brought it to Costco to be printed and he didn't like
the results. This defense and time cost me more than actually re-printing
Costco's work for free.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:17pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
What's the point in buying the best machine and running
it better than the guy next door if people like yourself are only going to
use an outside service when you're looking for the best price? If I could
show that I not only can honor your profiles but my color gamut is at least
ten percent larger than Costco's with better darks and blacks does it
matter to you or anyone else any more? You're right. The era of the custom
lab is definitely over. Many people come to us for a free education so they
can work it somewhere else that's cheap. Fortunately there are still those
who put value on integrity, knowledge, relationships and hard work but they
are a vanishing minority.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:17pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Not really a change of view on my part because the
scenario is different where a file is being sent to a printer for a large
order worth maybe thousands of impressions and when a file is sent to a
minilab for a print worth less than a dollar. It would seem that in all
cases, more communication is always a good thing. In your second example, I
still say that the RGB profile should've been honored by the printer or at
least questioned if only because the size of the job. We're not talking
about
pennies in that case.
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Tom Judd
Date: Thu May 18, 2006 6:42pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John Castronovo wrote:
What's the point in buying the best machine and
running it better than the
guy next door if people like yourself are only going
to use an outside
service when you're looking for the best price? If I
could show that I not
only can honor your profiles but my color gamut is at
least ten percent
larger than Costco's with better darks and blacks does
it matter to you or
anyone else any more? You're right. The era of the
custom lab is definitely
over. Many people come to us for a free education so
they can work it
somewhere else that's cheap. Fortunately there are
still those who put value
on integrity, knowledge, relationships and hard work
but they are a
vanishing minority.
I have no argument with what you say. I use the
automated labs in cases where I need a lot of prints to give away (e.g.,
from a relative's wedding where there was no photographer). Better
blacks and larger gamut don't matter much in that case. I convert to
sRGB and generally get prints that these folks are thrilled with. The
camera work and Photoshop postprocessing give them prints way beyond what
they're used to.
I do use a custom lab on occasion, mostly for prints
bigger that the 13x19 I can do. I found a place with excellent
profiles and pricing that reflects that I do all of the file prep work.
I have used "custom labs" where the most apparent result is
a high price. If you can show good value to your customers, and find
the right markets, you will stay in business. But it's certainly a
lot harder now than in the past.
Tom Judd
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 3:17am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I must reply that if your only memory of using a custom
lab was the high price, then it sounds like you never found one.
That's so much of a problem that I hardly want to go
there, but most people don't know what's available. They may try what they
believe is the best assuming that reputation somehow equals value, and they
may also think that it couldn't be better elsewhere where there is no
reputation, so why change. I can tell you that in the NYC area the best
labs were never the ones with the top reputations. The best values in
restaurants, mechanics, movies or anything else are usually not the
prosperous ones with the top brand reputations either, so this shouldn't be
surprising.
I'm sure you do good work, so don't take offense at
this, but the philosophy of settling for something that's "better than
they're used to" instead of doing your best, simply to save a few
bucks, is something I've seen taken to extremes everywhere these days. It's
driven the very best out of business. Maybe such beliefs are more endemic
to the current economic crisis than we think - but that's another
discussion on another group.
Cheers,
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Marco Ugolini
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 3:18am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/18/06 4:51 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
Dan - you are so very right on this. Truer words are
seldom said, yet I
don't know how to avoid doing it. Yours is the best
model, "If you want to
know, come to one of my courses or buy my book".
In my case, I'm standing
right there with someone picking my brains for a half
hour for free. I've
actually had to defend our scanning work after someone
brought it to Costco
to be printed and he didn't like the results. This
defense and time cost me
more than actually re-printing Costco's work for free.
Hi John.
Isn't this a somewhat condescending and slightly
spiteful attitude, one that implies that the best customer is an ignorant
customer?
If our livelihood depends on our clients being
clueless, our days are numbered already.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 4:52am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Hi John.
Isn't this a somewhat condescending and slightly
spiteful attitude, one that
implies that the best customer is an ignorant
customer?
If our livelihood depends on our clients being
clueless, our days are
numbered already.
No, the best customer is never clueless. The whole
reason we do educate the customer is to make them better and easier to
communicate with and also so that they understand the difference between
what we do and the less expensive sources. Dan's point, and I agree, is
that most of them will eventually take that knowledge to find ways of doing
their work for less elsewhere and they even teach the lower priced
competition our hard earned knowledge, so it's a bad business model in an
age where loyalty and integrity have all but vanished. It was better in the
last millennium.
I've never had a mechanic invite me into his shop to
teach me how to do my own brakes, but these days more customers are finding
ways of getting free lessons with their work and there's no nice way to
stop it when it gets abusive. How can you answer the arrogance of someone
who's complaining that he can't get results as good as ours when he takes
our scans to Costco or Kinkos and he's demanding that we fix it for him?
john castronovo
tech photo & imaging
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 4:58am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John Castronovo writes,
Not really a change of view on my part because the
scenario is different
where a file is being sent to a printer for a large
order worth maybe
thousands of impressions and when a file is sent to a
minilab for a print
worth less than a dollar. It would seem that in all
cases, more
communication is always a good thing. In your second
example, I still say
that the RGB profile should've been honored by the
printer or at least
questioned if only because the size of the job. We're
not talking about
pennies in that case.
OK, but just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding what
you're saying, I'd like to verify that the following is your position:
that, limited to this specific scenario (unknown client, small order, no
specific instructions, 25 images of which most are either tagged sRGB or
untagged and one is tagged Adobe RGB), your recommended behavior is to
ignore the embedded Adobe RGB profile.
Your point about how more communication is better is
noted and agreed to.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 6:56am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I'd always attempt to get the first question answered
which is whether or not we're supposed to make adjustments to make
"nice" prints or print them without correction. In the first
case, no profiles would be honored as we'd be adjusting each image on the
fly to yield what we think is a pleasing result. In the second case, we'd
honor all embedded profiles and the ones that are not tagged would get
assigned one that we believe to be correct. Without instruction we run the
risk of being wrong either way but opt for the former of ignoring
everything in most cases. What we know about the client plays into that
decision.
To draw a parallel to film, the first case is like the
traditional printing a roll of negatives and having the technician adjust
each image and making reprints of the ones that need further correction,
and the second case is like keying in to the gray card shot at the
beginning of a roll of film and then printing without correction until
there's another gray card (profile) signifying a change of exposure
conditions.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Pylant, Brian"
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 8:41am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
How can you answer the arrogance of someone who's
complaining that
he can't get results as good as ours when he takes our
scans to Costco or
Kinkos and he's demanding that we fix it for him?
Whenever I get a customer who compares my work to
Kinkos, etc. in any manner I politely but firmly explain to them how
Kinko's is at best a low- to mid-level consumer product, not professional
output by any means, and if they want professional-level output then they
shouldn't even be considering a shop like that.
IMO the same would apply to Costco, WalMART, Walgreens,
etc. in regards to photo prints. Do professional photographers stick their
flash drives into that little machine to get prints for their clients?
Doubtful.
I see no harm in telling them that their expectations
are exceeding the realities of the process they have chosen, and if they
want better results then they need to select a better vendor. They are
coming to you for professional work, and they should value your
professional opinion. And if they still somehow feel that Cosco is right
and you are wrong then they are probably clients you really don't want to
keep anyway -- there is nothing wrong with "firing" clients you
lose money on, especially because they irrationally refuse to accept
reality.
BRIAN PYLANT
Manager, Electronic Prepress
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Disc Makers
7905 North Route 130, Pennsauken, NJ 08110
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Henry"
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 10:59am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 19, 2006, at 7:40 AM, jc castronovo wrote:
How can you answer the arrogance of someone who's
complaining that
he can't get results as good as ours when he
takes our scans to Costco or
Kinkos and he's demanding that we fix it for
him?
Goodbye.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Marco Ugolini
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 3:49pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
...plus a very swift kick in the pants!
Marco
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Rick Gordon"
Date: Fri May 19, 2006 4:09pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan,
For the first test, you approached the vendors without
explicit communication of your expectations and with a package that has the
earmarks of an uneducated customer. ("Most of the files in my test
were tagged sRGB, some were untagged, and one was tagged Adobe RGB.")
I think it would be useful to handle test #2 using the
the same approach as before (so you're comparing apples to apples), but
then run a separate test #3 in a different manner. Tell the vendor that the
files are prepared as you want them, and that:
1) They should honor embedded profiles;
2) Where no profiles have been embedded, please assume
the sRGB working space;
3) No enhancement or correction should be applied.
I might expect that some of the low-end vendors may not
have much of a clue as to what you are talking about, but I would also
expect that the high-end vendors might deal with your files differently
based on that premise. If you do that, I think you will have created a test
that is considerably more comprehensive, and ultimately more useful.
Rick Gordon
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Bob Frost"
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 4:39am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan,
The answer to your question "Has anyone tried
this? is YES. Many photography magazines do such tests about once a year to
fill their pages and provide their readers with some idea of the current
best photo labs to use.
What you don't seem to have ackowledged is that many
photo labs have two levels of service. The basic cheap service, usually
uses a Fuji Frontier which does not understand color profiles and which
therefore requires sRGB files which they usually tell you in their
instructions. Small 6x4 prints made by this service costs just a few cents,
pennies, euros, yen, etc each, and the quality depends on the accuracy and
frequency of calibrations. When I was in a camera shop in Tokyo recently,
there was a row of about 20 DIY print machines; you sit in front of the
machine, stick your camera card in, tell it what you want, and out come the
prints.
But many photo labs have a second level of service that
you have to ask for. That uses better machines that are color managed, do
respect icc profiles, and which cost a lot more.
You get what you pay for. Most images are taken in
sRGB, so that is what the cheap machines are designed for.
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Marco Ugolini
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 4:39am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/19/06 4:40 AM, jc castronovo wrote:
I've never had a mechanic invite me into his shop to
teach me how to do my
own brakes, but these days more customers are finding
ways of getting free
lessons with their work and there's no nice way to
stop it when it gets
abusive. How can you answer the arrogance of someone
who's complaining that
he can't get results as good as ours when he takes our
scans to Costco or
Kinkos and he's demanding that we fix it for him?
Hi again, John.
Reading your reply, I believe that I misunderstood you,
for which I apologize. I understand your point better now.
On the plus side, the client can only hope to be able
to do the work as well as you by just stealing a few tips from you here and
there. I doubt that the results will ever be as good as *you*, the
professional, can make them, and the proof is that they came back to you.
What I don't understand is why you ended up reprinting
the job for free for such an unethical customer. Can't you just tell this
sorry specimen to take a jump into the river? Using the nicest words, of
course...
Best regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 11:59am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Bob Frost writes,
Dan,
The answer to your question "Has anyone tried
this? is YES. Many photography
magazines do such tests about once a year to fill
their pages and provide
their readers with some idea of the current best photo
labs to use.
There was a rather extended thread on this topic a
short time ago, in which there was no agreement on the list as to what such
a test would show. If anyone had mentioned these articles then I would have
been happy to have considered them.
What you don't seem to have ackowledged is that many
photo labs have two
levels of service. The basic cheap service, usually
uses a Fuji Frontier
which does not understand color profiles and which
therefore requires sRGB
files which they usually tell you in their
instructions.
No photo lab that I tested had a Fuji Frontier. One
provider, a large general-purpose trade store, did. I rated its output
marginally acceptable.
But many photo labs have a second level of service
that you have to ask for.
That uses better machines that are color managed, do
respect icc profiles,
and which cost a lot more. You get what you pay for.
That tired cliche is not supported by my results. As I
indicated, although the best single performance was by a photo lab, on the
whole, the low-cost providers outperformed the photo labs by a considerable
margin.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 0:00pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Marco Ugolini"
What I don't understand is why you ended up reprinting
the job for free for
such an unethical customer. Can't you just tell this
sorry specimen to take
a jump into the river? Using the nicest words, of
course...
Sometimes it comes to that, but I don't like being
maneuvered into embarrassing myself in public that way (I don't know how to
do it nicely). I'd much rather prove that there's nothing wrong with our
work and hopefully turn the customer around to using us more in the future
rather than taking our work to the cheapest source. A big problem is that
many people want to believe that it's all the same except for the price.
Surprisingly, I find this as often with professionals as with amateurs.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Sat May 20, 2006 0:00pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Rick Gordon writes,
Dan,
For the first test, you approached the vendors without
explicit communication of
your expectations and with a package that has the
earmarks of an uneducated customer.
Correct. I was trying to pass myself off as exactly
that.
I think it would be useful to handle test #2 using the
the same approach as
before (so you're comparing apples to apples), but
then run a separate test #3
in a different manner. Tell the vendor that the files
are prepared as you want
them, and that:
1) They should honor embedded profiles;
2) Where no profiles have been embedded, please assume
the sRGB working space;
3) No enhancement or correction should be applied.
As I categorically recommend against establishing
workflows that require strangers to honor embedded profiles, this test
would be counterproductive. It is clear that the majority of labs don't
know what profiles are and would be uncomfortable with such an approach. If
I were thoroughly confident in the lab (as, for example, if it was John
Castronovo's) then possibly it could be considered. But trying to force
this kind of workflow down the throat of someone who doesn't understand it
is asking for trouble. It's so much safer to write an action that converts
everything to sRGB before giving it to them. Saves time, too.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Peter Leyland
Date: Sun May 21, 2006 3:41pm(PDT)
Subject: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan - you are so very right on this. Truer words are
seldom said, yet I
don't know how to avoid doing it. Yours is the best
model, "If you want to
know, come to one of my courses or buy my book".
In my case, I'm standing
right there with someone picking my brains for a half
hour for free. I've
actually had to defend our scanning work after someone
brought it to Costco
to be printed and he didn't like the results. This
defense and time cost me
more than actually re-printing Costco's work for free.
john castronovo
I guess the future business model just won't include
us? Digital printing along with most other things is destined to become a
commodity and I am sure that should the Walmart's of the world suffer from
customer abuse caused by failure to meet expectation then the equipment
suppliers will inevitably respond by closing the loop. Perhaps they already
have as it has been fairly well established that 'they' will only fail when
presented with a image tagged with an alien profile (anything other than
sRGB). Given that anyone who presents a tagged image hopefully knows what
he, or she, is doing then what's the point in presenting anything other
than a tagged sRGB to a Walmart or a Costco? Even more to the point why do
so without saying so? What is so wrong with adapting the workflow ('yours')
to suit the output device - especially so if price is a factor? We follow
much the same argument when presenting tagged files to a commercial printer
and it would seem to come up a similar range of problems. In so many ways
the aims of colour management are blinded by a desire to be, or even appear
to be, more knowledgeable than the next guy. There really is no point to it
- neither the equipment nor the supplier make any claims to be totally
colour managed and whilst 'we' do (John C and I) I suspect both of us take
any such claims from a 'new' customner with a pinch of salt?
Hopefully the lack of total automation will see me out
or at least allow me to sell my business as a going concern? Some of us, of
course, just enjoy imparting our knowledge (to whoever will listen) and
wouldn't it be nice is they paid us for it too! Actually that is the
business model - if the customer wants to talk he will go somewhere
appropriate and if he's lucky the prints will be OK as well...
Peter Leyland
PDQ Print Services
93 Commercial Street
Dundee DD1 2AF
T: +44 (0) 1382 201778
F: +44 (0) 1382 201776
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Steve Bye"
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 5:13am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I've followed this thread with some frustration. All I
need as a photographer is a way to be in control of color. Whether a photo
lab honors profiles, or even understands them, is not important so long as
they have a consistent process and provide a good profile for their
printer. I can convert to their profile. Costco does this. That puts color
under my control. With a consistent process and a good profile, I have no
need to even talk to the photo lab.
I have created a Photoshop Action the sizes and sets
the resolution of my images to Costco's published requirements, converts my
tagged images to the Costco profile for their local Noritsu 3111, does a
modest sharpening, then saves the files as quality 10 jpgs without an
embedded profile. I can batch process 100s of photos using this Action. I
then go online and download all my pictures to Costco and select "no
correction." The next day I pick up my pictures. The limitations seem
to be primarily due to the Noritsu 3111 color gamut.
As a photographer, the things I'd like the photo lab to
improve would be:
1. A wider gamut printer
2. A wider selection of papers
3. I'd like the photo lab to drop ship photos in some
cases
4. Cheaper prices for 8x10s
I'm glad I do not own a photo lab. They are going the
way of film cameras. It's sad in a way, but it does no good to moan. The
photographer now has pretty much total control, and total responsibility,
and uses a high-volume photo lab to get prices down. Add a higher quality
printer and there is no need to compromise quality.
Steve
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "fruitlessbeast"
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 5:16am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
“Bob Frost"wrote, among other things:
But many photo labs have a second level of service
that you have to ask for.
That uses better machines that are color managed, do
respect icc profiles,
and which cost a lot more.
You get what you pay for. Most images are taken in
sRGB, so that is what the
cheap machines are designed for.
Hi Bob,
True, a Frontier isn't CM savvy. but I'm curious, what
better machines are you referring to in this "second level of
service?"
John Eakin
Warner Bros. Studios
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "colorman042000"
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 4:10pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
A word of encouragement to John Castronovo and Peter
Leyland.
I have had an gratifying experience with a small
"off the street" Fuji Frontier Mini Lab. A few months ago
after getting some very bad scans from a highly regarded (and expensive)
Custom Scanning Service outfit, I took the very same 2.25 x 2.25
transparencies to this Mini Lab and the results were one hundred percent
better, for half the cost.
I have a question regarding that experience: the Mini
Lab uses a Frontier Laser Scanner (?) How does it compare with a Imacon ?
Also, Peter, these statements that you made are very
pertinent:
1- " What is so wrong with adapting the workflow
('yours') to suit the output device - especially so if price is a
factor?"
2- "... what's the point in presenting anything
other than a tagged sRGB to a Wal-Mart or a Costco?"
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Bob Frost"
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 4:10pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John,
The online service I have used recently is
Photobox.co.uk (I'm in the UK). Their basic service uses the Fuji Frontier,
and their other machine, which handles larger prints and is fully color
managed, is a 'Polielettronica Laserlab'.
<http:
//www.polielettronica.it/Public/Products/Digital_Printer/Laserlab_50x80/DataSheets/LaserLab50_Eng_2004-08-24.pdf>
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 4:11pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Bye"
As a photographer, the things I'd like the photo lab
to improve would be:
1. A wider gamut printer
Although the papers in use are the real limitation, our
gamut is significantly larger than Costco because we use different
equipment and we don't limit our dmax as much as they do so we have more
saturated colors.
2. A wider selection of papers
The paper surface choices for everyone are Gloss, Matte
and Luster. Some offer Kodak metalic as well. That's all there is unless
you go to inkjet.
3. I'd like the photo lab to drop ship photos in some
cases
You'd have to pay for the added service, but adding
service and flexibility is what custom labs do.
4. Cheaper prices for 8x10s
Only for quantity orders.
I'm glad I do not own a photo lab. They are going the
way of film cameras.
It's sad in a way, but it does no good to moan. The
photographer now has
pretty much total control, and total responsibility,
and uses a high-volume
photo lab to get prices down. Add a higher quality
printer and there is no
need to compromise quality.
The only thing I moan about is that mediocrity has
become good enough for professionals. I'll never agree that dumb machines
operated by unskilled labor can outperform career technicians who've chosen
their equipment for it's quality and flexibility rather than the best
financial deal for hundreds of stores. I'm sure you don't sell your
services as a photographer as the lowest bidder. You'll never convince me
that if you had to pay an extra dollar for the assurance that you're
getting the best prints, then you couldn't add it to your price and still
keep as much on your bottom line. Saving your customer a buck only drives
professionals out of the business.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "todie"
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 4:11pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I've used Lambda profiles with Frontier and they worked
fine.
(your mileage may vary—as the cautious say : )
Laurentiu Todie
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Andrew Rodney
Date: Mon May 22, 2006 4:11pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/21/06 11:56 PM, "fruitlessbeast"
wrote:
Hi Bob,
True, a Frontier isn't CM savvy. but I'm curious, what
better machines are you
referring to in this "second level of
service?"
Sure it is if you use the PIC Pro front end. And I've
built ICC profiles for a few users of Frontiers using this software.
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "fruitlessbeast"
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 6:40am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
-Steve Bye sadly wrote:
...I'm glad I do not own a photo lab. They are going
the way of
film cameras. It's sad in a way, but it does no good
to moan. The
photographer now has pretty much total control, and
total responsibility...
Hi Steve,
It's unfortunate that many people, including software
developers seem to share your view about the lack of necessity of photo
labs. Perhaps that should be qualified. Many consumer photo labs have
evaporated. They either couldn't keep up with technology or they couldn't
convince their clients of their value. Then again certain software
developers (and I'm not just thinking of Adobe and Apple here) have the new
business model of enabling the photographer to be his own lab. Shucks, for
the longest, I couldn't even buy a copy of Nikon Capture because I didn't
own a camera. When it was explained that as a photo lab, we needed the
software, the salesperson's canned reply was, "the photographers do
that now". I know this has the potential of rapidly spiraling
off topic and I'll drop it after this post but I feel this is a better
place than most to make it known that the photo lab needn't be
passé. And not because of secret technical knowledge.
There's a lot of image processing to be done and the sheer volume of some
jobs isn't something I'd wish on any of my photographer friends. Try
imagining 30 projects a year with between 15000 and 25000 images in each
one. Oh yeah, I forgot. Raw images. What photographer wants to manage that?
There are still some labs that understand workflow, color management,
and professional output. Let's not say their eulogy just yet. Thanks
and sorry for the near off topicness. It really is something to think
about, though.
John Eakin
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "fruitlessbeast"
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 6:40am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Bob,
Thanks for the reply and the pdf. That's a really
expensive device. Here in the U.S. the Frontier isn't always relegated to
bottom of the barrel output. It really does a good job with a good input.
Thanks!
John Eakin
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Thu May 25, 2006 2:32pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 19, 2006, at 5:07 PM, Rick Gordon wrote:
1) They should honor embedded profiles;
2) Where no profiles have been embedded, please assume
the sRGB
working space;
3) No enhancement or correction should be applied.
For RGB images, this ought to be the default behavior
for both photo labs and commercial printers.
I just spoke to an operator for a photo lab in Fort
Collins, and they are doing all color correction work in CMYK and
outputting in CMYK, and this is for a common photographic output
device. It just makes no sense. Can you imagine what's going on behind the
scenes when you give them an RGB images of any sort in such a scenario?
While many printers claim to print to SWOP, yet in fact
don't, at least printers have such a specification and many follow some
aspects of it. It's also been around longer than digital photo printing so
it stands to reason it will be a more refined process because it knows
where its own bodies are buried. Not so with digital printing on all of
those accounts. If anything there are competing "standards" yet
they aren't really standards (yet) in the same sense of ISO 12647,
SWOP or GRACoL.
A big part of this that people, including Dan, aren't
getting is that the "look" of an image is subjective in a
photographic context but not nearly so much in a print context. The
"look" or rendering of an image in a design to print context is
performed in advance. That look is built into the separations and the
expectation is that printers will print reasonably the same in order to
preserve that desired look.
That is not at all how things work in a photographic
context. The "look" or rendering is unique to the film type
used, and now that that's essentially gone they render it at the time you
give them the digital file. The digital file values are explicitly NOT what
will be printed, especially in a 49 cent per image context. And the
photographic paper used also yields a unique look. The photographic print
world has not yet gotten to the point where color rendering or re-rendering
has been decided in advance. It still occurs on-the-fly, so it stands
to reason that you will get wildly different results from a given RGB file
with different photo labs.
Yet why they continue to have process control problems
is impressively absurd. But this is from an industry that has hardwired
sRGB as the source space expectation on printers costing tens if not
hundreds of thousands of dollars, and regularly use crappy colorimeters
that pass self-calibration when they shouldn't. It's insane that these
printers don't know what an embedded profile is well more than half the
time and can't be compelled to use one. It's the year 2006 and brand new
printers still come with questionable process control gear, and a hardwired
sRGB source with proprietary color management at the back end. What is
wrong with this picture? We have the technology but the vendors still
believe in secret sauce over consistent let alone standardized output.
That's the state of affairs.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Thu May 25, 2006 2:41pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
While the question orginally raised is valid, and Dan's
initial results are interesting, they are not statistically valid. There is
no margin of error provided, and no confidence level provided. The margin
of error would be enormous because the sample size is infinitesimal. The
confidence level would be extraordinarily low because there a scientific
sample doesn't exist.
The condition for the exercise pits random printers vs.
random photo labs. There is ample evidence that the photo lab sample is not
random, and is thus not a scientific sample. Without a scientific sample
you cannot make the grand conclusions that have been made.
There is good reason to surmise the printer sample is
also not random, even though the sample size may be large based on Dan's
vast experience working with printers all over the world. He comes into
contact with these printers on a decidedly non-random basis. He either
chooses them as a printer for non-random reasons, or they hire him which
also makes the relationship non-random, or his publishers choose them,
which also makes the relationship non-random.
So thus far, the comparison is made with two
non-randomly selected samples making it a totally pointless exercise,
statistically and scientifically speaking.
Further the samples were tainted, as unacceptable
product from a photo lab was not suggested to be caused by process control
problems,and not excluded from the subjective grading system used, yet it
easily could have been a process control problem. Yet Dan excludes
unacceptable product from printers due to a process control problem.
The methodology used is grossly flawed to arrive at a
conclusion that uses such firm and confident language.
The two groups are actually mutually exclusive on the
basis that one has a business model based on producing one print minimum up
to maybe several hundred prints, and the other will start at several
hundred prints minimum (but usually more than 1000) up to tens of
thousands. Thus the photo lab has a customer invoice probably around $40 on
average, whereas the printer has an average customer invoice of $4000. Two
orders of magnitude different, and yes this is going to be a huge factor in
process control.
One model must use some form of color management, even
if proprietary, because RGB files are never used as raw control signals in
photographic output. Whereas it is routinely the case that CMYK files are
used as raw control signals in photographic output. They're completely
different models, and completely different printing processes, with
completely different color management methods.
Photo labs often depend on crummy calibration hardware
that itself often says it's calibrated but it actually isn't, and they
don't use the same instrument for calibration. Each printer has its own,
and that can lead to more variation than you'd find at a commercial
printer.
We really can't do an apples to apples comparison
between the two samples because they're so different. Is it fair to expect
a photo lab to accept tagged RGB images, and honor the embedded profile?
Yes it is. Because if they don't, it won't print correctly. It's the same
with a commercial printer as well, so why are they not getting RGB images
in their test files? Either the test file suite contains all possible
permutations in common with both parties, or we need to agree on a subset
of images they are most likely to receive. It's decidedly uncommon for
photo labs to receive tagged RGB images, except perhaps those who cater to
more high end clientele. At a high price of 49 cents per printer, that is
not this group of photo labs.
Who would propose that 49 cent/copy photo labs could
possibly have the process control capability of a 5 year old using crayons,
let alone a commercial printer? Why are these two models even being
compared in the first place?
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Henry" hd@imagers.com
Date: Thu May 25, 2006 4:29pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 25, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
Who would propose that 49 cent/copy photo labs
could possibly have
the process control capability of a 5 year old
using crayons, let
alone a commercial printer? Why are these two
models even being
compared in the first place?
My guess is:
When reading a book that is aimed at educating and
informing folks about color behavior in both venues, one would expect to
find some comparisons and contrasts.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Thu May 25, 2006 4:50pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Murphy"
]
For RGB images, this ought to be the default behavior
for both photo
labs and commercial printers.
You haven't spent much time on the other side of the
desk in a lab Chris. I've actually had professional photographers upset
with me for NOT adjusting their submitted files to print better than they
were prepared. I get a file from a pro that looks off color, but I don't
know if it's an effect that he's after, so I print it as I got it. Why is
he upset for forty cents? I'd expect this of an amateur who doesn't have
the equipment or the knowledge to adjust their files but not a pro. I've
had pros tell me to ignore their profiles too (why are they there?!).
The fact is, we got both requests, adjust or match the
file, in equal proportion. Sometimes we have to pry it out of them, but the
questions need to be asked if we don't want to surprise them later. Any
test that doesn't begin with instructions isn't worth doing.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Howard Smith
Date: Thu May 25, 2006 9:50pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Chris,
You are obviously a brilliant fellow with a knowledge
of color management that dwarfs that of most of the Forum participants.
Your argument is sound and certainly makes a number of valid points.
That said, and said in all sincerity, I must add a
comment of my own that is neither scientific nor based on anywhere near
your experience in color management. Your argument is very common in
the scientific world and is no doubt why science has developed to the
extent that it has over the years. Rules and logical thinking are great.
Yet I feel very strongly from my own experience in research that there is
much to be gained from an approach like Dan's which may not be
scientifically valid but rather represents a bold attempt to explore new
territory in an effort to further the work of those who have faced similar
frustrations. Sometimes the truly momentous discoveries are made by
those who don't follow established scientific methodology. What
usually happens to such adverturous folk is not always pretty because they
pretty much get stomped for not following the rules.
While I'm old enough now to be amused at what may or
may not be justified stomping, the younger members of the Forum should
understand that there's nothing at all wrong with sticking your necks out
for what you believe in. Just be prepared to face the prospect of the
guillotine, or at least the ridicule of your fellows for breaking away from
accepted belief and trying something quite unorthodox. Science and
the scientific method are great, but then so is radical, outside-the-box
thinking.
Besides, things like Dan's Photofinishing Test
stimulate enough controversy and new ideas to benefit nearly anyone with
any real interest in this field of work. And of course your own post
just gives all of us that much more to consider. Most of us will no
doubt accept the validity of your comments while a few of us will remain
convinced that Dan was right all along no matter what the statisticians may
say. After all, statisticians don't face the kind of non-analytical
problems that we do. We can measure and compute the dickens out of
our image data but the quality of the final result still will depend on our
non-numerical judgment.
Howard Smith
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Andrew Rodney
Date: Fri May 26, 2006 9:45am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/25/06 10:22 PM, "Howard Smith"
wrote:
While I'm old enough now to be amused at what may or
may not be justified
stomping, the younger members of the Forum should
understand that there's
nothing at all wrong with sticking your necks out for
what you believe in.
Yup, like the idea of the earth being flat or
intelligent design.
Thank god for rational scientific thinking (thanks
Chris). I was wondering all along what the point of all this was.
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Maris V. Lidaka Sr."
Date: Fri May 26, 2006 0:26pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Andrew Rodney wrote:
Thank god for rational scientific thinking (thanks
Chris). I was
wondering all along what the point of all this was.
It would be helpful if you accepted the Test for what
it is rather than critiquing it for what it does not purport to be.
It is the beginning of an *inquiry*. It does not
purport to be a comprehensive scientific study. You are both welcome
to make such a study in accordance with scientific principles as you see
them and to post your own results .
Maris V. Lidaka Sr.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Mike Russell"
Date: Fri May 26, 2006 5:08pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Unlike religion, science is pragmatic before it is
rational. Say what you will about Dan's handful of examples, it is a
handful more than the "all talk and no images" I've seen his
critics provide time and time again.
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Bob Frost"
Date: Sat May 27, 2006 11:16am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Maris,
It would be helpful if you accepted the Test for what
it is rather than
critiquing it for what it does not purport to be.
As I said in an earlier post, it seems to be just a set
of observations that many Photographic magazines carry out year after year
to advise their customers which photofinisher produces the best prints. So
what's new?
It is the beginning of an *inquiry*.
Ah! With what purpose?
It does not purport to be a comprehensive scientific
study.
You could have left out the word comprehensive.
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Eric Basir/Photo Grafix"
Date: Sat May 27, 2006 11:16am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
John, I totally understand your sentiment. However, it
is fatalistic. Attitude is the rudder of our businesses in the stormy
waters of business. Every industry, art form, government or vaccine is
always under threat of being overcome or replaced through the
"miracle" of technology and greed. However, in chaos there is
always opportunity--a chance to benefit for self and others with or without
good morals.
Maybe you should consider offering a class to your
curious customers. A quick "Color Reproduction Primer." Charge
them accordingly. So instead of getting into details, tell them, "you
need to take my class; you'll really benefit from it." Although you
may probably lose this customer to Costco, you will make some money and
learn how to be a good teacher (and possibly write a book that you can also
sell to curious customers). Moreover, those that will be loyal--and there
is still such a thing--will be even more convinced of your expertise,
telling others about you.
There is a very popular plumbing company in the
northern suburbs of Chicago called Bishop Plubing. They have a stellar
reputation, flat rates and fast service. They also know how to stay in
touch with past customers, sending calendars, coffee mugs and what not. I
know, as I tried to be a plumber and made a mess that they needed to fix
(smile). Anyway, they also sell this natural bacterial powder that you can
mix with warm water and pour down your drain. It slowly breaks down soap,
hair, etc, helping you to keep clean drains. It takes discipline to apply
it every month. But it works.
My point: These folks, like you, render a useful
service with excellent customer service. But they also make a little
money--and build a stronger reputation--by selling a product to help
customers do their own (preventative) plumbing.
In my research--and experimentation--I've found that
almost every business model will break. However, if your model is based on
the Law of Increasing Returns--rendering useful service, avoiding the
primal fear that everyone is looking to rip us off and finding ways to do
some of it without the expectation of pay--you can practically glide
through the rough waters of our business.
As an aside, I tell customers and students to have
their prints made at a lab. Any lab. Over the years, I haven't had one
bring me a good print made with an Epson, Canon or HP inkjet printer.
Although I can do it and everyone on this list can do it, consumers just
don't know what they're doing.
--
Eric C. M. Basir
Photo Grafix
http://www.abetterreality.net
847-673-7043
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Andrew Rodney
Date: Sat May 27, 2006 11:16am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/26/06 3:39 PM, "todie" wrote:
The test has a lot to do with "simple
choice" (aren't you "pro choice"
Andrew? : )
Yup, I'm certainly pro choice.
I'm also pro science or at least, I like to think that
when someone presents some kind of test data, it has some basis to make an
informed analysis.
An example of what may or may not be such a test (but
at least which is made using a speck of empirical measure): I have a few
dozen spectral measurements of Kodak Matchprint proofing systems I've made
over the years. The device is the same while the substrate ranges from
Commercial to Publication and Superwhite. I could decide to make this a
known variable in my study or not. But I know which is which and I admit
that there is some variation in the samples. However, I have no idea how
many shops in the U.S. use this specific Kodak contract proofing system so
even having say a dozen samples in no way validates that my sampling is
enough to form any kind of analysis.
I can tell you the average deltaE using any metric you
wish over the entire sample and I can tell you the worst deltaE of any two
shops. I can say that none are identical yet I can tell you how close any
two or more shops are from each other or from what is considered the
recommended target value of this device (by Kodak). The data was all
obtained using a fairly precise set of instrumentation. But I can't tell
you based on the sampling if this is a normal or expected behavior of ALL
or even a representative number of Kodak Matchprint systems in the U.S.
(outside the U.S. I have no idea since every device I've measured have
resided in the US but again, I don't have to tell you this).
I could probably find the states where each device
resides and fudge some opinion about which Red or Blue state aims their
Matchprint closer or farther from the suggested calibration aim point based
on the manufacturer. But this would really tell us nothing about how well
or poorly republications versus democrats target their Matchprints since I
never asked the owners or operators what party they belonged to. But I
could if I wanted, make such a statement which would be based on pure
speculation on my part. That I might be able to convince some readers that
I had produced some scientific method of determining which party calibrated
their Matchprints closer to the recommended calibration, someone as sharp
as Chris would easily see that I was stretching the "facts" if
you can even call them facts. Others would buy into the "science"
(if you can call it that, I can't) that Red or Blue states are better
suited to produce a Matchprint based on Kodak standards.
Such a study could be said by some to "be a
start" in determining which party produced better Matchprints but I
don't really think so. Some could say "this is a start" in
determining how different shops calibrate their Matchprints from each other
but again, the sampling is far too low to really make such a call. But at
least I can provide real metrics based on a specified sampling measured
using an instrument and provide a unit of difference that is clearly
defined. That's a start but I'm not sure it's worth publishing.
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Maris V. Lidaka Sr."
Date: Sat May 27, 2006 1:38pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Bob Frost wrote:
Maris,
As I said in an earlier post, it seems to be just a
set of
observations that many Photographic magazines carry
out year after
year to advise their customers which photofinisher
produces the best
prints. So what's new?
What's new is that Dan Margulis knows to look for
blown-out highlights and blocked shadows in the prints. I don't know
what criteria the various photo magazines use. I know and trust Dan's
criteria for "best prints".
Maris V. Lidaka Sr.
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Steve Bye"
Date: Sat May 27, 2006 1:38pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Your comments on poor process control are troubling.
Fixing this problem does not require experts. All kinds of businesses use
equipment that must be accurately calibrated. Most of these machines are
designed to be easily calibrated by non-technical people. The calibration
accuracy is built into the machine's design, not the responsibility of a
trained technician. Calibration can run automatically at periodic
intervals.
Regarding Dan's test, I think the goal should not be
that I can send a file to any lab and get the same printed result. The goal
should be that I can choose a lab and get good repeatable results from it,
inexpensively. To me, all that requires is a process that is in control and
well profiled. I don't
need to talk to a color expert at the lab. All I need
is the ICC profile.
Though I do not understand why the lab would not honor
embedded profiles, I'd rather do the conversion to their profile myself so
I can dependably set the rendering intent rather than rely on them to do
it. I can create a Photoshop batch file to do it so it is painless for me
to do.
When I go to Costco, were I do my big job printing, I
see that most snapshot photographers are entering their print order by
plugging their CompactFlash card into a reader. This means that the average
non-technical customer is actually supplying files tagged with the
colorspace, since almost all new cameras do that. How ironic that, if the
typical non-technical customer is savvy enough to set their camera to save
images in AdobeRGB, they are actually degrading their printed pictures
since their profile is not honored. That's the best reason to honor
profiles. As a pro I can easily work around the printer not honoring my
profile by doing the conversion myself. Joe Blow cannot. Joe Blow is what
is driving the market. He's the reason profiles should be honored.
Steve Bye
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 10:56am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I've combined responses to three different posts in
order to avoid multiple postings.
On May 26, 2006, at 11:26 AM, Maris V. Lidaka Sr. wrote:
It would be helpful if you accepted the Test for what
it is rather than
critiquing it for what it does not purport to be.
For what it is? The test posting either contains
misstatements and slander, or hyperbole. Either of which taints a posting
that raises a valid question with interesting results.
Dan used the words:
"conclusion(s)"
"disgusted"
"mindless color management apologists"
And attributing to them that "all printers are
brain-dead." I would like Dan to provide a quote from any such
"color management apologist" who has said all printers are
brain-dead.
It is the beginning of an *inquiry*. It does not
purport to be a
comprehensive scientific study. You are both
welcome to make such a study
in accordance with scientific principles as you see
them and to post your
own results .
Beginning of an inquiry that contains the statement:
"I have now done enough of the testing to be able to give a
conclusion, which is, the variability is considerably worse than that found
at commercial printers."
Baloney. I do not buy the assertion that this is the
beginning of an inquiry. This is not my first day at the rodeo, and I'm not
buying what Dan is selling. It smells of a steaming pile. Now it easily
COULD have been the beginning of an inquiry if it didn't contain grand
sweeping statements and course accusations. The tone of the
"report" is not merely intellectually provocative, it's
abrasive.
================================
On May 25, 2006, at 10:22 PM, Howard Smith wrote:
While I'm old enough now to be amused at what may or
may not be justified
stomping, the younger members of the Forum should
understand that there's
nothing at all wrong with sticking your necks out for
what you believe in.
There's nothing wrong with proposing any idea, no
matter how controversial. Again my complaint is the choice of language,
given the methodology used. It's not anal retentive to insist upon use of
scientific method when making grand sweeping statements, even if those
statements turn out to be true. There are reasons why the scientific method
exists outside of making more work for people to do. Use of non-scientific
samples routinely points us to conclusions that are misleading or flat out
wrong.
================================
On May 27, 2006, at 1:17 PM, Steve Bye wrote:
Your comments on poor process control are troubling.
Fixing this problem
does not require experts. All kinds of businesses use
equipment that must be
accurately calibrated. Most of these machines are
designed to be easily
calibrated by non-technical people. The calibration
accuracy is built into
the machine's design, not the responsibility of a
trained technician.
Calibration can run automatically at periodic
intervals.
In theory you're correct. In practice it requires a
certain critical mass (as yet determined) to physically give birth to a
bovine until the manufacturer's of this equipment actually make it work in
a fool proof manner. Some of them may very well be foolproof, but I know
for a fact some of them contain calibration equipment that says
"pass" when it should have failed. The fault lies squarely with
the manufacturer of the printer, not the calibration equipment, because
they put the whole package together with the associated expectation.
Under what conditions is such a failure likely to
reveal a failed piece of calibration hardware that self-claims passing its
own calibration test? That is a rather obscure problem.
Regarding Dan's test, I think the goal should not be
that I can send a file
to any lab and get the same printed result. The goal
should be that I can
choose a lab and get good repeatable results from it,
inexpensively. To me,
all that requires is a process that is in control and
well profiled. I don't
need to talk to a color expert at the lab. All I need
is the ICC profile.
The request for process control is different for a
request for an ICC profile. In a photo lab context, the primary context for
printing digital images is to make them look good. Not accurate.
There is more than one way to render a digital capture
to print, and that rendering is often proprietary with these systems, as
they have been in photography for many decades. People choose Kodak over
Fuji or vice versa for a reason. They have a unique rendering given the
same source.
Digital has thrown a wrench into this because people
can see the photo they took before it's printed. That didn't used to be the
case, really. What they see on-screen is, in-part, setting an expectation
that didn't exist before.
Process control can ensure neutrals print neutral, and
skin tones are never blue or green, and tone response is uniform and
consistent without blowing highlights or plugging shadows. But the
conversion from sRGB to printer space is not JUST about color management,
it also does have a proprietary rendering or flavor applied to it. And a
big part of why is because, like the print world and perhaps even more so,
the photographic world doesn't want to turn this process into a commodity.
If everyone prints a little different, instead of exactly the same in a
predictable manner, then it's seen as competitive edge.
Though I do not understand why the lab would not honor
embedded profiles,
I'd rather do the conversion to their profile myself
so I can dependably set
the rendering intent rather than rely on them to do
it. I can create a
Photoshop batch file to do it so it is painless for me
to do.
This is a distinctly different model than has
previously existed in the photographic world. That is why it's not common
and that's why it's not easy to convince a photo lab of the need to do
this. If you have an ICC profile for their output process, it is implicit
that *YOU* are providing the rendering, and final look of the image, rather
than some proprietary process that provides the "Kodak look" or
"Fuji look" to it.
How ironic that, if the typical non-technical customer
is
savvy enough to set their camera to save images in
AdobeRGB, they are
actually degrading their printed pictures since their
profile is not
honored. That's the best reason to honor profiles.
We have the technology, it's all in place to make this
happen easily. Why would the manufacturer's not want to accommodate Adobe
RGB (1998)? Are they clueless of the need? Do they not care? Do some of
them have a solution, some sort of software or firmware update but it
hasn't been applied to the mini-lab printer? We have had the technology to
do secure automatic updates for some time now as well. This stuff could be
idiot proof but it really isn't. Why?
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 10:56am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 25, 2006, at 5:40 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
For RGB images, this ought to be the default behavior
for both photo
labs and commercial printers.
You haven't spent much time on the other side of the
desk in a lab Chris.
I said *ought* :)
I've actually had professional photographers upset
with me for NOT adjusting
their submitted files to print better than they were
prepared. I get a file
from a pro that looks off color, but I don't know if
it's an effect that
he's after, so I print it as I got it. Why is he upset
for forty cents?
Sorry but I consider this one of those clueless
professionals. At 40 cents, it's high order lunacy for someone to expect
you to second guess what he's given you. At 40 cents, it's a commodity.
It's manufacturing. Take the file and print it. That there may be a lot of
these clueless professionals doesn't make them right.
I'd expect this of an amateur who doesn't have the
equipment or the knowledge to
adjust their files but not a pro. I've had pros tell
me to ignore their
profiles too (why are they there?!).
The clueless professional.
The fact is, we got both requests, adjust or match the
file, in equal
proportion. Sometimes we have to pry it out of them,
but the questions need
to be asked if we don't want to surprise them later.
Any test that doesn't
begin with instructions isn't worth doing.
The workflow you have is a choice. It is not an
absolute right or wrong.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 11:59am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Chris Murphy"
We have the technology, it's all in place to make this
happen easily.
Why would the manufacturer's not want to accommodate
Adobe RGB
(1998)? Are they clueless of the need? Do they not
care? Do some of
them have a solution, some sort of software or
firmware update but it
hasn't been applied to the mini-lab printer? We have
had the
technology to do secure automatic updates for some
time now as well.
This stuff could be idiot proof but it really isn't.
Why?
In my experience, this requires third party software
and there are enough to go around. We use Photoshop to do batch conversions
to our lab's profile which give us a lot of flexibility, but there are
other packages that can do it on the fly as they drive the printer. You're
right though. I can't imagine what they were thinking when the
manufacturers ignored the possibility of making profile aware front ends
for their machines. It's not even so simple as saying that they accept sRGB
because even that appears to be a generalization. They're not tuned to
match sRGB by design at all. It just so happens that sRGB yields an
acceptable gamma on them so it's conveniently said that they take files set
up for sRGB. On many systems, it's not that easy to turn off all
corrections too, even though you think you've done so.
One real problem lies in the fact that the actual
output profile is determined by the paper one is printing on. With Fuji
they have two different lines of paper. One is cheaper and has less silver
and a lower gamut than the other. This is what the chain stores use. The
pro version of Crystal Archive will give a different bigger profile. So the
same machine can have two or more different profiles set up for Fuji paper
alone. One would have to print targets, make profiles off line and load
them into the printer even before making the recognition of an embedded
input profile worthwhile . This is way beyond the needs of a Costco or
Wal-Mart who buy most of these machines. Did I say buy? They're given
machines in exchange for the consumables they buy.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 11:59am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Chris Murphy"
Sorry but I consider this one of those clueless
professionals. At 40
cents, it's high order lunacy for someone to expect
you to second
guess what he's given you. At 40 cents, it's a
commodity. It's
manufacturing. Take the file and print it. That there
may be a lot of
these clueless professionals doesn't make them right.
Exactly right, yet that's the game we have here: take
these 25 files and print them. What comes out is going to vary according to
any number of workflows one may have and none is correct. They will vary
because of the lack of instruction and the very low price. Results will
even vary in the same lab from one week to another, and it's not the lab's
fault.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Denton Taylor"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 11:59am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
As an aside, I tell customers and students to have
their prints made at a
lab. Any lab. Over the years, I haven't had one bring
me a good print made
with an Epson, Canon or HP inkjet printer. Although I
can do it and everyone
on this list can do it, consumers just don't know what
they're doing.
Hi Eric:
They certainly don't but I have to say that the
technology embedded in inkjet printers has enabled consumers to make
remarkably good prints (if they have good originals) without knowing what a
color profile is.
Regards,
Denton Taylor
photogallery at
www.dentontaylor.com
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 8:11pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 28, 2006, at 12:30 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
It's not even so simple as saying that they
accept
sRGB because even that appears to be a generalization.
They're not tuned
to match sRGB by design at all. It just so happens
that sRGB yields an
acceptable gamma on them so it's conveniently said
that they take files
set up for sRGB. On many systems, it's not that easy
to turn off all
corrections too, even though you think you've done so.
All of these points I agree with. They also have an
origin. And that is the concept of proprietary rendering occurring at print
time being the traditional paradigm that has been carried forward to
digital printing. The natural conclusion is "of course a single sRGB
file prints differently everywhere." The question is whether it's
acceptable, and I'd suggest 9 times out of 10 (or perhaps more) when it is
not acceptable either it's a problem with the original (digital file) or
it's a process control problem.
The amount of effort put into these proprietary
renderings isn't to be underestimated. :) The manufacturer's have pushed a
lot of images through these renderings to get the look they want, to set
themselves apart from their competition.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 8:15pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 28, 2006, at 12:37 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
Exactly right, yet that's the game we have here: take
these 25 files and
print them. What comes out is going to vary according
to any number of
workflows one may have and none is correct. They will
vary because of
the lack of instruction and the very low price.
Results will even vary
in the same lab from one week to another, and it's not
the lab's fault.
This is hardly different than popping some kind of Fuji
film into your camera for one birthday party and Kodak film for the next,
and having them developed and printed traditionally.
What's different in a digital world? The little view
screen on the camera? The ability to see these images on a computer display
before having them printed? For consumers, these things are a factor but
likely not a big factor. For more sophisticated customers, including the
people on this list, and Dan, of course the display has set a certain
expectation, in advance, that wasn't there in a traditional film world.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Marco Ugolini
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 8:17pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/28/06 11:17 AM, Denton Taylor
wrote:
They certainly don't but I have to say that the
technology embedded
in inkjet printers has enabled consumers to make
remarkably good
prints (if they have good originals) without knowing
what a color profile is.
Hi Denton.
That's a big "if". What and who determines
that an original is "good"? What
is the standard? Is it completely subjective (in which
case "good" means
little for anyone else), or at least partly objective?
Also, I am not sure which "technology embedded in
inkjet printers" you are
referring to, exactly. It is still very possible to
make cruddy prints with
the best inkjets, "embedded technologies" or
not.
As it is possible to spend a lot of time on any one
print, through
trial-and-error, without the use of color profiles,
until something comes
out that is close to what one wants. Incidentally,
besides being very
wasteful of time and consumables, that was a
widely-used procedure even
before these "embedded technologies" came on
the scene. Too bad that
whatever results one achieves this way are valid only
for one machine with
one paper type and one ink set. Try to reproduce that
on another set of
media, and you have to start over. Ouch...could start
one drinking. :-)
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Sun May 28, 2006 8:21pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 28, 2006, at 12:17 PM, Denton Taylor wrote:
They certainly don't but I have to say that the
technology embedded
in inkjet printers has enabled consumers to make
remarkably good
prints (if they have good originals) without knowing
what a color
profile is.
This is a really good point :) Inkjet process control
(while easily sabotaged) is much more built-in and foolproof than minilabs.
They are so consistent they don't need calibration equipment. If you use
manufacturer inks and paper and choose the right driver settings (i.e. the
media type you're using; and even some of them autosense now), viola you
get GREAT prints without even needing a desktop computer.
That it isn't this foolproof for a Nortisu or Fuji
printer costing tens of thousands of dollars is embarrassing and appalling.
Or at least it should be.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "John Denniston"
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 4:28am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
At 01:05 PM 5/25/2006 , Chris wrote:
Dan's initial results are interesting, they are not
statistically valid
There is no margin of error provided, thus not a
scientific sample. Without a scientific sample you cannot makethe grand
conclusions that have been made.
... totally pointless exercise, statistically and
scientifically speaking.
... the samples were tainted,
The methodology used is grossly flawed to arrive at a
conclusion that uses
such firm and confident language.
and a few days later Chris said:
"I'd suggest 9 times out of 10 (or perhaps more)
when
it is not acceptable either it's a problem with the
original (digital
file) or it's a process control problem."
Is that a suggestion based on statistically valid
scientific methodology using untainted samples and a margin of error
provided? ;-)
Regards,
John Denniston
www.dennistonphoto.com
www.dirtbikephoto.com
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Les De Moss"
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 6:26am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Chris Murphy wrote,
....For more sophisticated customers, including
the people on this list, and Dan, of course the
display has set a
certain expectation, in advance, that wasn't there in
a traditional
film world.
True for negative film, but not so with color
transparency film. An original
color transparency has always given the photographer a
certain expectation
of the printed result.
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
From: John Castronovo
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 9:23am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
An interesting comparison. At least everyone pretty
much agrees how a transparency should be viewed so it's easier to match.
With digital files that have questionable profiling and viewing conditions
that are unique and possibly uncontrolled at the customer's end, it's
difficult to say what the expectations are. Honoring the profile is the
best bet we have.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 9:23am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Chris Murphy writes,
And attributing to them that "all printers are
brain-dead." I would
like Dan to provide a quote from any such "color
management
apologist" who has said all printers are
brain-dead.
Anything to oblige. The quote comes online in response
to a query as to why sophisticated CMYK users profile proofing systems
rather than printing presses. The reply:
"They're trying to achieve reliable, quality color
while dealing with brain-dead print shops who refuse to even consider using
color management--if I give them data that prints a good proof, then they
can match it on press without having to worry about all that new-fangled
calibrationist colorsync crap we don't need because we know the numbers and
my daddy didn't need it or his daddy before him blah blah blah. Having
reliable presses and a profile of the press would be better--but this is
one way to do things until the print shops wake up."
--Chris Cox
Adobe Systems, Inc.
CCMA (Certified Color Management Apologist)
Of course, today even Chris Cox understands that
profiling presses is like profiling the wind, which is why today he, like
everyone else, has migrated to my 1998 position, which is that you let the
press chase something stable, like a well-controlled proof or a standard
condition such as TR001, rather than attempting to have the proofing
process chase a greased pig.
I could cite many more quotes just as vituperative and
just as silly as this one.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Dan Margulis
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 9:30am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
While the question orginally raised is valid, and
Dan's initial
results are interesting, they are not statistically
valid...Without a
scientific sample you cannot make the grand
conclusions that have been made.
The methodology used is grossly
flawed to arrive at a conclusion that
uses such firm and confident language.
Which grand conclusions are you talking about? The only
conclusions I drew were that photo labs cannot be relied on to honor
embedded profiles and that the level of repeatable variation is greater in
photo labs than in commercial printers. It appears from your post that you
agree with both of these conclusions.
As for the "statistically valid" part, it
never ceases to amaze that people with no background in statistical
analysis are so eager to couch their own language in pseudoscientific
babble. I prefer to just look at the images and draw the same conclusions
any other layperson would. However, FWIW, the methodology is just fine, and
amply supports the conclusions by any accepted scientific standard. You are
making the mistake of assuming that because the sample is small there is no
way to extrapolate it to a much larger population.
That would be correct if the concept were considerably
more expansive. To prove a broad general concept, you need a relatively
large and representative sample. To *dis*prove some effect, the sample only
needs to be free from any suspected bias for or against. It need only be
large enough to establish that the effect cannot exist because otherwise
the sample would be an aberration so enormous as to defy belief.
Anyone who is willing to rely on an outsider to honor a
profile surely has to believe that the odds of it being honored are 99% or
greater, but say that 95% is acceptable. If 95% of photo labs honor
profiles, then the odds against my result (all seven independent sources
ignore them) exceed a billion to one. So, even though the sample is only
seven out of an enormous number of labs in the U.S., it is statistically
certain that the percentage of labs that honor profiles cannot be as high
as 95%.
Beginning of an inquiry that contains the statement:
"I have now done enough of the testing to be able to give a
conclusion, which is, the
variability is considerably worse than that found at
commercial
printers." Baloney.
No, statistical certainty. A statistician would
demonstrate this not with the hopelessly primitive Delta-E, but with a
group of bell curves showing performance in L, A, and B. I know the typical
variations of web printers because I have dealt with more than a thousand
of them. The standard deviation of my small sample is 1.5x-2x higher in the
A than in the universe of web printers, and 2.5x-3x higher in both the L
and the B.
It is entirely possible that sampling 50 more labs
could produce a major improvement in these dismal figures. It is *not*
possible that it could approach the consistency of web printers, because If
photo labs truly had the same variation as commercial printers, then around
a quarter of my 21 composite values (7 photo labs x L*a*b*) would be
between four and six standard deviations off the mean. These aberrant
values are contributed by not by one rogue operation but by four different
labs out of the seven.
If photo labs are really as consistent as web printers,
the odds against such a poor performance occurring as normal variation are
several hundred billion to one. That's why I was able to make the statement
that you quote (and apparently agree with, despite the bile), even though
the testing was not complete.
Further the samples were tainted, as unacceptable
product from a
photo lab was not suggested to be caused by process
control problems,
and not excluded from the subjective grading system
used, yet it
easily could have been a process control problem. Yet
Dan excludes
unacceptable product from printers due to a process
control problem.
If any of the images were affected by poor process
control I would exclude them; however all sample runs were internally
consistent. David Harradine quite properly raised the question of whether
the entire run of one lab might be an aberration. I replied that it was
unlikely but is a possibility and that I would address it by re-running the
test at some of the same labs a month later to see if the results were the
same. The month hasn't passed yet.
It's decidedly uncommon for photo labs to receive
tagged RGB images,
Horrors, you can't mean this! What happened to the new
order? What happened to adapt or die? What happened to resistance is
futile? Don't you know that any provider who doesn't honor profiles by the
end of 1999 will be out of business?
Who would propose that 49 cent/copy photo labs could
possibly have
the process control capability of a 5 year old using
crayons, let
alone a commercial printer?
Several members of this list did, in response to my
pre-testing request. Process control is much easier with the equipment that
the labs use than it is with something that has as many moving parts and as
many variables as a press does.
Why are these two models even being compared in the
first place?
The two most common requests for improvements in the
next edition of Professional Photoshop are more comprehensive coverage of
channel blending and more information about how to prepare files for
commercial printing, specifically with photographers in mind. I believe
that many photographers have used photo labs and may be able to understand
commercial printers better if we compare the two and explain why methods
that get good results with one may not with theother.
Also, many readers believe, thanks largely to writings
of some of your friends, that bad results in print are not the fault of bad
printing or of poor file preparation, but rather of the international
conspiracy among printers to ignore profiles and to resist all standards.
It is important for readers to understand that photo labs are part of the
same conspiracy, and should be approached with the same caution.
In making these points I will avoid pretentious cliches
like "statistical validity". I will show the same files as
printed by six different printers, and as output by six different photo
labs. I will also show a single image printed six different times by the
same printer, to give an idea of how much variation is due to bad quality
control on the part of the printer. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Andrew Rodney
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 9:34am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/29/06 7:25 AM, "Les De Moss" wrote:
True for negative film, but not so with color
transparency film. An original
color transparency has always given the photographer a
certain expectation
of the printed result.
Printed to what? Certainly not ink on paper (4 color).
Type R didn1t look like Ciba (I printed both from my chromes). Yes, you had
a color reference as long as you viewed it under a 5000K box and mentally
estimated how it would look as a reflective print and to any number of
printing processes. But there was no guarantee by a long shot. And the
gamut of CMYK ink on paper let alone the dynamic range was always a major
guessing game. There was a certain expectation but rarely was that
expectation met.
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy"
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 0:46pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 28, 2006, at 10:11 PM, John Denniston wrote:
Is that a suggestion based on statistically valid
scientific methodology using
untainted samples and a margin of error provided? ;-)
John, it's called estimating. And you'll note it's
devoid of grand sweeping statements, insults and/or hyperbole.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Chris Murphy”
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 0:47pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 29, 2006, at 9:39 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
Anything to oblige. The quote comes online in response
to a query as to why
sophisticated CMYK users profile proofing systems
rather than printing presses.
The key quote from you is "the tactics of the
mindless color management apologists who are always saying that all
printers are brain-dead"
1. The quote provided does not conclusively say that
all printers are brain-dead.
2. The quote says there are apologists, plural
3. The quote says these people are always saying it
Each is a tall order to demonstrate let alone in
concert.
I could cite many more quotes just as vituperative and
just as silly as this one.
Oh right, and your own quotes aren't bitter and
abusive?
"CCMA (Certified Color Management
Apologist)"
"mindless color management apologists"
When you get going, Dan, it's like a cross between a
primate throwing his feces and an afternoon with children hurling
playground insults. It's unnecessary and it has become boring.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Maris V. Lidaka Sr."
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 3:36pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Chris Murphy unfortunately wrote:
When you get going, Dan, it's like a cross between a
primate throwing
his feces and an afternoon with children hurling
playground insults.
It's unnecessary and it has become boring.
Chris,
I am a lawyer by profession, and I know better than to
get into a 'pissing contest'.
If you have a bone to pick with Dan, take it outside.
If you have something worthwhile to contribute to this
thread, which you have not to date, please contribute.
Maris V. Lidaka, Sr.
Riga Company
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "Ric Cohn"
Date: Mon May 29, 2006 3:37pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
It's true that there's never been any perfect
conversion methods. However, in thinking about this I do believe the
essence is contained in the old paradigm of Transparencies Vs. Negatives.
In any lab-- pro or amateur-- a negative needs to be
interpreted. Frequently it's color and brightness needs to be set without
any reference unless a known original such as a color chart is included
within the shot. A transparency is very different. It may have been
carefully produced and the ideal end result should match the original as
closely as possible, or it may be defective in some way that the creator is
or is not aware of which needs to be fixed or not fixed by the person
making a print. Whether a change from the original should be made (i.e. the
"profile" is honored) depends on how the transparency looks. A
transparency viewed in a very non-controlled environment will give a poor
idea of how it will look when printed with good process control.
I'd say traditional one-hour type film labs have always
processed primarily color negative film taken under uncontrolled conditions
with cameras that are no more accurate than they need to be for decent
color negative exposure. I'd also say that while the majority of digital
cameras out there probably do a more consistent job than the old amateur
film cameras the analogy still holds. These labs need process control, but
in no way are they good candidates for honoring profiles.
I'd also say that a one-hour type lab receiving digital
images is closer to a traditional color negative processor than a high-end
custom photographic printer. Hence, I'd expect a Costco or similar to turn
on automatic adjustments. These will give the majority of images a good
tonal range, look for a neutral and probably be sophisticated enough to
favor pleasing skin tones. In making these kinds of changes I don't believe
it matters much whether there is an imbedded profile.
I'd say the print consumers that both know what they
are doing and have taken the time to make their files match their
expectations is infinitesimal in the overall market. Even a custom lab such
as John Castronovo's is likely to have professionals bring files for cheap
mini-lab type prints where the files are not individually corrected by the
photographer and their expectation/hope is that he will correct them better
than a Costco. In fact, I'd say a good test of different labs would be
whether they do well on a variety of images, both well exposed and in need
of adjustments. Also, as Dan has pointed out for CMYK conversion methods,
the better a system works on the majority of images the more likely it is
to produce an occasional stinker. Is a good mini-lab the one that gives the
most acceptable prints or the most very good prints?
OTOH, what does surprise me is the interest by vendors
like Costco in dealing with the picky type of customer that would ask to
turn automatic color correction off.
As far as the comparison with 4-color printers. The
only place where I see any similarity is for the people who edit each image
individually on calibrated systems and have an expectation of their output
matching what they see. Images are not sent to these printers with the
expectation that they will be fixed (although printers may frequently
receive images that need to be fixed ;-)).
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Andrew Rodney
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 1:08am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/29/06 3:31 PM, "Ric Cohn" wrote:
In any lab-- pro or amateur-- a negative needs to be
interpreted.
Absolutely (just like a RAW file).
I'd also say that a one-hour type lab receiving
digital images is
closer to a traditional color negative processor than
a high-end
custom photographic printer.
I'd agree (going back to Chris's discussion of
rendering). Again, much like the in camera rendering from RAW versus end
user rendering of RAW using any number of converters.
In making these kinds of changes
I don't believe it matters much whether there is an
imbedded profile.
Probably not. The need for an embedded profile is to
define the numbers such that what the originator saw on their display had
some resemblance to a final rendering upon output. You'd need the output
profile for that to be the case. So I'd agree that for these kinds of
users, profiles are not on their radar and they want pleasing color which
probably doesn't match what they saw before the file was sent to the lab.
I'd say the print consumers that both know what they
are doing and
have taken the time to make their files match their
expectations is
infinitesimal in the overall market.
Well a lot of print consumers are printing themselves
using desktop printers and are starting to question what they need to do to
make the print and the screen match. Go over to DP Review Printer forum and
see how many consumers and prosumers are asking about profiles and color
management. (just do a search for sRGB or ICC Profile). The number of posts
has skyrocketed in the last few years. That's another reason why we have
$79 colorimeter packages aimed at this newer market.
Even a custom lab such as John
Castronovo's is likely to have professionals bring
files for cheap
mini-lab type prints where the files are not
individually corrected
by the photographer and their expectation/hope is that
he will
correct them better than a Costco.
I certainly would. At least if I needed quick and clean
proof sheets or the like.
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
From: "todie"
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 1:08am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Maris,
Chris knows his "feces" as Dan does.
Their "gustibus" varies but I've heard of a
time when their… car didn't. (they've carpooled at least one time : )
Laurentiu Todie
___________________________________________________________________________
From: Peter Leyland
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 1:09am(PDT)
Subject: Inkjets
Chris said (*in relation to the perceived 'quality' of
a $50 inkjet using standard settings and proprietary papers)
'That it isn't this foolproof for a Nortisu or Fuji
printer costing
tens of thousands of dollars is embarrassing and
appalling. Or at
least it should be'
Not just mini labs either as the same could so easily
be said of most RIP driven printers. The 'reason' being mainly down to the
complexities of colour management and arguably the lack of understanding by
the average vendor and user alike. Just as well that most have standard
default settings but still require calibration each day. We have four
Konica machines, two driven by Fiery RIPs and the third 'baby' machine has
its own internal, non adjustable, RIP. A little tongue in cheek, but guess
which one gives us the least trouble - and by implication the more
consistent results? If nothing else it serves as a particularly good
'measure' of performance and beats a bunch of patches or other form of test
print any day.
Peter
PDQ Dundee
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 7:55 am (PDT)
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Andrew Rodney"
Printed to what? Certainly not ink on paper (4 color).
Type R didn1t look
like Ciba (I printed both from my chromes). Yes, you
had a color reference
as long as you viewed it under a 5000K box and
mentally estimated how it
would look as a reflective print and to any number of
printing processes.
Roughly, a statement was made that digital files
provide a visual reference that did not apply to the traditional film
world. I am simply pointing out that a digital image viewed on-screen and a
color transparency viewed on a light table are similar in that they provide
the basis for print expectations, regardless of how they are printed.
Estimating how an image will print has always been the
case, regardless of the form of the original or the destination material.
Whether viewing a digital image on screen or a transparency on a light
table, comparison to the printed result requires a critical viewing
environment, such as you stated above, as well as an understanding of the
physical/visual differences between the source (reference) and destination
material.
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 8:50 am (PDT)
From: "Chris Murphy"
Subject: Re: Inkjets
On May 30, 2006, at 1:06 AM, Peter Leyland wrote:
We have four Konica machines, two driven by Fiery RIPs
and the
third 'baby' machine has its own internal, non
adjustable, RIP. A
little tongue in cheek, but guess which one gives us
the least
trouble - and by implication the more consistent
results? If
nothing else it serves as a particularly good
'measure' of
performance and beats a bunch of patches or other form
of test
print any day.
If the Konica machines are all otherwise identical,
here's what I'd expect:
Scenario A: If nothing is calibrated on a routine
basis, then all machines drift the same. No printer is more or less
consistent than any other. (Of course a different RIP can mean different
color rendering to the same printer, however.)
Scenario B: If the Fiery driven printers are
calibrated, but the baby RIP driven printer is not, I'd expect the baby
printer to drift more. Effective calibration does moderate device drift.
That's the whole point.
However experience shows that there's a lot of
ineffective calibration for all sorts of reasons. If the measurement device
itself is reporting the correct values (it is itself calibrated), there's a
morass of calibration algorithms that do a crummy job. Maybe they don't
have the granularity to bring the printer back to the same exact point of
reference behavior (quite common actually). Maybe the calibration target
being used isn't detailed enough and the right corrections aren't being
applied to effectively tame the printer. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You'd think
effective process control design would be vetted out better with expensive
hardware like this, but it really isn't. Many of the process control
problems are not the fault of photo labs but the manufacturer's of the
printers in the first place. It's like they don't even know how their
printers work in the real world. How often do they need calibration? Why
don't they have a built in timer or warning for when they need to be
recalibrated? Why can't they do it automatically? There are more questions
than answers.
Because the equipment is easier to operate than a
press, it take correspondingly a less skilled and knowledgeable operator to
run a mini-lab than a printing press. And thus they are increasingly
unlikely to be classically trained in well known process control methods.
Printing press process control procedures have been well documented for
decades. The procedures are consistent across all of a particular
class of printing. All lithographic presses conform to the same basic
concepts of process control. This isn't the case at all with digital
printers.
Who thinks it's possible to tell the difference between
ineffective process control design, and ineffective process control
procedures, by looking at a set of test prints? Distinguishing between the
two may not seem important from a consumer point of view, but if we really
want to know what's going on, it is an important distinction to address.
Just because we don't have to distinguish between them in a litho world
doesn't mean we can make assumptions in the photographic world, in lieu of
facts.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 11:25 am (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/30/06 7:43 AM, Les De Moss wrote:
Roughly, a statement was made that digital files
provide a visual reference
that did not apply to the traditional film world. I am
simply pointing out
that a digital image viewed on-screen and a color
transparency viewed on a
light table are similar in that they provide the basis
for print
expectations, regardless of how they are printed.
Hi Les.
While that is true in a general sense, it is also
necessary to define which kind of display it is that one is using for
viewing: is it at all calibrated? And/or profiled? Does it respond well to
calibrating and profiling? Some displays do not respond very well to
either, usually the ones that are popular in high-volume consumer markets
due to their "price point" (i.e., "cheap").
Estimating how an image will print has always been the
case, regardless of
the form of the original or the destination material.
Whether viewing a
digital image on screen or a transparency on a light
table, comparison to
the printed result requires a critical viewing
environment, such as you
stated above, as well as an understanding of the
physical/visual differences
between the source (reference) and destination
material.
Whereas the transparency itself does not change and is
viewed using (hopefully) a light table with correct lighting in most cases,
the digital file can be viewed via displays that are too light, too dark,
too red, too blue, non-profiled, or incorrectly profiled, etc, or any
combination thereof; to make things even worse, the file's color numbers
might also be interpreted by the software through an incorrectly-assigned
profile. Consequently, depending on whatever the specific case may be, the
image file's appearance changes from one user to the next.
As important as the difference between source and
destination are, I personally believe that a well-cared-for and -behaved
system (to begin with, a profiled display plus proper use of profiles) gets
one far enough towards dependable results to make those limitations
secondary and well manageable.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 1:22 pm (PDT)
From:Andre Dumas
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
--- Chris Murphy wrote:
While the question orginally raised is valid, and
Dan's initial
results are interesting, ...
... snip!
I too have found Dan's Photo Finishing Test interesting
and enlightening, I have learned from people like John C. Castronovo and
others that Mini Labs don't even honour a sRGB profile, their proprietary
profile just happens to be close enough to sRGB to appear as if this is the
profile that has been built into their machine. I have a Fuji
Frontier profile and it does appear to me to be very similar to sRGB.
The text in the heading in the profile says "sRGB" so could
it be a modified sRGB profile ?
Dan's test also confirms the extreme variability of the
results but I wonder if the variability would not have been much less if
the test whad been limited to privately run Photo Labs and Mini Labs.
AFAIC, the test would have been more interesting if chain stores (and
similar outlets) had been left out of the test.
My experience with privately owned Mini Labs here in
Ottawa has shown that the owner or manager of the lab is usually available
on the spot and quite willing to discuss details of the work to be done,
they also have insisted on giving me their profile so I could assign it to
their scans and then convert to whatever profile I wanted. For one or
two dozen advertising posters they have also run a test image, for free.
Hearing from Andrew Rodney and Chris Murphy after so
many weeks is really appreciated and so is their contrarians and expert
views on the subject, given with such vigour!!!
Dan can you give me a detailed description of the
symptoms of "calibrationism" I think I may have caught it ? What
would be the best medicament to deal with it ?
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 3:58 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Hi Andre.
You mean the *straw man* of "calibrationism"
and the unnecessary medicament
for a non-existent syndrome?
I can hardly believe that anyone with a minimal sense
of the requirements of
imaging would freely chosse to keep their equipment
uncalibrated if given
the chance to do otherwise. I may be thick-headed, but
what is really being
objected to here?
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 3:59 pm (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 5/30/06 2:18 PM, "colorman042000"
wrote:
I too have found Dan's Photo Finishing Test
interesting and
enlightening, I have learned from people like John C.
Castronovo and
others that Mini Labs don't even honour a sRGB
profile, their
proprietary profile just happens to be close enough to
sRGB to appear
as if this is the profile that has been built into
their machine. I
have a Fuji Frontier profile and it does appear to me
to be very
similar to sRGB. The text in the heading in the
profile says "sRGB"
so could it be a modified sRGB profile ?
I don1t know what would make you say that when you
consider what sRGB is (a
synthetic color space based upon the behavior of a
theoretical display: the
HDTV standard ITU-R BT.709/2). The gamut might be
somewhat close but other
than that, I can1t see how a device that produces a
reflective print with a
specific dynamic range is anything like an emissive
device with its specific
dynamic range and specified chromaticity.
Nearly all the machines being discussed assume the RGB
data is sRGB so a
conversion can take place to the output color space of
the device. I have
lots of profiles from such devices. If you look inside
sRGB and say
something like a Frontier or Noritsu profile, using
something like
ColorThink, you1ll see they are not remotely close
(they are not even the
same type of profile). The reference media is totally
different.
I1m not sure what profile you got but it doesn1t sound
Kosher.
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue May 30, 2006 11:17 pm (PDT)
From: "Ron Kelly"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 30-May-06, at 3:01 PM, Marco Ugolini wrote:
You mean the *straw man* of "calibrationism"
and the unnecessary medicament
for a non-existent syndrome?
Marco:
What you're implying here is that
"calibrationsim" is the TRUTH and that there can
be no problems with it.
Seriously, how can anyone challenge my point of view?
Sincerely,
Ron Kelly
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 8:50 am (PDT)
From: "colorman042000"
André Dumas
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
The term "calibrationism" was
originally defined (by Dan) as "(the) shutdown of all mental processes
in the service of the notion that this is all mathematics and that machines
always do it better."
I agree that "calibrationism" defined that
way is bad but since Dan's definition rarely accompanies the term, it is
plausible that many (like me) may begin to see the term
"calibrationism" as casting a shadow of suspicion over the entire
process of calibrating our display, printers, scanners etc.
May I suggest that the bad words
"calibrationist" and "calibrationism", because of their
close affiliation with the good word "calibration" be reinstated
as good words to characterize those (like me) who believe that calibrating
their equipment is important and necessary.
Or is it possible that the metastases have already
invaded these two words to such a degree that a recovery is now impossible
?
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 9:06 am (PDT)
From: "Frank Deutschmann"
Subject: An observation
Reading all the discussion on the spate of minilab runs
that Dan reported on, something pops to mind that I found interesting, and
somewhat curious:
Long, long ago, consumers shot negative film, doing
their best to properly set exposure (aperture and shutter speed), sent it
away to be developed and printed, and got back prints that were semi-hand
made: there was a person evaluating every image to some degree and tweaking
the analyzer/printer settings to produce decent prints from (fairly crude
by today's standards) negative film. Sure there were box cameras -
completely sans exposure (and even focus!) control - but photography with
such cameras was really quite hit-or-miss in anything but excellent
circumstances (artistic effects notwithstanding).
Over time, everything improved: cameras became
sophisticated automated exposure and lighting computers, negative film
achieved 12 full stops of useful (for consumer purposes) latitude, film
processing became fully automated and shrank to the point where it could
fit in a broom closet, and negative printing analyzers became fully
automated and capable of pulling decent interpretations from horrendously
lit/exposed negatives. Every part of this evolution leveraged the
other parts: there was huge growth in advanced amateur photography (driven
by low cost, improved equipment, more readily accessible and shorter lag to
development results, and yes, better results), but there was even more
growth at the lowest rung of the business, the low end consumer. In
the low end, cameras leveraged the film/processing side extensively, and
actually underwent reverse evolution: out with the computers, out with the
aperture control, out with the shutter speed control, out with ISO
selection (no exposure control, so not needed!), out with focus control
(stepless to zone to just a few zones!), etc.
And cameras and film and processing sold better than
ever, and the industry - all aspects - was highly profitable, and everyone
was happy.
Certainly, there were (are) cameras at lots of
different price points, with variable sets of these core features either
present or absent. But to me, the defining aspect of the consumer
photography market - the low end -- is extreme reliance on the huge
latitude of negative film, with the co-commitment reliance on a
sophisticated analyzer/printing system, to deliver reasonable results for
the consumer.
And now, along comes consumer digital. Today, the
consumer sensors give about 5 stops of useable latitude (reminder:
consumer, not amateur, not prosumer, and certainly not pro!), and the
cameras are again fairly sophisticated computation units in an effort to
achieve workable exposure on the digital equivalent of reversal film, shot
in the unpredictable and variable lighting of the consumer's life.
Following exposure, the digital bits are handed off to be scattered
into the wide world, sans post-processing: some are printed at the local
minilab, some small number are printed at home on the domestic ink jet, and
some are of course e-mailed and CD'ed and DVD'ed and whatevered.
But here's what I find so fascinating: in the consumer
arena, we have traded off 12 stops of latitude coupled with a sophisticated
and human-guided analyzer/printer for 5 stops of computer controlled
latitude with no downstream processing other than in the camera (consumer,
thus no PS!), and we expect decent workable consumer prints? It's a
miracle it works at all! To conceptualize the difficulty in this, imagine
shooting slide film in any and all lighting conditions and having nothing
but fully automated - no control -- processing and printing. (Oh, and
you're only allowed to meter through the viewfinder.) The second part
of this challenge - decent quality automated prints from reversal materials
-- alone has so far stumped the industry, and this is an industry starting
from generally proper exposures.
I would think that consumers (consumers: not amateurs,
not pros, consumers!) would vastly prefer if their minilabs cheerily
ignored any profile (or perhaps, as that is not truly possible, simply
assumed some profile, and lo, sRGB is a pretty darned good choice), and
instead performed conventional image analyzer scene interpretation and
'intelligent' (to the extent that electronics can be intelligent) printing.
In fact, I would expect (and yes, hope) that Fuji et al are actively
scouring Dan's and others' books, and attempting to automate many/some of
these image correction algorithms/techniques into their minilab software:
now that they have achieved the basics of digital imaging (reasonable print
cost, rapid turnaround, decent resolution and gamut), this would be a
logical next area of competition. Of course, if the minilab is doing
image analysis and possibly image tweaking (technical term, that), the only
external testing that is at all meaningful is the semi-objective old school
photo rag testing: have a bunch of labs print a bunch of images, and see
which we like...
Ultimately I think EXIF data exchange will prove far
more important than profile information in consumer digital (one more time:
consumer!); to the extent that profiles have become a necessary evil, they
will of course persist, and are of course essential to the markets 'above'
(in attitude at least) consumer, but in the consumer world, I would expect
to see the profile largely swept under the proverbial rug, as there are so
many bigger things to worry about. (Gamut doesn't matter much if the
highlights are blown, the shadows are blocked, and Mom looks a sickly
shade of green thanks to the Energy Star compact fluorescent, to state the
obvious.) What remains open in my mind is what impact these pressures
from the consumer side will have on the commercial and amateur markets.!
Disclaimer: of course, all of the foregoing is merely
my own impression, conveyed perhaps with some artistic license for
exaggeration, and based on completely unscientific observations.
Sample population unknown, adverse selection completely likely, value
highly questionable.
-frank
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 1:21 pm (PDT)
From: "Mike Russell"
Subject: Definition of calibrationism
My working definition of calibrationism is an
obsession, to the exclusion of everything else, with profiles and the third
party devices used to create them.
Since a calibrationist deals in measurements only,
there is no reference to any particular image or visual phenomena. Only
profiles and calibration procedures and devices matter. Color is a
statistical aggregation to a calibrationist, and he will therefore pour
scorn on the very idea of doing anything whatsoever, if it is solely based
on a particular image or a small set of images.
The true calibrationist deprecates, as imperceptive or
retrograde, anyone who does not "buy in", literally, to the
calibrationist's domain of equipment and procedures. You'll see the
word "should" used in almost every sentence, and
"meaningless" when referring to color values that are not
perfectly armoured in calibration from capture to final display on monitor
or paper.
As an example, if a skin tone has too much magenta,
instead of removing some of the magenta to get a more pleasing skin tone, a
calibrationist will launch into a long discussion of camera calibration
scripts, standardized camera targets, monitor calibration gadgets, and
multi $1000 colorimeter - spectrophotometer devices that should be used to
add "meaning" to the color numbers. An actual image,
instead of being the end goal is of no importance whatsoever. Not
surprisingly, since individual images do not matter, only concepts,
calibrationist books generally contain very poor quality CMYK
illustrations, and teem with before/after comparison images that do not
really show anything in particular.
I differ from Dan regarding the motivation of the
calibrationist. Although many people make their living, legitimately,
from calibration related activities, I think the ultimate motication for
calibrationism is psychological and not monetary. It relates to the
Purity of Essence concept put forth in the movie "Dr.
Strangelove". Eyes are organic. ill-defined, and messy. So
anything that can be viewed by human eyes is an irrelevant distraction, to
a calibrationist. Similarly, any natural variation in lighting, such
as reflection of light by colored objects, or press variations, is
irrelevant.
By extension, images, because they are for eyes only,
are irrelevant to a calibrationist. Only patches, measured patch
values, and the algorithms that process them into profiles are
"real" to a calibrationist. If the image looks bad to
someone, then there must be an error in the "chain of
calibration". In theory, a calibrationst could function equally
well without vision entirely. He is like a blind man with access to
instruments and a knowledge of color theory, who believes that only machine
generated data is relevant to any discussion of color.
The term Impressionism was originally coined as a
derogatory term, later lovingly adopted. Perhaps calibrationists will
do the same for Dan's term,
and wear it as a badge of pride.
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 1:22 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/30/06 6:13 PM, Ron Kelly wrote:
Marco:
What you're implying here is that
"calibrationsim" is the TRUTH and
that there can be no problems with it.
Ron,
First of all, I still have to understand what
"calibrationism" is, since you assume that I understand your
meaning: but I still don't. Sounds a lot like an insult, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing.
I am implying *nothing* that I am not saying. And,
incidentally, I also wish that people on this forum would put a lid on the
bad habit of attributing opinions and thought to others that they have
never either expressed or endorsed, all for the apparent purpose of scoring
a cheap point through the ancient ruse of the "straw man" that I
mentioned earlier.
That having been said, I would also say with a good
degree of confidence that calibrated equipment just works more dependably.
Would you rather deal with the problems caused by non-calibrated equipment,
or those that follow from calibrating it? The choice is up to you, and I
cast no aspersions on your preference.
Now, that is my *whole* point, nothing more and nothing
less.
Seriously, how can anyone challenge my point of view?
Well, don't get me stahted... :-)
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 1:22 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 5/31/06 7:58 AM, colorman042000
wrote:
The term "calibrationism" was
originally defined (by Dan) as "(the)
shutdown of all mental processes in the service of the
notion that
this is all mathematics and that machines always do it
better."
Which also offers a perfect example of how a
"straw man" is created: crediting to your opponent a thought or
argument so ludicrously untenable as to be indefensible, with no regard to
whether or not such position is either being accurately described or
actually espoused by said opponent.
It's sad to see how much energy is being expended in
such "straw man" arguments, any of which ought to be summarily
dismissed instead as the toxic nonsense it is.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 10:33 pm (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Definition of calibrationism
On 5/31/06 1:24 PM, "Mike Russell"
wrote:
My working definition of calibrationism is an
obsession, to the exclusion of
everything else, with profiles and the third party
devices used to create
them.
This thread is going to become as nonsensical as the
resent one on RGB labs...
Since a calibrationist deals in measurements only,
there is no reference to
any particular image or visual phenomena.
I know people who are pretty anal about calibrating
their devices but I don1t know any who don1t output actual images after
doing so. Maybe you know someone like this (could there be more than one or
two on the planet?). I mean, do you really think there are people who
obsess about measuring something and then never actually produce any output
other than some colored patches?
Only profiles and calibration
procedures and devices matter. Color is a statistical
aggregation to a
calibrationist, and he will therefore pour scorn on
the very idea of doing
anything whatsoever, if it is solely based on a
particular image or a small
set of images.
Only? I would suggest that if you really do know such
people, you recommend the 3get a life2.
As an example, if a skin tone has too much magenta,
instead of removing some
of the magenta to get a more pleasing skin tone, a
calibrationist will
launch into a long discussion of camera calibration
scripts, standardized
camera targets, monitor calibration gadgets, and multi
$1000 colorimeter
And how did anyone KNOW the skin tone was too magenta?
They were looking at something like a display? Was the skin too magenta or
the display? A legit question I think.
Eyes are organic. ill-defined, and messy.
Very useful for some tasks, poor for others.
So anything that can be viewed by human eyes is an
irrelevant
distraction, to a calibrationist. Similarly, any
natural variation in
lighting, such as reflection of light by colored
objects, or press
variations, is irrelevant.
I really want to meet this one odd fellow you and Dan
are talking about!
Now what part of this has anything to do with either
color or theory? Must be a slow news day in the imaging world....
Andrew Rodney
http://www.digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed May 31, 2006 10:34 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Definition of calibrationism
In a message dated 5/31/06 12:24 PM, Mike Russell wrote:
My working definition of calibrationism is an
obsession, to the exclusion of
everything else, with profiles and the third party
devices used to create
them.
Since a calibrationist deals in measurements only,
there is no reference to
any particular image or visual phenomena. Only
profiles and calibration
procedures and devices matter. Color is a statistical
aggregation to a
calibrationist, and he will therefore pour scorn on
the very idea of doing
anything whatsoever, if it is solely based on a
particular image or a small
set of images.
[snip all the ensuing awkward and heavy-handed
caricatured misrepresentations, along more or less the same lines...]
Hi Mike.
Nice example of parody and/or self-parody. Good for a
cheap laugh.
So, thank you for that. :-)
As for nutritional value, not much, I'm afraid. I fail
to see where there would be room for reasoned argument in your world, since
the alternative, apparently, is only fit for dunces and knaves.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 6:24 am (PDT)
From: "Dan Margulis"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Andre Dumas writes, in two separate posts,
I agree that "calibrationism" defined that
way is bad but since Dan's
definition rarely accompanies the term...
In view of the disagreeable personal tone that has IMHO
poisoned this thread, I was going to skip replying, but you have now
brought the subject up twice.
This word "calibrationism" was not used by
me--I quoted someone else as having used it. Similarly, the last time this
question came up on the list, two years ago, I had not used the word,
either. It was used by two color management consultants who declared
themselves to be calibrationists, and then attacked me for not defining how
they had used the term.
Dan can you give me a detailed description of the
symptoms of
"calibrationism" I think I may have caught
it ?
Unlikely, since true calibrationism died out before the
turn of the century, although there are several ex-calibrationists around,
including at least one on this list. Very little, if any, of what currently
is advocated on this or the ColorSync users list can be characterized as
calibrationism.
If you need a clinical definition for purposes of
self-diagnosis, then the following should suffice.
1) You must have, at least once, attempted to calibrate
something that either a) can't be calibrated; b) nobody cares whether is
calibrated or not; c) is obviously the wrong thing to attempt to calibrate.
Examples: attempting to profile one's toothbrush, shoelaces, or a printing
press.
2) You must attribute to calibration at least one
miracle that cannot otherwise be explained except by supernatural
intervention. Example: it is not sufficient for this diagnosistic criterion
to believe that it is a good idea to calibrate one's monitor. You must
actively believe that doing so repeals the laws of chromatic adaptation and
simultaneous contrast. Or, you must believe that calibrating the devices of
a person who refuses to adopt proper process control procedures will
miraculously deliver good color henceforward.
3) You must accept as an article of faith that on the
judgment day, there will be revealed a method of immaculate conversion
between colorspaces, one that is perfect in any way and retains every
nuance of the preconversion file.
4) On at least one occasion, you must have acquiesced
to an obviously incorrect machine measurement, rejecting the evidence of
your own eyes. Example: the machine told you that purple is closer to blue
than another blue is, because Delta-E is less, and you believed it.
The following side effect has been noted in some, but
not all, calibrationists. It can be treated as a differentiating diagnostic
factor in case of any question as to whether the first criteria have been
met.
5) You should have referred to at least one opponent
publicly as a "liar", "brain-dead",
"dinosaur", "Luddite", or referred to his "legacy
workflows."
What would be the best medicament to deal with it ?
Generally, common sense; however, sometimes it is
necessary to prescribe repetition of the following questions before
calibrating *anything*: Why am I doing this? What *specific* bad things may
happen if I don't do it? How close do I have to be before I am satisfied?
Alternatively, you can take this advice, from 1998, a
time when calibrationism was not yet extinct. The setting:
Grand calibrationism, a common (but not consensus)
belief of the early 1990s, held that the objective was to match the
original photograph as literally as mathematics would permit in the ifnal
output. The idea that I presented in 1994, that a new highlight and shadow
should be set regardless of what was found in the film, was heavily
criticized at the time as defeating the overall intention.
The more common calibrationism was the aforementioned
belief that a perfect conversion to CMYK was possible. Therefore, the
industry unanimously--yes, unanimously, naive as it sounds today--believed
that CMYK was going away, in favor of an "RGB Workflow." I am not
speaking of a workflow which is primarily RGB with only minor touchup after
the file enters CMYK. The one that the industry unanimously saw coming was
a workflow that was no CMYK file at all, not ever, not no way, not no how,
all conversions taking place in the RIP.
In 1994, I wrote a chapter entitled
"Calibrationists and Buccaneers" which explained why the concept
would never work, with the result that I was called a great many names,
including all of the ones noted above and then some.
By the next edition of my book (2000) that naive
no-CMYK-ever idea was as dead as the idea today that a photo lab can be
relied upon to honor an embedded profile. In a chapter of that book
entitled "Today's Calibrationist, Today's Color Manager", I wrote
the following, which should answer your question.
Dan Margulis
********************
Think back to a time--just over ten years ago, actually
[i.e., 1988]--when hard drives cost almost a thousand times as much as they
do now, and when a workstation as powerful as, say, a 486 or a pre-PowerPC
Macintosh cost half a million dollars. You can understand that an RGB
workflow would have been *extremely* attractive in that age, because RGB
files are only three-quarters as large as their CMYK counterparts, and all
mathematical operations take three-quarters as long.
The RGB workflow therefore would
certainly have been adopted--if only it had worked! It didn't, so it
wasn't.
As I hope this chapter has
indicated, I do believe fairly strongly in calibration. But I do not make a
religion of it; I insist that science and mathematics be my servants and
not my master; when I see an image that looks lousy I say so even if a
machine says it looks good. And so, I am not a calibrationist, but I am a
color manager.
Who is a calibrationist, then? It used to
be easy to spot them. They were the ones who thought that the idea was to
make as close of a literal match to the original as possible. But those
Neanderthals are gone. Today's calibrationist is much tougher to identify.
A couple of years ago, I tried to clarify the matter with the following:
"Data, data everywhere, and not a
thought to think!...Calibrationists tend to have just enough of an academic
background to convince themselves that their theories are valid and should
be implemented by the world at large, yet not enough to realize what
constitutes building on scientific quicksand...In the most extreme
incarnations, calibrationists would rather have predictable scans than good
ones; rather have a good-looking histogram than a good-looking image;
rather have how something looks aesthetically be decided by densitometer
than by human observer; and, where there are several output devices, rather
have equal color on all of them than acceptable color on any."
Admittedly, this isn't that precise
a definition either. Perhaps I will just have to echo Justice Stewart, and
say that I know the calibrationism when I see it.
With that, we leave the topic in favor of
a survey of the proven techniques of color correction. Master those, and
this diatribe will almost be irrelevant. You'll be able to work with or
without ICC profiles, in any colorspace you like, on a black and white
monitor if you wish, without proofing if need be.
Some of the concepts are
difficult... But even as your eyes begin to glaze over, make sure your mind
doesn't go into neutral. Fuzzy thinking, you will remember, is the hallmark
of the calibrationist, not the successful color manager.
And so, if someone offers you what
seems like a plausible scientific argument, like, say, offering to trot out
a densitometer to measure whether the two greens of Figure 2.1 are the
same, take a deep breath and think it over. If you allow yourself to be
buffaloed by technology into believing things that your own eyes and
intelligence can tell you are false, if you believe those two greens to be
the same even though you and every other human perceive them as
different--well, then, beware. Tomorrow's calibrationist could be *you.*
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 7:08 am (PDT)
From: "Ric Cohn"
Subject: Re: Definition of calibrationism
I agree that creating a cartoon straw-man and then
hitting at it like a Piñata, while it has it's amusements, is
unlikely to ever shed any light on "either color or theory".
However, I do think these extremes cloud what were and
are (I believe to a much lesser extent than in the past) real issues.
I believe it's an uncontested fact that sometimes
companies and people selling color management products have oversold them.
I also believe that in the past some of the users of these products (both
paid by and unpaid by the companies involved) have jumped on the bandwagon
of the company's PR to tout these solutions as the cure-all for all kinds
of problems having to do with getting good color from a file.
Color management and calibration are tools that no one
that I know of denies are helpful and necessary. However, along the
spectrum of No Color Management (another straw man) and the person who
believes that calibration will solve all the world's color problems (the
calibrationist straw man), there is a line between using the tools and
over-reliance on the tools. To me, how much it makes sense for someone to
depend on calibration depends on what part of the process we are talking
about and depends on the equipment being used to capture or reproduce the
files. I believe that virtually everyone on this list would agree with this
last statement. However, where to draw that line is where reasonable people
can differ. At one extreme is the "straw man" calibrationist. How
far along the spectrum one continues to think the person is a
calibrationist (in what I understand to be Dan's sense of the word) is an
opinion.
I think the pure calibrationist may be extinct, if
indeed he ever existed. However, I believe the concept of a calibrationist
is a useful construct as it helps define the line that reasonable people
shouldn't be fooled into crossing by those with something to sell-- whether
it be a product, an idea or a workflow.
I'd like to see either the term
"calibrationist" re-stated or a new word made up in words that
make sense in 2006. I'd be very interested in hearing how those on this
list (including Andrew, Chris and Dan) would state this. I suspect there
would probably be more agreement than disagreement. Consensus is something
that would have something to do with theory and perhaps color too!
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 10:02 am (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 6/1/06 6:38 AM, "Dan Margulis" wrote:
1) You must have, at least once, attempted to
calibrate something that either
a) can't be calibrated; b) nobody cares whether is
calibrated or not; c) is
obviously the wrong thing to attempt to calibrate.
Examples: attempting to
profile one's toothbrush, shoelaces, or a printing
press.
Based on the pasted definitions below, I would submit
that not only can one calibrate a press, many, many press operators have
been doing so for a very long time (where does the value for dot gain come
from? Where does one come up with ink limits?):
Webster1s Concise Electronic Dictionary
3 sense(s) for 3calibrate2
1. cal·i·brate
(verb)
[cal·i·brat·ed; cal·i·brat·ed;
cal·i·brat·ing; cal·i·brates]
- determine, correct, or put measuring
marks on
1 meaning(s) for 3calibrate2
1. (verb) to assign a number proportional
to a quantity
(synonym) gauge, mark off, measure,
quantify, weigh
(related) mark
WordNet (r) 2.0
1 definition(s) found
calibrate
v 1: make fine adjustments or
divide into marked intervals for
optimal measuring;
"calibrate an instrument"; "graduate
a cylinder"
[syn: graduate, fine-tune]
2: mark (the scale of a measuring
instrument) so that it can be
read in the desired units;
"he calibrated the thermometer
for the Celsius
scale"
3: measure the caliber of;
"calibrate a gun"
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 10:05 am (PDT)
From: Peter Leyland
Subject: Definition of calibrationism
Thanks Mike a thoroughly enjoyable read and at last
something I could easily understand - but I'll still continue to calibrate
of course.
Peter Leyland
PDQ Print Services
93 Commercial Street
Dundee DD1 2AF
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 10:10 am (PDT)
From: "Lee Clawson"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Maris,
I beg to differ, to date I don't see one that's not
worthwhile.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 10:13 am (PDT)
From: "Ric Cohn"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I wonder how many people get confused between
calibration and profiling? I know, at times, I have. Unfortunately, the
term "profiling" is rather vague, and I have seen it used by some
people interchangeably with "calibration". To someone who has
spent no time in a pressroom (or very little time, like myself), the
differences may blur.
I believe it is agreed that for consistent output a
press benefits from being profiled (it's output measured) and then
remeasured periodically to make sure it stays within a certain range of
tolerance of this "normal" behavior (process control). The data
sent to the press can then be adjusted to give more predictable output from
that press's condition. As I understand it, calibrating a press (as opposed
to profiling) would entail measuring and then adjusting the presses output
so that the output matched the input, and given the realities of a large
printing press this is an absurd idea.
Proofers, on the other hand, are the ideal place to
calibrate output and the point of a proofer is to calibrate it so it's
output mimics the press conditions. It's also not that difficult to create
an icc profile for a press that to many may look an awful lot like
"calibrating the press".
Therefore, calibration based on the press's behavior
can be used to help in getting predictable results from a press even for
someone who has not printed on that press before. As I understand the
arguments, someone who suggests calibrating presses rather than profiling
them is naive to the realities of the press room. This may or may not be
the same person who believes that calibration at some point in the workflow
(monitor, proofer, press) can make (through measurements) the output
as perfect as possible, and end the need for human intervention (our
straw-man calibrationist).
Perhaps an article on the differing meanings of these
terms ala Dan's chapter on the different meanings of "resolution"
would be helpful?
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 4:11 pm (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 6/1/06 9:00 AM, "Ric Cohn" wrote:
I wonder how many people get confused between
calibration and
profiling?
Lots. But the difference are significant.
I believe it is agreed that for consistent output a
press benefits
from being profiled (it's output measured) and
then remeasured
periodically to make sure it stays within a certain
range of
tolerance of this "normal" behavior (process
control).
In that sentence you1ve discussed both calibration and
profiling.
Calibration is necessary always, profiling is useful
but not necessary.
Calibration ensures a device produces that consistent
behavior you speak of. I simply can1t imagine using any device that isn1t
consistent. Unlike cheese, digital files don1t1 change by themselves. So
when you send the same RGB or CMYK numbers to a device, you should get back
the same colors every day the device is being used. If you don1t, you have
a calibration issue. There1s no need for a profile at this stage. We simply
want the same numbers to always produce the same color. Worrying about the
profile in this case is putting the cart before the horse.
Getting the optimal numbers for that device so we end
up with the expected color appearance usually requires a profile. That1s
all profiles do! They take one set of numbers and provide another set for a
certain device. The new set should be optimized for the device. But lots of
people did, do and can continue to produce numbers for their devices
without profiles. They simply know the right numbers to get the desired
color appearance. You might know the exact set of CMYK values to produce a
neutral gray on your press. No profile necessary. Calibration IS necessary
otherwise you may not have the gray tomorrow you got today.
As I understand it, calibrating a press
(as opposed to profiling) would entail measuring and
then adjusting
the presses output so that the output matched the
input, and given
the realities of a large printing press this is an
absurd idea.
Calibrating a press means that the numbers you send it
today produce the same color appearance you got from those numbers a month
ago.
Proofers, on the other hand, are the ideal place to
calibrate output
and the point of a proofer is to calibrate it so it's
output mimics
the press conditions. It's also not that difficult to
create an icc
profile for a press that to many may look an awful lot
like
"calibrating the press".
There1s no need to separate devices. IF they are
consistent in their behavior all the time (like my Epson), calibration
isn1t necessary. Now it may NOT be producing optimal behavior. The Epson
driver is simply not producing the best, linear output and I can1t alter
that (the driver has no such provisions). But the Epson is always producing
this behavior. All I need is a profile since I do need a recipe to produce
the necessary RGB values. It would be nice to provide the best possible ink
delivery and do so consistently to this Epson. One is possible, the other
isn1t (unless I substitute a different print driver).
On a press it would be nice to have it both calibrated
and producing the best possible behavior (to save ink as an example). But
of the two, a device that1s behaving less than optimally but doing so
consistently is much better than a device that1s optimal today and less so
tomorrow (within reason of course. If it1s so poorly behaved that
everything is garbage no profile will provide adequate numbers. This isn1t
the case with the Epson. It could be better behaved but its not so non
linear that you can1t get a good print).
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 4:12 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Definition of calibrationism
In a message dated 6/1/06 6:48 AM, Ric Cohn wrote:
I agree that creating a cartoon straw-man and then
hitting at it like
a Piñata, while it has it's amusements,
is unlikely to ever shed any
light on "either color or theory".
Hi Ric.
We agree on that.
I believe it's an uncontested fact that sometimes
companies and
people selling color management products have oversold
them.
That's standard practice in business. Nothing new,
really. Since when do companies *not* hype* their products and not present
them as *the* bullet-proof solution to all of one's problems? Works that
way for beauty products, cars, you name it. That's where one's own
intelligence and savvy must enter the picture, or else risk being played
for a sucker.
I also believe that in the past some of the users of
these products (both paid
by and unpaid by the companies involved) have jumped
on the bandwagon of the
company's PR to tout these solutions as the cure-all
for all kinds of problems
having to do with getting good color from a file.
That's part of the PR/advertising blitz, so often
played at the very edges of both legality and ethics.
Color management and calibration are tools that no one
that I know of
denies are helpful and necessary. However, along the
spectrum of No
Color Management (another straw man) and the person
who believes that
calibration will solve all the world's color problems
(the
calibrationist straw man), there is a line between
using the tools
and over-reliance on the tools.
Very true. No self-respecting imaging professional
should allow themselves to behave like caricatures. But even if they should
do so, self-congratulatory ridicule is hardly the appropriate answer.
To me, how much it makes sense for
someone to depend on calibration depends on what part
of the process
we are talking about and depends on the equipment
being used to
capture or reproduce the files. I believe that
virtually everyone on
this list would agree with this last statement.
I would say that if the equipment does not respond well
to calibration, or cannot be calibrated with a decent level of precision,
then one ought to move on and work the best way possible around that
limitation.
However, where to
draw that line is where reasonable people can differ.
At one extreme
is the "straw man" calibrationist. How far
along the spectrum one
continues to think the person is a calibrationist (in
what I
understand to be Dan's sense of the word) is an
opinion.
Unfortunately, it appears that some think that one is a
lost-cause "calibrationist" at any point along that spectrum.
That's how coarse I perceive that harshly judgmental vision to be.
I think the pure calibrationist may be extinct, if
indeed he ever
existed.
The "pure calibrationist" is someone that no
one with an ounce of sense would hire to work for them, because he/she
would prove unable to work with people's actual, real-life, messy needs and
desires. So, what are we worrying about, really? Anyone like that is a
tinkerer, at best. With the caveat that even tinkerers at times come up
with good ideas...
However, I believe the concept of a calibrationist is
a
useful construct as it helps define the line that
reasonable people
shouldn't be fooled into crossing by those with
something to sell--
whether it be a product, an idea or a workflow.
How about saying, instead, that there is a measured and
reasonable approach to the problem of calibrating devices? And that
machines are inherently fallible and imprecise, as are both their
manufacturers and the ever-changing mathematical models they are built
around?
What I mean is: why not acknowledge the reasons why
someone may become overreliant on technical fixes, and find a better
solution for the problem that that person ended up approaching in a way
that proved over-confident and inadequate?
I'd like to see either the term
"calibrationist" re-stated or a new
word made up in words that make sense in 2006. I'd be
very interested
in hearing how those on this list (including Andrew,
Chris and Dan)
would state this. I suspect there would probably be
more agreement
than disagreement. Consensus is something that would
have something
to do with theory and perhaps color too!
Yes, let's see how we can talk to each other past the
temptation of scoring cheap personal points, and in the interest of
solutions that each of us may benefit from in our actual work -- which
hopefully is the purpose of this forum.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 4:22 pm (PDT)
From: "Bob Frost"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan,
Wouldn't it be nice if all people responded alike when
they saw the same color? Instead we are faced with the fact that we all
differ in all sorts of ways, including our vision. Perhaps we have to learn
to calibrate and profile humans!
A lot of people have poor color vision, some don't have
any. About 2% of males have only two sorts of cones (similar to cats and
dogs), instead of the more usual three. Another 6% of males have the normal
three sorts of cones, but one, two, or all three cones respond to different
wavelengths than normal. Very few women suffer from these congenital
defects in color vision, since the genes for most of these defects are
sex-linked.
Among the 90% with 'normal' color vision, variation is
considerable. The spectral location of 'unique green', for example, varies
over 30nm in those with normal color vision. Similar research has shown
that individuals vary widely in what they perceive as 'unique red', and so
on.
Not only is there variation between individuals, but in
the same individual. As we get older, our lenses normally yellow so that
our color vision changes. People in their 50s will exhibit clearly
lower spectral sensitivities at the short wavelength end of the spectrum
than 10 year olds. When older people have artificial lenses fitted, they
are often surprised by the blueness of everything.
When arguing about colors and human v machine, I don't
think enough account
is taken of these variations in the human perception of
color.
Bob Frost.
PS They have to use one of those calibrated gadgets to
measure these
differences in perception!
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu Jun 1, 2006 5:48 pm (PDT)
From: "Matthew Rigdon"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
seems like a nice idea. too bad humans are ridiculously
easy to fool, even when we're perfectly calibrated :)
http://www.purveslab.net/main/
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 3:38 am (PDT)
From: "fotofred2"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I guess this thread has morphed!
I am primarily an underwater photographer and often am
asked to give presentations on my work both here in the Chicago area and to
a lesser extent at other North American locations. In the course of
these 'shows' over the past year or so I've been asked by many of these
groups who put on other presentations, shows and competitions if I could
help them achieve what they think is the 'superior color' I get from my
laptop/projector combination. I've tried to help whenever asked and
have subsequently been told that my efforts have produced substanital
improvement.
My simple procedure has been to profile & calibrate
the laptop used with the projector and then to profile the projector ...
all of the above using the GretagMacbeth Eye-One Photo/Beamer hardware and
software. I now have the ColorVision equivalent, and find it too
produces substantial improvement.
Please note that what I see and what other tell me they
see is 'substantial improvement' and not 'perfection'. My own work
features a lot of blues for obvious reasons. Also a lot of greens,
since my underwater venues are in equatorial regions of the Indo-Pacific
where there's a lot of rain forest on the surface. As those much
wiser than I have freqently observed greens and blues are problematic when
printed ... in my experience, that true for projection as well ... likewise
for the pastels that many like to use as background colors in PowerPoint
slides.
The bottom line is balance. I don't expect
calibrating and/or profiling to solve all my color problems, but I am
pleased that they can deliver 'substantial improvement' Color
correction techniques (using all the color spaces) help me achieve my
realize 'substantial improvement' over the original when I seek my
previsualization in print. I need both, and neither is sufficient in
itself. On the other hand neither can achieve as much on it's own as
both can achieve used together.
I certainly appreciate all the points of view expressed
on this forum, and for sure the information that is frequently
communicated. Thank you all.
Fred Drury
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 3:38 am (PDT)
From: "Bob Frost"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Andrew,
IF they are consistent in their
behavior all the time (like my Epson), calibration
isn1t necessary.
But it may be useful, such as Epson's Colorbase
calibration for the R2400?
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 3:39 am (PDT)
From: "colorman042000"
André Dumas
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Dan Margulis wrote:
This word "calibrationism" was not used by
me--I quoted someone
else as having used it. Snip!
Thanks for the explanation Dan. You used the terms
Calibrationists and Calibrationism in Chapter 2 "Calibrationists and
Buccaneers" (1995 edition of Professional Photoshop) and again in the
1998 book so I assumed that you had coined *both* words.
In a recent message Ric Cohn said " ... the term
"profiling" is rather vague, and I have seen it used by some
people interchangeably with "calibration". ..." Well, I must
admit that I've been doing that, and therefore in a previous message I
should have said that I *profile* my scanner and my inkjet
printer and I *calibrate* and *profile* my display.
Dan, in your explanation are you "sort of"
blurring the differences between profiling and calibrating?
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 3:40 am (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Hi Bob.
Oddly, and paradoxically enough, what you indicate
(namely, the variations and oddities within the possible range of responses
to color in humans) would seem to make it even more advisable to give the
proper weight and respect to the determination of color appearance based on
the mathematical models derived from the Color Matching Functions of the
Standard Observer. Specially when the measuring instrument is one that has
proven itself reliable over time. At the very least, one should seriously
consider the possibility that the instrument is on to something.
After all, we age, or our bodies change for any of a
number of reasons, and our color vision may be shifting more quickly and
abruptly than we think or may be aware of. How many of us take the 100-hue
Farnsworth-Munsell test on a regular basis? Almost 10 years ago I scored
well, but how would I score today, in my fifties?
So, perhaps, if two people insist on seeing those green
samples a certain way in contradiction with what the measuring instrument
is reporting, one must entertain the *possibility* that, when all is said
and done, *they may be both wrong* and the instrument closer to the truth
than they are, due to physiological color perception anomalies in both
human observers. Not so impossible, after all.
For the sake of a balanced view of this subject, I
guess my point is that it is clearly not true in *all* cases that, if there
is a discrepancy between what certain individual humans see and what a
measuring instrument reports, the instrument is *necessarily* wrong.
Specially when the humans involved in the judgment are a limited number
(say, two or three) and the accuracy of their color perception is not
proven in some way.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 5:53 am (PDT)
From: "Ric Cohn’
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Jun 1, 2006, at 9:13 PM, Marco Ugolini wrote:
I guess my point is that it
is clearly not true in *all* cases that, if there is a
discrepancy between
what certain individual humans see and what a
measuring instrument reports,
the instrument is *necessarily* wrong.
Hi Marco,
I think you missed the subtext of what Dan was saying
about these greens. In the example in his book, the greens ARE the
"same". What differs is the context. Because of the surrounding
colors the 2 greens look different to EVERY human observer, and because
they are the same spectrally they look identical to a measuring instrument
(that doesn't take the surrounding colors into consideration).
I believe Dan's point is that we, as color correctors,
should adjust colors based on CONTEXT not on numbers. To ignore the context
that our eyes and brains supply and to consider the machine measurements
"correct" is what (I believe) he would define as
"Calibratiionism". The point being that even if we could create a
mechanical system that would do all corrections for us and match every
color that a machine measures in a scene, these results would not be
"correct" because they need to be based on what humans see not
what machines measure. The straw man "Calibrationist" believes
that a perfect mechanical system is possible.
I think when stated this way the above seems obvious.
However, in the past (and I assume today), there have been proponents of
icc profiles who have felt that a machine generated profile is
automatically correct. When these solutions are touted as the "only
professional way of working" rather than part of the solution to users
needs for predictable and excellent color reproduction, I believe Dan sees
red.
Regards,
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 8:24 am (PDT)
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
I take three things from this round of discussion on
Calibration(ism).
1) The equipment we use to display and reproduce color
needs to be calibrated in order to achieve dependable, repeatable output
from day to day.
2) Profiles are useful in displaying and tailoring
output sent to individual devices.
3) Humans see color in context, machines do not. Unless
and until they do, human involvement is a necessary element of color
management.
Bob Frost writes:
"Perhaps we have to learn to calibrate and
profile humans!"
In a way, we do... producing work that fits the profile
of our client. Messy and unscientific as it is, the client is the final and
ultimate measuring device. He is the one to be pleased with our color work.
Two variations of the same image might each be selected as superior by two
different people. Which one is correct? They both are, according to the
unique preferences of each individual. Even as a professional, I cannot
argue with what a client 'sees'. If he sees magenta as blue, then by God,
magenta *is* blue. Between being 'right' or satisfying my client, the
client always gets preference.
It is for this reason that proofs are approved by the
client before a run. If the client is not pleased with the proof, then his
input and the subsequent changes I make to the image become a part his
color "profile" that I will incorporate into this a future jobs
for him.
I think most would agree that we need a dependable and
predictable environment in which to work and practice our craft.
Calibration of equipment and profiling provides tools to create such an
environment. Human involvement is a necessary part of that environment,
because the images we produce are for human consumption, with each person
having unique and often variable perceptions and tastes.
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 8:25 am (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 6/2/06 6:15 AM, "Ric Cohn" wrote:
I think you missed the subtext of what Dan was saying
about these
greens. In the example in his book, the greens ARE the
"same". What
differs is the context.
I think when stated this way the above seems obvious.
However, in the
past (and I assume today), there have been proponents
of icc profiles
who have felt that a machine generated profile is
automatically
correct.
All this proves is that human vision and perception has
flaws (duh).
You can use this argument to make an instrument seem
like the right or wrong answer. But in both cases, humans need to use said
instrument and their vision with some intelligence. For example, look at
the optical illusion on this web page:
http:
//web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html
A and B are the same color. You can test this yourself
by clicking on the Proof link. An instrument would show us (prove) that
both A and B are the same. Now the question becomes, do we need to deal
with the perception of the color or know about the actual color? If all
that matters is the color in context, that these two identical colors don1t
look the same is NOT an issue. We are perfectly happy they don1t match
(that1s the goal).
However, this also illustrates where instrumentation IS
necessary. You1re visually trying to calibrate and profile a display based
on color squares presented to you (Adobe Gamma). What1s wrong with this
picture?
The issue I have with some posters of this fine forum
is this Black or White mentality about instrumentation, profiles,
calibration and so on. The world usually operates in many shades of gray.
No one that uses instrumentation intelligently would argue with Dan1s point
about color in context. They WOULD argue that such a point doesn1t diminish
the need for instrumentation in many areas of digital imaging (and other
areas of our daily life. I for one am glad the pilot of the 747 I was on
uses instruments and at the same time can hopefully land the jet should
they fail).
It1s real easy and a cheap shot to show how two colors
in context diminish an instrument in this one case and extrapolate that
this is the case always and forever. I would hope most readers would see
past this kind of simplicity.
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 8:26 am (PDT)
From: "colorman042000"
André Dumas
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Ric, the 2 greens are not the same ...! The one on the
left is close to c85,y85 and the one on the right more like c100, y90 plus
some k. Maybe they were meant to be the same (?) but they did not print the
same, at least not in my copy of the book.
In any case, if they were the same but looked different
(because of the context) then I would say that they are different, it's
what I perceive that is important to me.
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 2:51 pm (PDT)
From: "Bob Frost"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From my limited reading on the subject of color
perception, I'm not sure there is any such thing as an 'actual' color or a
'correct' color. Since objects have no color - they merely reflect or
absorb different wavelengths of light, color is entirely a function of the
eye/brain complex. Color only exists in the brains of mammals.
I think I'm right in saying that machines can't measure
'color'. AFAIK they measure the luminosity of light passing through various
filters, or use some other means to get a quantitative measurement of the
different wavelengths of light falling on them.
The color we assign to those different wavelengths of
light is purely a function of our eye/brain complex. So if you see one
color and I see another when we both are receiving the same wavelength of
light, we are both
'correct' in our perceptions. Philosophers have argued
this matter for years.
The rainbow diagrams of color versus wavelength are
presumably based on some past averaging of human responses. I don't think
any such diagram can be said to be 'correct'.
Time to shut up; this is all getting a bit too
theoretical for this list!
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 2:51 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 6/2/06 5:15 AM, Ric Cohn wrote:
I think you missed the subtext of what Dan was saying
about these
greens. In the example in his book, the greens ARE the
"same". What
differs is the context.
Hi Ric.
That I wasn't aware of. I don't have the book.
Because of the surrounding colors the 2
greens look different to EVERY human observer, and
because they are
the same spectrally they look identical to a measuring
instrument
(that doesn't take the surrounding colors into
consideration).
But in that case this is another red herring: any
self-respecting imaging professional who works with color is familiar with
simultaneous contrast and other context-derived phenomena that affect the
way a color is perceived.
Again, it seems that what is being ridiculed here is a
caricature, not a credible, intelligent, competent person.
CIECAM models, by the way, are attempting to quantify
the effects of context on color perception. It may be a long shot, but the
world-class color scientists at RIT's Munsell Color Lab are applying their
considerable mental firepower to the subject.
I don't know about you, but I will take any help I can
get from proven science.
I believe Dan's point is that we, as color correctors,
should adjust
colors based on CONTEXT not on numbers. To ignore the
context that
our eyes and brains supply and to consider the machine
measurements
"correct" is what (I believe) he would
define as "Calibratiionism".
Ask me how much I would personally respect someone who
tells me that context is irrelevant in the perception of color. My answer
would be that I think the person is clearly a fool. Why spend any length of
time attacking what is yet another straw man?
The point being that even if we could create a
mechanical system that
would do all corrections for us and match every color
that a machine
measures in a scene, these results would not be
"correct" because
they need to be based on what humans see not what
machines measure.
But then the question becomes: which humans? in which
viewing conditions? at what time of day? are they well or sick? etc.
As much as I don't like to say it, there is some
Luddite connotation in this argument: whenever machines and humans differ,
machines are always wrong. Sorry, not true, at least not always.
The straw man "Calibrationist" believes that
a perfect mechanical
system is possible.
And that the earth is flat? And that there is such a
thing as "intelligent design"? What kind of dimwitted fellow are
we talking about here? Well, let them. No one with any experience in the
business gives any credence to such people, or, if they do for a second,
they soon realize what they are dealing with when the results do not
materialize.
I think when stated this way the above seems obvious.
However, in the
past (and I assume today), there have been proponents
of icc profiles
who have felt that a machine generated profile is
automatically
correct. When these solutions are touted as the
"only professional
way of working" rather than part of the solution
to users needs for
predictable and excellent color reproduction, I
believe Dan sees red.
And green and blue, at all luminance levels... :-)
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 2:51 pm (PDT)
From: "Ric Cohn”
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Jun 2, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Andrew Rodney wrote:
All this proves is that human vision and perception
has flaws (duh).
Hi Andrew,
I respectfully disagree with this statement. Since we
are creating images to be viewed by humans I personally believe the
"flaws" are with the machines' measurements and not the people. I
also believe that color management is still in it's infancy and eventually
we will "teach" our machines to see "correctly". When
a machine can match what an average human observer sees then maybe
we'll reach the point where all color management questions can be turned
over to the machines. Personally, I'd like that.
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 2:52 pm (PDT)
From: "Chris Murphy"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On May 29, 2006, at 9:39 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
Which grand conclusions are you talking about? The
only conclusions I drew
were that photo labs cannot be relied on to honor
embedded profiles
and that the level of repeatable variation is greater
in photo labs than in commercial
printers. It appears from your post that you agree
with both of these conclusions.
I agree that photo labs cannot be relied on to honor
embedded profiles.
I do not agree that the level of repeatable variation
is "considerably worse" in photo labs than commercial printers.
As for the "statistically valid" part, it
never ceases to amaze that people
with no background in statistical analysis are so
eager to couch their own
language in pseudoscientific babble. I prefer to just
look at the
images and draw the same conclusions any other
layperson would.
However, FWIW, the methodology is just fine, and amply
supports the
conclusions by any accepted scientific standard.
I presented your original email to two scientists and
both of them said your methodolgy was flawed. Quotes are:
"Ridiculous." "Carries no scientific
merit." "If I were reviewing this study for publication in a
scientific journal it would be immediately rejected."
"Inappropriately tested." "He doesn't know what he's talking
about."
You're just wrong Dan. The method is flawed. Your
claims that your method is fine is wrong, your assertion that it supports
your conclusions is wrong. Your "any accepted scientific standard
" was challenged by the first two scientists I asked. Both rejected it
wholesale.
You are making the mistake of assuming that because
the sample is
small there is no way to extrapolate it to a much
larger population.
If you do it right you can extrapolate from a small
sample. Your sample isn't just sample, it's non-random. Plus there are
gross discrepancies in testing between the two groups. The printer sample,
also non-random, is vastly larger than the photo lab group. You ignore
basic fundamentals of image rendering in a photographic context and include
variation from it in a negative category.
A green tree that is unnaturally green captured and
printed with Fuji media is still a perfectly valid print *despite* being
considerably different (variable) when compared to doing it with Kodak
media. This kind of variation is intentional and your method has no means
of discounting it, in fact you penalize them for it.
Can you document clearly and concisely your method of
evaluation such that it could be repeated by an impartial 3rd party?
A gray balance test would be more appropriate because
both photo labs and printers should be able to consistently produce a
neutral gray, as well as reasonable tonality among them. I know that's not
the case with commercial printers because I have customers who send files
to printers and get back all kinds of crazy ass proofs from them indicating
totally non-standard print behavior.
I'd bet dollars to donuts that printers routinely do
poorer on gray balance process control (as variation is a process control
question) than photo labs. But that's just a guess based on my anecdotal
experience.
It is entirely possible that sampling 50 more labs
could produce a major
improvement in these dismal figures. It is *not*
possible that it could approach
the consistency of web printers, because If photo labs
truly had the same
variation as commercial printers, then around a
quarter of my 21
composite values (7 photo labs x L*a*b*) would be
between four and
six standard deviations off the mean. These aberrant
values are
contributed by not by one rogue operation but by four
different
labs out of the seven.
It's not only possible, it's likely because your method
is so hideously flawed not only would two scientists not accept it, this
non-scientist thought it was a steaming pile. I don't find your method even
remotely compelling.
If any of the images were affected by poor process
control I would exclude
them; however all sample runs were internally
consistent.
What?! Then what the hell are you testing? You say
variation is "considerably worse" with photo labs compared to
printers! *WHAT VARIATION?!" If you're going to take out process
control problems, what's left?! What are you really testing here? How are
you able to determine what is and is not a process control problem such
that it qualifies for removal from the study?
Is this a process control test? Or is this a comparison
to some standard reference? What? It's unclear. This is more fraught with
flaws than I originally thought!
In making these points I will avoid pretentious
cliches like "statistical
validity". I will show the same files as printed
by six different printers, and
as output by six different photo labs. I will also
show a single image printed
six different times by the same printer, to give an
idea of how much variation
is due to bad quality control on the part of the
printer. Readers can draw
their own conclusions.
You are comparing the number 9 to the number 71.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 5:09 pm (PDT)
From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 6/2/06 11:55 AM, "Bob Frost" wrote:
I think I'm right in saying that machines can't
measure 'color'.
They can certainly measure the various wavelengths of
the visible (and invisible) spectrum.
The color we assign to those different wavelengths of
light is purely a
function of our eye/brain complex.
We use a word (like Red) to describe a sensation of a
wavelength that can be measured by an instrument. The instrument doesn't
know it's "red".
The rainbow diagrams of color versus wavelength are
presumably based on some
past averaging of human responses. I don't think any
such diagram can be
said to be 'correct'.
I think we need to define what is meant by
"correct".
Time to shut up; this is all getting a bit too
theoretical for this list!
What about that tree in forest falling when no one is
around. I think we should tackle that one. <G>
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 5:09 pm (PDT)
From: "Ric Cohn"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Andre,
You piqued my curiosity and I opened my copy of the
book. Not sure we're thinking of the same example. My example has the
greens running up and down not left and right. In any case, I was thinking
of Figure 12.1 on Page 236 in the Fourth Edition.
Out of curiosity I pulled out my colorimeter and
measured them. They aren't exactly the same- which given all the vagaries
of printing doesn't surprise me, but they are close. The patches are a
little small for accurate reading, but I got approximately Lab 61,(52),34
for the top and 61,(50),35 for the bottom green. This translates into CMYK
81, 5, 95, 0 for the top and 80, 6, 96, 1 for the bottom-- with my color
settings.
I'm willing to take it on faith that in the original
file the greens had identical numbers.
Regards,
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 5:10 pm (PDT)
From: "Henry"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Jun 2, 2006, at 2:25 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
I presented your original email to two
scientists and both of them
said your methodolgy was flawed. Quotes are:
"Ridiculous." "Carries no
scientific merit." "If I were reviewing
this study for publication in a scientific
journal it would be
immediately rejected."
"Inappropriately tested." "He doesn't know
what he's talking about."
Just to add some humor:
Two is a rather limited sample of scientists, plus,
their critique is entirely opinion, lacking in specific factual rebuttal.
Debates on the subject of statistics often boil down to
arguments of opinion, anyhow. Just like this one.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 5:11 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
In a message dated 6/2/06 10:55 AM, Bob Frost wrote:
From my limited reading on the subject of color
perception, I'm not sure
there is any such thing as an 'actual' color or a
'correct' color. Since
objects have no color - they merely reflect or absorb
different wavelengths
of light, color is entirely a function of the
eye/brain complex. Color only
exists in the brains of mammals.
Hi Bob.
As much as that statement is correct, it's also
incomplete.
Speaking for myself, when I mention "correct"
color, I intend color defined according to the guidelines derived from the
Color Matching Functions of the Standard Observer. That has been a common
ground for color work for quite some time now. No matter how different
individual perceptions may be (and they certainly are), we need a
benchmark, and that is the best one so far.
I think I'm right in saying that machines can't
measure 'color'. AFAIK they
measure the luminosity of light passing through
various filters, or use some
other means to get a quantitative measurement of the
different wavelengths
of light falling on them.
Once we define that a certain wavelength at a certain
intensity produces a certain color appearance, then we can measure not only
the wavelength, but also the "normal" perception of it as color
by humans. So, machines *can* and do indeed measure color, once you define
the parameters for them.
The color we assign to those different wavelengths of
light is purely a
function of our eye/brain complex.
Yes...
So if you see one color and I see another when we both
are receiving
the same wavelength of light, we are both 'correct' in
our perceptions.
We should stick with averages (what is called
"normal") if we don't want to go crazy defining every little tiny
variation in a more general model. Meaning, if we wish to avoid paralysis.
Philosophers have argued this matter for years.
I'm sure there is a clever definition of philosophers
somewhere, perhaps one that talks about how so many of them seem to have
way too much time and too little of practical value to do with it...
The rainbow diagrams of color versus wavelength are
presumably based on some
past averaging of human responses.
They are. The CMFs of the Standard Observer are such an
instance.
I don't think any such diagram can be said to be
'correct'.
Again, it all depends on your definition of
"correct": if you mean "normal" or "average",
then they are "correct", to the only extent reasonable. If you
want the model to be inclusive of every possible permutation and variation
in the world out there, then...good luck! Get a bunch of *really good*
scientists, a whole lot of cash, and a few *really big* computers!
Time to shut up; this is all getting a bit too
theoretical for this list!
No, I think that sorting out these general issues is
always useful.
Or else, what "color theory" list would this
be? :-)
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 8:04 pm (PDT)
From: Stephen Marsh
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Marco Ugolini wrote in reply to Bob Frost:
No, I think that sorting out these general issues is
always useful.
Or else, what "color theory" list would this
be? :-)
It would be an APPLIED one. What brought me to the list
in the first place. Learning and sharing new techniques, ideas and methods
for direct APPLICATION in an application called Photoshop. Since little of
that goes on here, all that seems left is threads such as this list has
become famous for. The list membership is fairly quiet when it comes to the
application of theory, but very active for pure theory and debate.
Regards,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri Jun 2, 2006 8:10 pm (PDT)
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Chris Murphy"
I agree that photo labs cannot be relied on to honor
embedded
profiles.
Well, that depends on whether you ask them to or not.
If you ask and they don't, that's a problem with the lab. If you say
nothing, you should take what they feel like giving you.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 3:09 am (PDT)
From: "colorman042000"
André Dumas
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Hi Ric,
In Dan's message of 2006-06-01 09:30 he references
Chapter Two of Professional Photoshop (1998 edition) "Today'
Calibrationist,
Today's Color Manager" and he mentions the 2 green
squares in figure 2.1.
*Quote*
And so, if someone offers you what seems like a
plausible scientific
argument, like, say, offering to trot out a
densitometer to measure
>whether the two greens of Figure 2.1 are the same,
take a deep
breath and think it over. If you allow yourself to be
buffaloed by
>technology into believing things that your own
eyes and intelligence
can tell you are false, if you believe those two
greens to be the
same >even though you and every other human
perceive them as
different--well, then, beware. Tomorrow's
calibrationist could be
*you.*
*End of quote*
So I thought you were also talking about these two
green squares on page 22.
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 3:09 am (PDT)
From: "Chris Murphy"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Jun 2, 2006, at 8:41 PM, jc castronovo wrote:
Well, that depends on whether you ask them to or not.
If you ask and
they don't, that's a problem with the lab. If you say
nothing, you
should take what they feel like giving you.
I think the context is blind transfers. Of course they
should be honoring them in RGB images in blind transfers reliably, but the
reality is they aren't. If they say they will honor them, when asked to do
so, then I'd expect they can be relied on to actually do what they say.
Chris Murphy
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 4:06 am (PDT)
From: "Paul Foerts"
Subject: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Thu Jun 1, 2006 10:02 am (PDT) Andrew Rodney wrote:
Based on the pasted definitions below, I would submit
that not only can one
calibrate a press, many, many press operators have
been doing so for a very
long time (where does the value for dot gain come
from? Where does one come
up with ink limits?):
Yep, we've identified one...
Not someone who uses calibration and profiling as tools
to serve his workflow but someone who believes that printing presses can be
"calibrated"...
As we all? know, a "conventional" printing
press is in fact a "profile editor". Press operators are able to
change colors while printing... A press running without operator
intervention, will drift to unacceptable color. The image on the printing
plate produces a ghost image on the inking rollers. When test images are
used, this ghosting can be made visible. Some printing jobs behave like
test images... Ghosting is job dependent. How can this be
"calibrated"? Why scrambling measuring patches? (Not a solution
in my opinion...)
Dot gain has nothing to do with calibration. Dot gain
is a thing of the past (printed tone value minus "film" tone
value). Tone value increase is a process control parameter (CTP workflow).
Ink limits have to do with "best practices".
It is technically possible to run 400 % color but not trouble-free under
all conditions. It is up to the printer to define his limit.
Printers care very much about process control:
mechanical precision of the press (cfr. "doubling"), perfect
adjusted rollers, blankets etc.
Printers are too "flexible". That's the
reason why "standardisation" is such a difficult exercise.
Standardisation should target something like the sRGB thing: good color
quality, all around the globe. There will always be room for "the
best" but at a cost and never without good communication.
Paul Foerts
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 8:52 am (PDT)
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
From: "Chris Murphy"
I think the context is blind transfers. Of course they
should be
honoring them in RGB images in blind transfers
reliably, but the
reality is they aren't. If they say they will honor
them, when asked
to do so, then I'd expect they can be relied on to
actually do what
they say.
I respectfully disagree Chris.
Honoring the profile in a blind transfer assumes that
the image has been adjusted to perfection by the customer on a calibrated
monitor and in almost all cases this isn't happening, the exception being
with professionals like yourself. The vast majority of people want the lab
to improve their images, so when a file arrives without the request to
honor the profile it's reasonable to assume that changes are permissible.
There's no solid ground here.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 3:22 pm (PDT)
From: "Chris Murphy"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
If we're talking about the masses, the question is moot
because everything they are shooting is tagged sRGB in the EXIF data. It's
not really about honoring or not honoring that profile, it's really about
whether or not a particular lab is going to use some kind of automatic
image enhancement on a per image basis.
I think this is an obsolete workflow and in time will
change as rendering and correction can be done in the camera, setting the
expectations of the typical consumer. Then that data will eventually be
correctly honored. Print, whether it's photographic or litho, is
increasingly a commodity. The rendering and edits are being divorced from
the printing process.
Chris Murphy
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 3:23 pm (PDT)
From: "Shangara Singh"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Why not create a solid ground? Provide tick boxes on
the order form:
Honour Image Profile* [ ]
Disregard Image Profile* [ ]
*An image profile is used by your digital camera or
image editing software to describe its appearance.
Shangara Singh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:25 pm (PDT)
From: "Matthew Rigdon"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On Jun 3, 2006, at 9:20 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
I think this is an obsolete workflow and in time will
change as
rendering and correction can be done in the camera,
setting the
expectations of the typical consumer.
I'm not following what this means. Cameras are going to
start coming with 17" LCDs so I can edit them as I take the pictures
out in the field? Software is going to become so smart (and efficient that
it fits in the 512K memory space on a processor chip) that it can be
installed in a camera to provide perfect auto exposure in all
circumstances? Neither of these seems likely to happen in the next five
years (I don't think either will ever happen, but that may be another
argument).
This workflow certainly isn't obsolete right now. It
seems to be the dominant one. You may want it to be obsolete, and we might
be better off if it were, but that may never happen. Look down at your
QWERTY keyboard for an example.
A lot of this seems to be about reproducibility. We can
create a world right now where everything shoots sRBG, displays sRGB, and
prints sRGB. But that would be a world where your Epson wouldn't be able to
print really spectacular prints. It would only print sRGB, but it would
print the same thing everybody else could. There'd be no surprises, no
worries about what your results would be, but is that a better world than
the one we have now where you have to do some work, not blindly follow
software, maybe even ignore the software and profiles, in order to achieve
some really unique and outstanding results?
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:26 pm (PDT)
From: "Richard Wagner"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Bob Frost wrote:
Color only exists in the brains of mammals.
OK, Bob, not so fast. Many mammals have *no*
color vision, and birds (Aves are not mammals) often have excellent color
vision.
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:29 pm (PDT)
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
That's exactly what I've been saying. Communication has
to take place for this to work to everyone's satisfaction.
jc castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 5:45 am (PDT)
From: "Dan Margulis" Dan
Margulis
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Andre writes,
Thanks for the explanation Dan. You used the terms
Calibrationists
and Calibrationism in Chapter 2 "Calibrationists
and Buccaneers"
(1995 edition of Professional Photoshop) and again in
the 1998 book
so I assumed that you had coined *both* words.
I did, to describe a POV that was prevalent in the
industry at that time. However, when you posted your query, it was unclear
that you were discussing what I had written in 1998. I assumed you were
referring to something recent that had occurred on the list, so I
yahoo-searched for both words. The only time either had occurred in recent
months on this list was when, in response to a direct request, I posted a
direct quotation from a color-management advocate that used the word
"brain-dead" to describe commercial printers. That same direct
quotation also used the word "calibrationist."
I made it clear in that post that I did not approve of
the speaker's comments and that the speaker himself has since recanted
them. In my post to you I further made it clear that calibrationism as such
vanished in the late 20th century and that I do not believe anybody on this
list currently qualifies as being a calibrationist. Nevertheless,
what resulted is a thread that is rightly complained of by Stephen Marsh,
with whose sentiments I concur.
In a recent message Ric Cohn said " ... the term
"profiling" is
rather vague, and I have seen it used by some people
interchangeably
with "calibration". ..." Well, I must
admit that I've been doing
that, and therefore in a previous message I should
have said that I
*profile* my scanner and my inkjet printer and I
*calibrate* and
*profile* my display. Dan, in your explanation are you
"sort of" blurring the differences
between profiling and calibrating ?
As we have already seen, the language police are out in
force on this thread and I am not anxious to get into any parsing
exercises. As part of the color management process the printer must profile
both his press and his proofing system; unfortunately the last time the
language police was heard on this subject it was seriously argued that
these profiles, as they are not ICC profiles, are not profiles; and that
this color management, as it is not ICC color management, is not color
management.
As for calibrating in the sense of calibrating a
monitor, if your monitor had the same characteristics as a press, you would
need to adopt certain new procedures.
1) Instead of recalibrating the monitor every month or
so because you suspect it may have drifted in that time, you must
recalibrate every five to ten minutes because conditions can change
drastically during the run.
2) Whenever you quit Photoshop, or whenever you stop
working on one complete job and start a new one with different
characteristics, your monitor calibration is lost completely, and you must
start the recalibration process from scratch rather than by adjusting an
existing profile.
3) If you note that your monitor display does not agree
with the proof, you correct this not with a new profile or new color
settings, but rather by adjusting the brightness, contrast, and similar
settings on the front panel, or in extremis reducing the voltage that
reaches the screen.
Whether "calibration" is a meaningful term
under these circumstances is up for debate, hopefully on some other list.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 5:45 am (PDT)
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Ric writes,
Because of the surrounding colors the 2
greens look different to EVERY human observer, and
because they are
the same spectrally they look identical to a measuring
instrument
(that doesn't take the surrounding colors into
consideration).
In that particular image, the scientist who prepared it
said something like "most people would see these as different colors,
but in fact they are the same." Of course, *both* parts of the
sentence are incorrect. It's not *most* people--it's *all* people, even,
color-blind ones. As for the second half, it's classic circular
reasoning--his assumption (that if a machine measures them as the same
color, they're the same color) proves his conclusion (that since a machine
has measured them as the same color, they must be the same).
I believe Dan's point is that we, as color correctors,
should adjust
colors based on CONTEXT not on numbers. To ignore the
context that
our eyes and brains supply and to consider the machine
measurements
"correct" is what (I believe) he would
define as "Calibrationism".
It's certainly true in color correction, but it's
equally true in calibration. In the first example (the typical
"optical illusion" where a machine is deluded into thinking that
two obviously different colors are the same), anybody who believes the
machine is possibly a nascent calibrationist, but it's of no importance
because we never face that situation in real life.
What *does* matter in real life is this. Given swatches
A, B, and C, the question is whether A or C is the closer match to B. I
showed examples in Canyon Conundrum, and will show more in the next edition
of Professional Photoshop, where all humans believe that it's A and all
machines believe that it's C. Under those circumstances, anyone silly
enough to believe the machines is asking for an inaccurate profile--but yet
there are still people who insist on believing them.
This is to say nothing of the machine deficiencies in
evaluating fleshtones, natural greens, and very desaturated colors.
The straw man "Calibrationist" believes that
a perfect mechanical system is possible.
I think when stated this way the above seems obvious.
However, in the
past (and I assume today), there have been proponents
of icc profiles
who have felt that a machine generated profile is
automatically correct.
In the past, yes, but not today. Nobody who had a
choice AFAIK would make a profile by machine today without reserving the
right to edit it by eyeball.
The idea that the machine-generated profile was sacred
and should never be touched was indeed common in the second half of the
last decade. One of the main reasons that early ICC color management became
such a laughingstock amongprinters is that its advocates would show up
peddling these appallingly bad profiles and actually suggesting they should
be paid for them.
It did not take long to realize that there was
something seriously deranged with this philosophy, so by 1998, as I recall,
almost all color management advocates were admitting that they were
tweaking their machine-generated profiles. Yet there was a crackpot on the
ColorSync list (no member of this list, I hasten to say) who was as late as
9/01 ranting about how machine-generated profiles must be taken as is and
anybody who edits them is a Luddite, because the machines' aesthetic
judgment is so much better than people's.
*That* was hard-core calibrationism. Fortunately, with
the exception of a few stray theories, it's extinct today.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 11:50 am (PDT)
From: "Ron Kelly"
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
On 3-Jun-06, at 5:45 PM, Matthew Rigdon wrote:
But that would be a world where your Epson wouldn't be
able to print really spectacular prints. It would only
print sRGB,
but it would print the same thing everybody else
could.
Okay, now we're getting down to it.
sRGB prints can be spectacular all right.
The size of the gamut has been way oversold on what
makes a good print.
If you print to a high quality inkjet in sRGB or some
other, wider colorspace the prints you get will be just as dark in the
blacks and bright in the whites from both.
I believe what time will show is that it is far more
important to have control of your colorspace than to have the widest space.
That is what makes a really spectacular print.
Ron Kelly
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 11:52 am (PDT)
From: "Frank Deutschmann"
Subject: Re: Prophiling PhotoPhinishing
Ummm, how can something be obsolete when the successor
has yet to be invented, much less deployed in wide use?
It will be a long, long time (if ever) before consumer
digital reaches the automated quality level achieved long ago with consumer
negative film-based photography. It is quite unfortunate that we are
now in a situation where a jpeg image presented to a lab either with or
without an sRGB profile tag is actually "mystery meat": without
either communication or assumptions about the image source, the lab has to
take a complete gamble on whether to run the image straight or try to
improve it. (Consumers would generally want the image improved, pros
may or may not, depending on the exact circumstances.)
Of course, as a preliminary 'head-em-off-at-the-pass'
move, the industry seems to be gearing up for raw, the so-called 'digital
negative'. But really, does anyone expect mass market consumers to
shoot raw??? Even many pros don't (and rightly so, for a lot of
reasons!).....
It's really unfortunate that the industry didn't adopt
a simple solution to this problem: why not a simple pseudo-profile tag of
CIIM (Camera Image, Improve Me)? Un-profiled (cameras) or
quasi-profiled (scanners) devices would tag images with this pseudo-profile
(bit interpretation in sRGB land, for simplicity), while editing software,
such as PS et al, or in camera image software, could then replace this
pseudo-profile tag with a true sRGB or Adobe or whatever profile/tag
indicating that the image has truly been rendered/interpreted into a real
colorspace. Simple, cheap, and effective: no more mystery meat, no
monster size raw images needed, everyone gets what they want!
(Well, of course we all know why this approach has not
been taken: to take this approach would be to yield that cameras really
can't be profiled, that images really need to be interpreted into a
colorspace, that perception and taste are essential to the photographic
process, and no industry insider wants to be the first to note the
Emperor's distinct lack of finery....)
-frank
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 11:55 pm (PDT)
From: "Paul Marriner"
Subject: Re: Prophiling PhotoPhinishing
I disagree. In fact it's damn difficult to buy a
point-and-shoot camera with RAW capability. The manufacturers are phasing
it out rapidly. I want one with some weather-resistance for wet-weather
backup but it seems I'll have to buy an obsolete model to get one with RAW.
Paul
Frank wrote:
Of course, as a preliminary 'head-em-off-at-the-pass'
move, the industry
seems to be gearing up for raw, the so-called 'digital
negative'. But
really, does anyone expect mass market consumers to
shoot raw??? Even
many pros don't (and rightly so, for a lot of
reasons!).....
--
Paul Marriner
Outdoor Writing & Photography. Owner: Gale's End
Press. Member: OWAA &
OWC. Author of: A Compendium of Canadian Fly Patterns
(co-author),
Stillwater Fly Fishing: Tools & Tactics, How to
Choose & Use Fly-tying
Thread, Modern Atlantic Salmon Flies, Miramichi River
Journal, Ausable
River Journal, and Atlantic Salmon.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun Jun 4, 2006 11:59 pm (PDT)
From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
combined posting
On Jun 3, 2006, at 5:45 PM, Matthew Rigdon wrote:
I'm not following what this means. Cameras are going
to start coming
with 17" LCDs so I can edit them as I take the
pictures out in the
field?
Rendering and correction in-camera based on proprietary
and automatic algorithms is already being done today. The trend is that
this will get better, with a wider range of images, and file metadata will
be increasingly honored. Of course there are going to be limits of all of
this given the variable lighting conditions when viewing the printer and
degradation of the LCD.
Software is going to become so smart (and efficient
that it
fits in the 512K memory space on a processor chip)
that it can be
installed in a camera to provide perfect auto exposure
in all
circumstances? Neither of these seems likely to happen
in the next
five years (I don't think either will ever happen, but
that may be
another argument).
I did say the "expectations of the typical
consumer." While they can be pretty demanding, I doubt "perfect
auto exposure" is what they'd want, and I'm not even sure what perfect
means in such a context anyway.
This workflow certainly isn't obsolete right now. It
seems to be the
dominant one.
Perhaps calling it obsolete sounds speculative. But I
see it as out dated as letter type upon the invention of desktop
publishing. It's just a matter of time, how much the various parties dig
their heals in, or get busy and do things the way people expect. And what
they increasingly expect is some correlation between the display of their
images and their output.
A lot of this seems to be about reproducibility. We
can create a
world right now where everything shoots sRBG, displays
sRGB, and
prints sRGB. But that would be a world where your
Epson wouldn't be
able to print really spectacular prints. It would only
print sRGB,
but it would print the same thing everybody else
could.
First, that isn't how things actually work. A printer
doesn't have sRGB-like behavior. The image is mapped, or rendered, into
something different that can be printed. And in an ICC v4 perceptual
rendering context, it is explicitly the case that the image will print
different from the original, even the expectation of mapping the most
saturated colors in sRGB to the most saturate colors in print (e.g. the
ability to print the yellow the printer can print, even if sRGB can't
define it).
On Jun 4, 2006, at 11:36 AM, Frank Deutschmann wrote:
Ummm, how can something be obsolete when the successor
has yet to be
invented, much less deployed in wide use?
The successor is invented, but it's not widely
deployed. Yet. The idea of applying proprietary rendering at print time
such that you get something very different (even if it's OK) from
expectations set from a display is a workflow people are increasingly
rejecting. Of course there will be people who don't really care.
It will be a long, long time (if ever) before consumer
digital reaches the
automated quality level achieved long ago with
consumer negative film-based
photography.
What? Based on what set of criteria? I don't buy that
statement at all. There's less interpretation involved in a digital capture
than when dealing with color negative.
But really, does anyone expect mass market consumers
to shoot raw??? Even many
pros don't (and rightly so, for a lot of
reasons!).....
My context was from the outset the expectations of the
typical consumer. Anyone shooting RAW, in fact anyone who even knows what
RAW is even if they don't shoot in RAW, are not typical consumers.
The part of the workflow I'm saying is obsolete (more
accurately nearing obsolescence), is once we have a JPEG or TIFF, we've
viewed it on some display and yet substantial rendering can occur after
that point just prior to printing. Professionals don't stand for it now.
Consumers already don't like it when they have expectations set based on
some display medium.
It's really unfortunate that the industry didn't adopt
a simple solution to
this problem: why not a simple pseudo-profile tag of
CIIM (Camera Image,
Improve Me)? Un-profiled (cameras) or
quasi-profiled (scanners) devices
would tag images with this pseudo-profile (bit
interpretation in sRGB land,
for simplicity), while editing software, such as PS et
al, or in camera
image software, could then replace this pseudo-profile
tag with a true sRGB
or Adobe or whatever profile/tag indicating that the
image has truly been
rendered/interpreted into a real colorspace.
Simple, cheap, and effective:
no more mystery meat, no monster size raw images
needed, everyone gets what
they want!
The photo labs aren't dealing with the profiles we've
got. And when they do, it's still often the case that proprietary rendering
occurs, altering the color of the image anyway.
But I'd agree that some additional metadata in the file
would be useful in determining the expectations of the consumer.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Prophiling PhotoPhinishing
Posted by: "Gene Palmiter" e
Date: Mon Jun 5, 2006 5:10 am (PDT)
RAW is often lacking in consumer cameras. Heck....if
quality counted the customer would not have bought those cameras anyway! I
suspect we will see more cameras that save as .DNG before we see more that
save as RAW.
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Prophiling PhotoPhinishing
Posted by: "Denton Taylor"
Date: Mon Jun 5, 2006 5:11 am (PDT)
At 06:35 PM 6/4/2006, you wrote:
I disagree. In fact it's damn difficult to buy a
point-and-shoot camera
with RAW capability. The manufacturers are phasing it
out rapidly. I
want one with some weather-resistance for wet-weather
backup but it
seems I'll have to buy an obsolete model to get one
with RAW.
Paul
Canon G6, S70
Regards,
Denton Taylor
photogallery at
www.dentontaylor.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "Henry"
Date: Mon Jun 5, 2006 3:07 pm (PDT)
On Jun 2, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Andrew Rodney wrote:
The issue I have with some posters of this fine forum
is this Black or White
mentality about instrumentation, profiles, calibration
and so on.
This mentality didn't originate outside the
"calibrationist" camp. I recall the exact opposite. From
the get-go, profiles, calibration, and so on, were promoted as precisely
such a Black and White solution by the "calibrationist" camp.
Now that things are settling out a bit, everyone is still dealing
with this mentality - the fallout that was created and promoted by parties
who have since hedged their claims for a "perfect color
solution".
The world usually operates in many shades of gray. No
one that uses instrumentation
intelligently would argue with Dan1s point about
color in context. They
WOULD argue that such a point doesn1t diminish
the need for instrumentation
in many areas of digital imaging
That it is useful was not the claim or the debate at
the outset years ago. The ridiculously overstated claims made around
the time of its inception were then, and continue to be now, the problem
for color management.
(and other areas of our daily life. I for
one am glad the pilot of the 747 I was on uses
instruments and at the same
time can hopefully land the jet should they
fail).
If the instruments fail while in IMC, only luck will
help. But, if there is good visibility and the instruments fail, you
will want a pilot that has a lot of non-instrument flying experience (a
pilot that doesn't have an unhealthy reliance on instruments). Some
of the most skillful flying can be observed in aerobatic and formation
demonstrations (VFR conditions, of course) where instrumentation isn't
required. For instrument flying, pilots are trained to ignore their
sense perceptions and place trust in the instruments. In the case of
a suspect instrument in low visibility, it takes a very keen and very lucky
pilot to get on the ground in one piece.
If the densitometer fails, a good press operator can
still produce good work from well-prepared files - regardless of the
weather. His eyes and sense perception, unlike that of the pilot in
low visibility, are useful if he is blessed with good vision and has
learned to use it. Without perception, there would be little to discuss
about printing. And, like a pilot with an unhealthy reliance on
instruments, one who is overly reliant on a profiling solution and the
calibration and display of their monitor, an image preparer can be led
astray. It is not what the measuring instrument says that counts -
it is all about the judgment that a person uses. And, in my opinion,
the exaggerated claims made by its proponents in the beginning didn't
represent very good judgment. It was good marketing hype perhaps, but
it is what helped to produced the mentality that you describe.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Andrew Rodney
Date: Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:10 am (PDT)
On 6/5/06 3:46 PM, "Henry" wrote:
This mentality didn't originate outside the
"calibrationist" camp. I
recall the exact opposite. From the get-go,
profiles, calibration, and
so on, were promoted as precisely such a Black and
White solution by
the "calibrationist" camp.
Shoot me some examples I can find in the archives. I1d
love to see this B&W mentality...
Now that things are settling out a bit,
everyone is still dealing with this mentality - the
fallout that was
created and promoted by parties who have since hedged
their claims for
a "perfect color solution".
Using the word Prefect for color reminds me how the
hairs on my neck stand up when folks use the term accurate color. I usually
ask if that means pleasing or colorimetrically correct color.
Colorimetrically correct color is accurate in my book and often not
pleasing.
If the densitometer fails, a good press operator can
still produce good
work from well-prepared files - regardless of the
weather.
If the ICC profile for any of my printers fail or
disappear, I can still make gorgeous prints as I1ve done on desktop color
printers for 15 years, long before profiles existed. It just takes a lot
longer and wastes a lot more media.
If you don1t know how many iterations it takes to get
the color you want, and don1t care, you certainly don1t need either
calibration or color management. It helps to have either deep pockets or
have free media.
Andrew Rodney
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Andrew Rodney
Date: Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:13 am (PDT)
On 6/5/06 6:06 PM, "Henry" wrote:
If you are saying that "perfect" color
doesn't describe the claims made early
on by the companies and persons involved in the
promotion of color management
software, hardware and consulting, then I beg your
pardon. Their marketing
thrust wasn't for "pretty good color".
It1s quite possible someone, somewhere claimed perfect
color. I don1t ever recall seeing it, maybe you have a link to such a
claim. But I1d submit that anyone in any industry that claims anything
prefect (and someone reading it believes the claim) only uncovers two
fools.
From where then, do you suppose this Black and
White mentality that you
describe arose?
I guess I should say here that obliviously from
calibrationist but I don1t believe that for a second (nor do I really know
what a calibrationist is despite yet another long winded thread on this
list that has nothing to do with color or theory).
I stand by my statement that a good press operator can
produce good work from
well-prepared files even without the aid of a
densitometer.
And I stand by my statement that anyone with reasonable
skill and a lot of media can do the same to any output device. I1ve never
said otherwise. My point is that LOTS of press personal use instrumentation
to aid them in what I consider calibration even if that term puts a bad
taste in some people1s minds. Are you saying that using a densitometer
isn1t the use of a measuring device to provide some means of measurement
some process in the attempt to produce some reasonable device behavior? Are
you suggesting that its an unnecessary device and those who use it are just
calibrationists? Are you suggesting that its better to forget both
calibration (or measuring a process) and just output whatever you get and
tweak until the color is approved? That certainly is a good slant if you1re
in the market to sell either paper or ink....
How well one can get color from their desktop color
printer is of little
concern to someone preparing files for commercial
offset (proofing attempts
aside).
Must be nice to live in an output vacuum. But both
devices produce the same net result which is some color output from a big
pile of numbers and doing so with the least amount of time and money such
that someone finds the output[ acceptable.
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: André Dumas
Date: Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:34 pm (PDT)
Hello Andrew,
I disagree with your statement about a *long
winded thread on this list that has nothing to do with color or theory *.
I suppose that you are referring to our discussion on
calibrationists, calibrationism, calibration and also "calibrating our
equipment vs profiling our equipment ". The discussion had
everything to do with color and theory and I felt that it was worthwhile.
I have reached the conclusion that a calibrationist can
*also* be defined in a positive way, let's say for example that a
calibrationist could be defined as someone who agrees with the techniques
that you have put forth in your book "Color Management for
Photographers" on the subject of calibration and profiling and who
agrees with your suggestions about how to use these techniques for
successfully implementing color management in our work.
In that "long winded thread" I appreciated
reading your message (6/1/06 9:00 AM) about calibrating vs profiling , I
thought that it was a clear and concise explanation of the differences
between these two functions.
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "marty"
Date: Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:36 pm (PDT)
After all, we age, or our bodies change for any of a
number of reasons, and
our color vision may be shifting more quickly and
abruptly than we think or
may be aware of. How many of us take the 100-hue
Farnsworth-Munsell test on
a regular basis? Almost 10 years ago I scored well,
but how would I score
today, in my fifties?
Probably about the same. I haven't seen any differences
with age (up to 60 or so) but, it has it's limitations. I recently gave it
(FM100) using the GMB Judge II light box and, to my surprise, the fellow
misplaced one of the tiles by 2. Having previously taken the test and
getting all the rows correct, I repeated that test line myself. I made
exactly the same order with a displacement of 2. Since I had first
taken the test using diffuse daylight from a skylight, I checked the
patches with an i1. There was a nice, smooth delta E gradient in the
sequence. Next, I looked at the spectrum and that provided the answer. The
patches in question had a sharp peakiness shift right where one of the
5000K fluorescent spikes was with the result that the patches no longer
exhibited a smooth hue gradient - though they looked just fine under
daylight.
Marty Gray
___________________________________________________________________________
.
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Mike Davis"
Date: Wed Jun 7, 2006 4:51 pm (PDT)
Seldom do most of us really "need" accurate
color. Perhaps, when printing a commercial catalog where clothing is
examined with the intent to find coordinated accessories, or a company logo
is examined with a fine tooth comb for "authenticity", we may
require a near perfect reproduction. That's easy enough to do with
colorimeters and decent color management.
But most printing, from magazines to calendars to
wedding photos, usually just needs to be color-cast free, the rest being
the photographer or printer interpretation of the image for the intended
purpose. We reject off-color skies in "neutral" images for
example. We often accept un-natural color saturation in prints, which
seems to be a fad these days. We sometimes tweak an image for
emphasis or to de-emphasize an unwanted background. Quite often the
"absolutely, dead perfect, right-on" color doesn't "look
right".
Look at any magazine, coffee table book, or photo
exhibit and it's obvious. Either the printers don't print it right, don't
care, or the author has an intentional deviation from "reality."
As Dan says, the object is usually to make the image look good within
the context of the application. We try to start with known color
values for known objects, but often vary for the sake of the image.
Mike Davis
mldavis2 AT sbcglobal DOT net
http://www.pbase.com/mldavis2/
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Thu Jun 8, 2006 3:28 am (PDT)
Hi Mike.
I get the impression that what you are discussing is
beside the point of what color management is best at doing: not so much
creating color that is "accurate" in an abstract manner, as color
that meets the author's or client's expectations. In other words, producing
an image whose colors conform with a "look and feel" that has
been carefully discussed and negotiated in advance.
Saturated or not, neutral or not, just about everybody
wants to see a finished image that looks the closest possible to an
expected ideal defined in advance (e.g., through the proofing cycle): that
seems to me the most valuable contribution of color management, not a
highly subjective and ultimately abstract "accurate" color.
Regards.
---------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "Maris V. Lidaka
Sr."
Date: Thu Jun 8, 2006 3:19 am (PDT)
Brings to mind Bruce Fraser's article "Why is
Color"
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/13036.html
Maris V. Lidaka Sr.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "Paul Foerts"
Date: Thu Jun 8, 2006 9:20 am (PDT)
On Tue Jun 6, 2006 8:13 am (PDT), "Andrew
Rodney" wrote:
My point is that LOTS of press personal use
instrumentation to aid them in
what I consider calibration even if that term puts a
bad taste in some
people1s minds.
-
Measuring instruments (densitometers,
spectrophotometers etc.) should be calibrated, following the procedure from
the manufacturer, using patches or tiles, a screwdriver (sic) or a digital
setup.
I've never seen a printer calibrating his press.
Densitometers are used for process control and
communication within the printing room. Spectrophotometers are useful when
communicating special color formulations. There is no reason to believe
that printing without a densitometer should result in more waste...
Measuring patches gives the printer "neutral/objective"
information. The printer decides when and how to adjust (+ or -) the inking
"zones". Visual comparison with the "target" or
"ok" sheet gives him this key information.
Paul Foerts
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Andrew Rodney
Date: Thu Jun 8, 2006 3:07 pm (PDT)
On 6/8/06 9:53 AM, "Paul Foerts" wrote:
I've never seen a printer calibrating his press.
Densitometers are used for process control and
communication within the
printing room.
So that1s not calibration? If the instrument reports
target values expected are not met, the user simply ignores this or alters
the behavior back to the desired results?
Spectrophotometers are useful when communicating
special
color formulations.
Spectrophotometer1s, Colorimeter1s, Densitometers and
tape measures are all just measuring devices. There1s a distant difference
in what a Spectrophotometer can measure and provide to the end user
compared to a colorimeter or densitometer but the end results are the same.
A set of values that are a measurement of something. What the user does
with the values could be calibration unless as I1ve asked above, the user
simply looks at the values and does nothing at all. Assuming the device
produces consistent behavior (process control), both user intervention and
calibration isn1t at all necessary. If the device produces different
behavior then the user expects they either do something or don1t (which I
would submit is either calibration or its a measuring process without a
goal).
There is no reason to believe that printing without a
densitometer should
result in more waste...
Not if the behavior is to the desired measured values
the user expects. But what if it isn1t?
Measuring patches gives the printer
"neutral/objective" information.
So what you1re saying is that no matter what the
instrument reports, the printer doesn1t do anything with the values he/she
just got? Then why measure in the first place?
The printer decides when and how to adjust (+ or -)
the inking "zones".
But that1s not calibration of course.
Visual comparison with the "target" or
"ok" sheet gives him this key
information.
And that1s not calibration either?
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: Dan Margulisj
Date: Fri Jun 9, 2006 11:38 am (PDT)
Mark Davis writes,
But most printing, from magazines to calendars to
wedding photos, usually
just needs to be color-cast free, the rest being the
photographer or printer
interpretation of the image for the intended purpose.
We reject off-color
skies in "neutral" images for example.
We also reject for overall weight (image appears much
too light or too dark), rather more commonly than for cast.
The point, however, is well taken. The idea that
professionals are looking for an exact, specific, result with images is
myth, with the possible exception of reproduction of digital art (line work
such as logos is a different matter). What we are looking for is something
reasonably close to what is expected, and the absence of any defect (like a
cast, or poor weight) that would be severe enough for the client to reject
the work.
If commercial printers had wanted to make output meet a
more uniform standard, there was no technological obstacle to doing so
fifteen or even twenty years ago. The same goes for photo labs. That they
have chosen not to do so is a strong indication that they don't see the
demand for it, same as with honoring embedded profiles.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Ron Kelly"8
Date: Fri Jun 9, 2006 12:38 pm (PDT)
On 9-Jun-06, at 10:39 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
If commercial printers had wanted to make output meet
a more uniform
standard, there was no technological obstacle to doing
so fifteen
or even twenty years ago. The same goes for photo
labs. That they have chosen not to do
so is a strong indication that they don't see the
demand for it, same as
with honoring embedded profiles.
If that is indeed the case, what is the hope for an
organized future?
The competitive marketplace embraces the dominant
solution, whether it's logical or efficient or effective or not. It just
has to be profitable for the dominator. Standards organizations don't have
the authority to mandate solutions, nor often do they have consensus if
they could.
The color management environment is no different in
this regard than the environment of the land, air and water. Free market
forces are messy and near-unmanageable. Where are Stalin and Mao when you
need them?
Ron Kelly
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Dan Remaley"
Date: Fri Jun 9, 2006 3:06 pm (PDT)
Just my "nickels" worth - in the past, the
graphics arts was separated. . .type houses supplied the type (have you
ever seen more 'widows or orphans' in your life - "Kerning" -
what's that?)
Color separators made all the seps. and proofs (to
SWOP) - because the AD Agency's were paying the bills).
Printers only PRINTED to the color proofs and seps. of
the trade house. If they printed to SWOP standards everything was fine - if
not - ugh! Presses are designed with 'closed loop inking' measuring only
solid ink density for color control. What are the dot gain (TVI) and gray
balance numbers?
Check out <www.systembrunner.chtheir control is
based on gray balance as well as density and gain. If you print near
1.00/18%Yellow 1.30/20%Cyan 1.40/20Magenta 1.70/22%Black You will match
most of the color from Photoshop and the screen builds of Pantone/TruMatch.
Process control is necessary before any color management can take place.
Dan Remaley PIA/GATF
Process Control Manager
412.259.1814
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Henry"
Date: Fri Jun 9, 2006 3:58 pm (PDT)
On Jun 9, 2006, at 12:39 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:
The point, however, is well taken. The idea that
professionals are looking
for an exact, specific, result with images is
myth, with the possible exception
of reproduction of digital art (line work such
as logos is a different
matter). What we are looking for is something
reasonably close to what is expected,
and the absence of any defect (like a cast, or
poor weight) that would be
severe enough for the client to reject the work.
If commercial printers had wanted to make output
meet a more uniform
standard, there was no technological obstacle to
doing so fifteen or even twenty years
ago. The same goes for photo labs. That they
have chosen not to do so is a
strong indication that they don't see the demand
for it, same as with honoring
embedded profiles.
It seems to me that the variability found in "Real
World", or commercial printing isn't acceptable to a number of folks
posting comments on the list, and I appreciate the wording of your response
above. Commercial printing is not fine art reproduction, and as for
process control, the density tolerances required for perfection would
reduce a press to an un-runable dust collector. Printers understand
the task of staying within an acceptable range of densities, but the color
that happens within that range sometimes only exists in the mind of the
buyer. You are right about photo labs as well. Imagine how much
film would be processed if they waited until the plot of the chemistry was
exactly perfect.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder what this expectation
for perfection is all about. Unrealistic attitudes could lead to the
rejection of every print job. Defining what was reasonably acceptable
printwork 20 years ago was a less difficult task, but today's expectations
are a whole other animal. An unrealistic attitude continues to be
preached to new print buyers and students who have little or no experience
in the real world of printing, and sadly, many of them do not invest the
time and effort to study the sermons. They get the message - but only
one perspective. The evangelism started with those who invented and
promoted a solution that was overstated, and of course their audience liked
what they heard. Now there does seem to be just a little bit of
hedging in the message as it matures, but it may be too late to put the
genie back in the bottle.
How on earth was it ever possible to produce good
printing 50 years ago? Was it was only possible with unacceptable
expenses and delays caused by this, that and the other thing? It
would seem that good printing can still be done in this age, but not
without a profile.
As in the past, I am only pointing out a trend from one
perspective.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Lee Clawson" h
Date: Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:49 am (PDT)
Henry,
Being asked by clients to re-purpose work for many
forms of media and have everything done before anyone knew which printer
the files would be sent to changed our work flows. And when clients came
with these needs printers responded with amazingly quick turn-arounds and
we used the "over stated solution" that made (or seemed to make)
this work flow possible.
If you'll accept a big generalization from my
perspective printers remain less rather than more able to help me predict
what things will look like. Some of this is due to the media we print on
especially the way my clients compromise there to save money. And some is
due to no one knowing which press will be used until the last minute.
So with regard to your asking about reasonable color
expectations...fair enough.
But...Dan Remaley is still trying explain the need for
process control. My question; "Do you think (in 2006) ignoring process
control is a reasonable position for a printer to find themselves in
???"
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
P.S.-- perfection aside, it wasn't as hard as you make
it seem for a photo lab to calibrate for the daily developer chemistry.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "J Walton"
Date: Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:07 am (PDT)
On 6/10/06, Lee Clawson wrote:
"Do you think (in 2006) ignoring process control
is a reasonable
position for a printer to find themselves in
???"
That really is an interesting question, and ultimately
gets down to the basics of what we do. After attending a standards
conference (or at least a lunch where I had to hear about it) I thought
there was an interesting point made by one of the speakers.
Basically, the fear among some printers is that if they
conform to a standard (SNAP, GRACOL, SWOP) they have to "dumb
down" their process and take away a competetive advantage. The same is
true for some contract proof providers. Rather than admit that they don't
really hit SNAP or SWOP, they say that they've *never had a problem*
matching a newspaper and their magazine proofs *always look really close*.
But how close are they to the standard everyone is trying to hit?
Someone who ignores process control and tries to just
make pretty pictures (to them) is ignoring the fact that the files were
prepared with a particular condition in mind.
-----
J Walton
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Date: Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:26 am (PDT)
Dan Remaley wrote:
Just my "nickels" worth - in the past, the
graphics arts was separated. .
type houses supplied the type (have you ever seen more
'widows or orphans'
in your life - "Kerning" - what's that?)
Haha, agreed Dan - my apprenticeship was in the
composition trade. Typesetters were smugly predicting in the late 80's and
early 90's that the new DTP systems would not be better in their kerning
tables etc and that they would not be affected at the mid-high end where
clients were picky.
But the market suddenly did not care if there were
spaces between letter pairs that were wide enough to drive a truck through,
or if there were widows, consecutive hyhens at line endings, hyphenations
such as the-rapist instead of therapist etc...near overnight poor quality
work that would have been laughed at and rejected a few years before became
common and accepted due to the rate being lower or the work now being done
in-house by someone that was not traditionally trained in the craft or due
to faster turn around times etc.
Color separators made all the seps. and proofs (to
SWOP) - because
the AD Agency's were paying the bills).
Printers only PRINTED to the color proofs and seps. of
the trade house.
If they printed to SWOP standards everything was fine
- if not - ugh!
Some compositors went into desktop art
typesetting/assembly.
Some type/layout folk moved into more general prepress
once technology allowed the separate trades to become one. But within about
5-7 years of type houses being dead, trade colour shops were pretty much
dead too.
Desktop computers were finally more productive and
Photoshop and plug in solutions had matured into a production tool that
could compete with Scitex, Purup, Wright or other proprietary
hardware/software workstations and solutions.
Over a decade later, despite the advances in technology
reducing the need for experienced and knowledgeable human operators, I do
not feel that either type of colour is generally better than when it was
handled by professionals who made that specialty their living.
But there is great opportunity for those with talent or
simply better education to stand out from the masses that are now
considered to be peers.
Photographers no doubt say the same about photography
now being a commodity for the masses produced by the masses, rather than
being the craft of a dedicated professional that specialises in one area
and works as a part of the chain of other professionals knowing the prior
and next steps required in the process and taking these into account within
their specialist task. Many photographers seem to have a different attitude
though when it comes to them being their own designer/colour separator.
It all comes back to the monkey that is pressing the
buttons. Technology often makes this less important than in times gone by -
but it is not there yet as a replacement.
Today I can do things that I would have had to
outsource in times gone by...but just because I can do these things myself,
with little knowledge or skill, should I do them, despite the quality drop?
For the majority of work and people today the answer
appears to be "yes".
Pining for the 'good old days' (but not the fjord's),
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Fred Gamber"
Date: Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:18 pm (PDT)
Pining for the 'good old days' (but not the fjord's),
Stephen Marsh.
As a print professional who started in the late 70's I
could not agree more with your sentiments. We have a great deal of business
that is strictly pleasing color, work that would not have been accepted 10
years ago. The prepress work is all done by the client so the savings are
tremendous for the client, this translates into "pleasing color is
more than acceptable, it is desirable due to cost savings". I have
recently attended a meeting with a client who stated quite clearly that of
all the things they expect from us while producing their work quality was
not a priority. Price and turnaround were the determining factors in our
gaining this work.
I also "pine for the old days" (even the
fjords from time to time as dead parrots make a great color checker), but I
balance that with the knowledge that a great deal of people who previously
could not buy into process color are now producing a large volume of color
product. This has made print a commodity service as opposed to a trade
craft, but those printers who have streamlined their work flow to be
productive and lean seem to be making some money still. I would have
to admit though, that the margins are a lot closer to the grocery business
than what we were used to in the print business...
Fred Gamber
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Henry"8
Date: Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:24 pm (PDT)
SNAP, GRACOL SWOP. Preparing files for print
conditions is an excellent thing to do, and guidelines for the conditions
are a good way to communicate the conditions. These are guidelines,
and as guidelines they aren't designed to be a guarantee for precision.
They only allow for the possibility of reasonable expectations.
You ask "how close are they to the standard
everyone is trying to hit?" With some humor, I would suggest
that THE "standard" is the individual designer's Pantone book,
their monitor and their expectations. That's an awful lot of
"standards".
I don't understand the part about ignoring process
control, but I wonder: what could be said if the files were not
properly prepared for the printing conditions, and the press operator took
initiative that nonetheless resulted in a run that met the expectations of
the buyer? Is this what is meant by ignoring process control?
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Henry"
Date: Mon Jun 12, 2006 4:55 pm (PDT)
Lee,
Offering observations that may seem challenging to
color management trend leaders doesn't necessarily make one
"anti-color management". I am neither anti-profile nor
anti-color management. Furthermore, I don't see my observations for
this thread as being necessarily anti-anything related to the topic even
though one response may have lead others to make that assumption. I
appreciate that you didn't mischaracterize or make insinuations in your
response.
On Jun 10, 2006, at 1:42 PM, Lee Clawson wrote:
Being asked by clients to re-purpose work for
many forms of media and have
everything done before anyone knew which printer
the files would be sent to
changed our work flows. And when clients came
with these needs printers
responded with amazingly quick turn-arounds and
we used the "over stated
solution" that made (or seemed to make)
this work flow possible.
Re-purposing has been made easier by the use of
profiles. Within the subject of re-purposing, there is room for
improvement and anything short of iron-handed, universal implementations
might fall short of a total solution. Black generation and drop
shadow are two issues that are still problematic. There is a dilemma
in the notion of proscribed "standards" while providing flexible
solutions.
If you'll accept a big generalization from my
perspective printers remain
less rather than more able to help me predict
what things will look like.
Some of this is due to the media we print on
especially the way my clients
compromise there to save money. And some is due
to no one knowing which
press will be used until the last minute.
Sure, there is a trade-off - good fast or cheap?
My comments regarding expectations were along these line. There
is a cost related to being able to predict what things will look like.
This isn't new, and if anything, it is a lot less expensive now than
in days gone by. Even so, that doesn't make it useable for every
print buyer or designer, and even fewer make the effort to learn how to use
it properly. A printer that receives a print job that involves the
printing of color patches is using resources to make the run. The
color management consultant is billing for their service of providing the
profile. The designer/print buyer can purchase monitor calibration
tools. By expense, one can have a better ability to predict what
things will look like. I was addressing the expectation level of a
growing number of folks for whom accurate color is perceived as a right, or
entitlement requiring little or no effort on their part.
I'll risk a new question on the topic of accurate color:
is there such a thing as "Beyond Pleasing Color"?
Has there ever been a run that was perceived as "better"
than expected? How would this be achieved? It's just a
question, maybe rhetorical, maybe not. Do standards dumb-down the
potential? Some really good printing can be had at the edge of the
press's operational envelope, but one can't run a press in such a manner
for very long or without files that have been prepared for such an
encounter. Still, the problem of expectations remains.
So with regard to your asking about reasonable
color
expectations...fair enough.
The marketing of color management is the root that I
find for the expectations syndrome that exists today. This is only
opinion. This thread wandered into the world of perception and
expectation, and I believe there were fewer disappointments pre-ICC.
Please don't misunderstand or mischaracterize this as an anti-color
management comment. There were, in the past, trained and
knowledgeable folks involved in all of the phases that a print job would
pass through. Today, a whole lot more people who know a whole lot less
about printing are mixing into the process, providing the increase of folks
whose expectations aren't met.
But...Dan Remaley is still trying explain the
need for process control. My
question; "Do you think (in 2006) ignoring
process control is a reasonable
position for a printer to find themselves in
???"
I haven't said anything that would remotely suggest
such recklessness in 2006, or 1986 for that matter. Andrew suggested
that this was my position, and I chose not to reply hoping to avoid an
explosion of meritless noise on the thread. His response to my
observations contained some ridiculous inference made possible by avoiding
the context of my statements. I regret that I see the tone of his
inferences repeated in your question. Do you really believe that I
would recommend that printers ignore process control? That Dan
Remaley expresses the need for process control doesn't suggest that
responsible printers are actively avoiding it.
P.S.-- perfection aside, it wasn't as hard as
you make it seem for a photo
lab to calibrate for the daily developer
chemistry.
Perfection aside. That there is actually a range
was the point.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Frank Deutschmann"
Date: Mon Jun 12, 2006 10:21 pm (PDT)
Behalf Of Dan Margulis
If commercial printers had wanted to make output meet
a more uniform
standard, there was no technological obstacle to doing
so fifteen or even
twenty years ago. The same goes for photo labs. That
they have chosen not to do so is a
strong indication that they don't see the demand for
it, same as with
honoring embedded profiles.
Well, in the bad old days, I think there was actually
strong motivation for custom color on both sides of the relationship,
particularly in the area of photographers and labs. For it truly was
a Relationship: the lab and photographer knew each other well, and the lab
provided a reliable service in completing the photographer's artistic
vision. In the professional negative/print world, this was a close
relationship refined over years and many iterations, and the lab was
consequently closely related to the photographer's business. In the
consumer world, the lab knew their generic consumer, and aimed to provide
the consumer with reliable good looking photographs. Back then, the
lab was much more than a black box; they were integral to the whole
artistic process.
One (more) thing that I find curious and somewhat
entertaining (in a dark sort of way) is that today, with better
communications technology than ever before, we seem to communicate *less*!
10 years ago, we traded phone messages and call back numbers and
wasted a lot of time trying to get on the same wavelength about this or
that job. Now, in the era of e-mail and cell phones, the world
prefers to simply DIY rather than try to communicate artistic intentions,
etc. Do we really, truly prefer to DIY, or are we forced into this by
the technology that needs a rigid contractual exchange? Or are there other
social factors at work here?
Curious.
-frank
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:39 pm (PDT)
In a message dated 6/12/06 9:49 AM, Frank Deutschmann
wrote:
Or are there other social factors at work here?
I certainly believe so. We live in a much more
corporate-dominated world today than we did even as recently as 10 years
ago. What you refer to as the "DYI" mentality is a reflection of
an unrelenting and widespread drive to produce at the highest possible
speed and at the very lowest cost, for the sake of rising sales and
increasing quarterly returns: that may, and indeed does, often mean that
quality is redefined downwards, a bit at a time, until it starts to be
clearly perceptible to a trained eye.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Tue Jun 13, 2006 10:36 am (PDT)
J,
Just for the sake of precision, the fact that two
colors have the same spectra does not *automatically* mean that they look
the same. That only happens if they are viewed *under the same illuminant*.
It's also true that two samples with *different*
spectra may appear very close in appearance to one another under a given
shared illuminant -- what is called a "metameric match."
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
: Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:38 pm (PDT)
In a message dated 6/6/06 1:23 PM, colorman042000 wrote:
I disagree with your statement about a *long
winded thread on this
list that has nothing to do with color or theory *.
I suppose that
you are referring to our discussion on
calibrationists,
calibrationism, calibration and also "calibrating
our equipment vs
profiling our equipment ". The discussion
had everything to do with
color and theory and I felt that it was worthwhile.
I have reached the conclusion that a calibrationist
can *also* be
defined in a positive way, ,snip
Hi Andre.
I think we should not be kidding ourselves, and instead
recognize that "calibrationist" and "calibrationism"
are terms of opprobrium, a way to cast aspersions and generalize by
choosing as representative the least articulate and effective members of a
class of "opponents" in order to discredit the *whole* class and
its practices.
I'm sure there's a name for this rhetorical device.
Myself, I call it an unenlightening waste of time.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "J Walton"n
Date: Tue Jun 13, 2006 2:48 pm (PDT)
On 6/13/06, Marco Ugolini wrote:
J,
Just for the sake of precision, the fact that two
colors have the same
spectra does not *automatically* mean that they look
the same. That only
happens if they are viewed *under the same
illuminant*.
Aren't the two greens in question on the same page of a
book? I would think the lighting conditions would be the same.
-----
J Walton
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "Mike Russell"
Date: Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:41 pm (PDT)
From: J Walton
[re green squares on page 22 of Professional
Photoshop 5]
Aren't the two greens in question on the same page of
a book? I would think
the lighting conditions would be the same.
Dan must be having a well-deserved chuckle over this.
Few people (myself included) actually followed up on the suggestion
underneath the illustration on page 22.
If you do you will get a fresh bit of insight from what
is at first glance merely an old optical illusion.
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:49 am (PDT)
In a message dated 6/13/06 11:28 AM, J Walton wrote:
Aren't the two greens in question on the same page of
a book? I would think
the lighting conditions would be the same.
Hi J.
As a general statement, it seemed to me that it that
left room for some ambiguity, giving the impression that two samples would
always look the same just because they are spectrally identical, regardless
of the effect the illuminant has on appearance.
If the first sample is measured with the instrument set
for a D50 illuminant and the second using, say, a setting of illuminant A,
the instrument will perceive a difference between two spectrally identical
samples.
That's all I meant to say.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "colorman042000"
André Dumas colorman042000
Date: Wed Jun 14, 2006 12:49 pm (PDT)
Marco, is it really too late to redefine what a
calibrationist stands for ? Dan has created the term and given it the
definition that we know. But ... we also need a word to define those who
see automation (tools and techniques) as a logical and practical way to
deal with image creation as opposed to the artisanists who believe
primarily in manual dexterity. "Calibrationist" is already
in our vocabulary and could appropriately define the former :-)
Andre Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Frank
Deutschmann"
Date: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:52 am (PDT)
I certainly believe so. We live in a much more
corporate-dominated world
today than we did even as recently as 10 years ago.
What you refer to as
the "DYI" mentality is a reflection of an
unrelenting and widespread drive to
produce at the highest possible speed and at the very
lowest cost, for the
sake of rising sales and increasing quarterly returns:
that may, and indeed
does, often mean that quality is redefined downwards,
a bit at a time,
until it starts to be clearly perceptible to a trained
eye.
I agree with what you say about the corporate mentality
towards quality, and this is undoubtedly an issue here. BUT,
corporate culture is also strongly aligned with "delegation",
"outsourcing", and sticking to "core competencies"
(ugh, I *so* despise every one of these terms!); all of this seems
completely opposed to the DIY approach that has taken imaging by storm over
the last few years. (Of course, imaging is hardly the only area
seeing this sort of thing.) Just the safety aspect of being able to
place blame somewhere else would seem to me to be a motivator to stick with
the old model -- in an extreme case, the photographer could always fire the
lab, etc. But today, all this (really complex, and more difficult now
than ever, IMHO) technology and detailed work is pulled in-house to be
carried out by relative novices under strict time pressure. I'm
wondering if the social factor isn't more along the lines of some sort of
breakdown in trust -- perhaps caused by everyone being so profit motivated
at the expense of quality? That is, the photographer feels that the
lab is always out to do the minimal satisfactory job at the maximal price,
so she feels that might as well DIY in-house as then there is somehow more
control, even though this is a net loss in delegation, etc, and skill.....
Thoughts?
-frank
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: "Accurate" color
Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
Date: Wed Jun 14, 2006 7:49 pm (PDT)
on 6/12/06 3:10 PM, Henry wrote:
Henry,
With this thread getting little attention feel free to
continue off list.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: "marty"
Date: Wed Jun 14, 2006 10:55 pm (PDT)
From: Marco Ugolini
As a general statement, it seemed to me that it that
left room for some
ambiguity, giving the impression that two samples
would always look the same
just because they are spectrally identical, regardless
of the effect the
illuminant has on appearance.
If the first sample is measured with the instrument
set for a D50 illuminant
and the second using, say, a setting of illuminant A,
the instrument will
perceive a difference between two spectrally identical
samples.
This is not accurate since a reflected light spectro
reads patches based on the percentage of light reflected over a narrow
wavelength. The illuminant is irrelevant. When the spectrum is converted to
a CIELAB color a reference illuminant is needed, D50 being the usual. Has
nothing to do with the measurement though.
Marty Gray
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:22 am (PDT)
In a message dated 6/14/06 10:08 PM, marty wrote:
This is not accurate since a reflected light spectro
reads patches based on
the percentage of light reflected over a narrow
wavelength. The illuminant
is irrelevant. When the spectrum is converted to a
CIELAB color a reference
illuminant is needed, D50 being the usual. Has nothing
to do with the
measurement though.
OK, my mistake: time to change subject. For a second I
felt sorry for splitting hairs, but I think I found my match...
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Dan's Photofinishing Test
Posted by: Marco Ugolini
Date: Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:25 am (PDT)
Hi Andre.
Do we, really?
Is this really such a pressing problem, so much so that
we need to get up in arms and stop the onslaught by the army of
calibrationists swooping down on us?
Reminds me of the flag-burning amendment that keeps
popping up in Congress time and again: not a whole lot of flags being
burned out there, judging from the news, but it doesn't stop Congress from
acting as if we were facing a crisis of epic proportions.
So, there are fools among us: what a revelation...
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA