Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory
Honoring Embedded Profiles
Re: ProPhoto as default
Posted by: "john castronovo"
Sun Nov 26, 2006 2:55 pm (PST)
As a custom lab owner for 30 years, I'm grateful that
we're finally getting to the point where most people do embed profiles no
matter what they are so that we CAN convert from them to our output
profiles. The major exceptions are still the printers and agencies who
somehow mysteriously work in a vacuum and never embed profiles. I get the
clear impression that they think we're incompetent if I ask for a profile,
or maybe my question could reveal their lack of knowledge in the area, so
I've learned not to ask them. For them we have to use our best judgment.
Ironically, their work is the most demanding but they're used to the method
of charging customers for proofs and corrections. Who am I to rock the
boat?
There are also a great and increasing number of people
who come to the lab with profiled images who want their images
"improved". For them, it doesn't matter if we match their
monitors (or even their files) or not. I have no problem with that, but it
illustrates the problem that the lab needs to know up front IF the embedded
profile is to be honored. This is now the most difficult part of the
workflow. Even Dan's blind test of photo labs earlier this year was faulted
because it came without instructions, so it was no surprise that results
varied. Some labs opted to honor, some opted to improve and the rest just
ran them and let the machine de jour do whatever it wanted to do. All of
them are correct on different levels.
John Castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Dan Margulis
Thu Nov 30, 2006 7:16 am (PST)
John Castronovo writes,
I have no problem with that, but it illustrates the
problem that the lab
needs to know up front IF the embedded profile is to be
honored. This is
now the most difficult part of the workflow.
This list carries extensive archives so that we can see
who was saying what when, and how right or wrong they proved to be.
The above comment echos one John made a few months ago
when discussing my photo lab test, in which his lab participated
("unofficially", because he knew it was a test) and did an
excellent job. At that time, he indicated to the list, as he does here,
that if a stranger hands him a job,without specifying that it the embedded
profile is to be honored, John declines to offer guarantees as to what he
will do.
Longtime list members will understand that, since John
has been a long-time defender of a profiled workflow, this statement brings
closure to a discussion that has plagued this list almost since its
inception--whether there would ever come a time when one could safely hand
off a tagged file to a stranger and assume that the stranger would handle
it properly.
When Photoshop 5 implemented the idea of embedded
profiles as "a universal language of color" in 1998,
substantially the same folk who are peddling ProPhoto now hailed it as
"brilliant", "a work of genius", "possibly the
greatest software release in history." Users who doubted the new order
were bashed mercilessly online. Service providers were advised that they
had six months to a year to adopt, or die, and that resistance was futile.
Alone at the time, I said that the ability to embed
profiles was useful to "a small minority of disciplined users",
such as members of this list, but that "These color changes
singlehandedly make what would otherwise be a superb upgrade into one that
will foment chaos. Despite its undoubted merits, on the whole Photoshop 5
is a major disservice to the industry."
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/PS5Review.pdf
Before the end of the next year, it was plain that the
desired goal--to eliminate the occasions when strangers had to communicate
in order to transfer files, because the embedded profile would speak for
itself--could never be achieved. I wrote an article entitled "How
Color Management Failed" (at that time, "color management"
was a term limited to the embedding and honoring of profiles; the expansion
into areas of process control was a later phenomenon.)
http://www.ledet.com/margulis/How_CM_Failed.pdf
This article's suggestion that there would *never* come
a time when strangers could freely pass profiled files back and forth
basically shut down the ColorSync list for several weeks while its members
attempted to find suitably damning words for it and its author. On *this*
list, the years wore on, the failure became more and more apparent, and yet
we had thread after thread warning us that resistance was still futile, and
that it if we embedded profiles and a stranger ignored them, we shouldn't
be upset if our jobs were ruined, because if would be that stranger's
fault.
It was not as easy to explain wrecked jobs to clients
as one might think, so the victims of the misinterprations often started
threads on this list. Threads suggested that a service provider who ruined
a job by ignoring a profile should pay to redo it--but the same people
arguing this also argued that a service provider who ruined a job by
*honoring* a profile that turned out to have been there by client error
should pay to redo the work.
http:
//www.ledet.com/margulis/ACT_postings/ProfilingandProofing/Profiling.htm
As late as 2003, the longest threads in list history
continued to see zealots insisting that any service provider who wouldn't
honor embedded profiles automatically deserved the blame for the failure of
a job--and the ruined jobs continued.
http:
//www.ledet.com/margulis/ACT_postings/DailyLife/Daily.htm
Since then, things have died down somewhat in light of
what everybody now knows--that handing out tagged files to strangers on the
assumption they'll automatically be honored is a form of masochism. If the
success of the job depends on the profile being honored, we *have* to make
sure that the next person knows.
John's policy is realistic in light of the real-world
images that get handed to him. He is committed to looking for the
best-quality way of doing things and that he usually supports standards
initiatives. He has been vocal in support of a profiled workflow. When *he*
will not commit to honoring embedded profiles from a stranger, the game is
over.
So, the eight-plus year experience can now be regarded
as producing the following final results. In the name of making
communication between client and service provider on a *few* jobs
unnecessary, we now have to have formal communication on *every* job. In
the name of offering options that improve quality marginally in a small
fraction of images we get to watch a parade of completely ruined jobs. John
is right when he says, "This is now the most difficult part of the
workflow."
It used to be the *easiest*--before the theoreticians
who now push ProPhoto got their way.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Andrew Rodney"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:29 am (PST)
When Photoshop 5 implemented the idea of embedded
profiles as "a universal
language of color" in 1998, substantially the same
folk who are peddling
ProPhoto now hailed it as "brilliant",
"a work of genius", "possibly the
greatest software release in history." Users who
doubted the new order were
bashed mercilessly online. Service providers were
advised that they had six
months to a year to adopt, or die, and that resistance
was futile.
With such absolute nonsense once again starting,
it©ˆs hard to gather the energy to reply to this kind of negative
mindset that prefers to condemn a process than explain how to use it.
Anyway:
Digital images are big piles of numbers.
Numbers alone, don©ˆt tell us what a color
should look like (there©ˆs the all powerful, worshiped Lab color
space which is self defining but you have to convert to lab from something
so that©ˆs that).
The only way we have to define color appearance from
numbers is defining the color space (the scale of the numbers).
The only way we have to define a color space today is
by embedding profiles in documents.
If you care about communicating what the numbers mean,
you embed a profile.
You could I guess label the file
©¯Dan©ˆs Flowers in sRGB.TIFF©˜ but then,
would you believe the file is in sRGB anymore or less given a so called
stranger than just embedding the profile?
We label lots of items from medicine bottles to the
type of gas we want to pump into our cars. People continue to pump the
wrong gas and take the wrong drug dosage. No one of sound mind could
possibly be criticizing the process of labeling an item that without such a
label becomes ambiguous, unknown and suspect to far more damage. An
embedded profile is just a label and it can be wrong just as some idiot
could overdose on baby aspirin.
When Dan invents Dan RGB and a better way to define
numbers and color spaces, the world will be a better place no question.
Until then, we have a solution that while imperfect works well when used by
somewhat intelligent people. Until then, we all await the perfect,
foolproof solution from the minds of the color theory list.
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Bob Frost"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:04 am (PST)
Dan,
Surely the formal communication IS the embedded
profile. All teachers of digital imaging have to do is to make their pupils
realise this. There will always be those who cannot read, whether it is
english, spanish, chinese, or 'color management-speak'! Surely our job as
teachers is to teach them the language, so they can understand the changes
that are taking place in the world around them.
Trying to imitate 'King Canute' is not very helpful,
IMO.
'Adapt or die' is the rule that the world operates by
(with or without humans).
If people ruin (where did that strange word 'hose' come
from?) the images you send them, don't send them any more. To save time I
sent 100 images (in sRGB) to a commercial processor recently, and they came
back all sorts of colors; I shan't send them any more - I've just printed
them (in the original Adobe98) on my Epson inkjet (using a custom profile)
and they are perfect. I shall look for another printer who knows what they
are doing.
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Henry"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:59 pm (PST)
There is more than one way that an end user may define
a color space for an image: there are also guessing and assuming.
If there were actually only one way, this thread would
not exist. If there were actually only one way to define the color space of
an image, and it were enforced in such a way as to not allow for any other
option, who would deny that this would be the easiest, most efficient
scenario?
However, the de facto situation imposes so many options
that there really aren't any rules. Oh yeah, there is the Communication
Rule that has developed to resolve the issue for each and every file an end
user touches. How convenient.
Ordinarily, a de facto standard imposes A rule by
practice.
Ordinarily, a de jure standard imposes A rule by law.
We currently have neither. We have color anarchy, and
it continues to by my impression that there was more of a
"standard" 15 years ago. What we have now sounds more like very
sophisticated, yet spoiled children arguing over who gets their way.
It is almost undeniable that if A Rule or A Standard is
imposed, it will involve some sort of compromise. If this process of
argument is some sort of search for such an ultimate, uncompromising
standard, then I believe we may be disappointed. Sure, the search will
probably continue, but there really needs to be an interim agreement so
that at least there is some temporary clarity. If tons of unknowns are
going to be slinging files about at each other, a standard should have been
the first item on the agenda.
I recall sRGB as the color space for which no agreement
could be found in even making it even an interim standard. The same goes
for ColorMatch, Adobe98, etc. The color community would rather have chaos
and anarchy, which is sooo much fun, and keeps everyone with their own
horse in the race. While it is definitely a technical issue, just how look
at how political sounding it has become.
Maybe every service provider should name their own RGB,
thus implying some sort of competitive advantage.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Ric Cohn"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 2:11 pm (PST)
On Nov 30, 2006, at 10:39 AM, Andrew Rodney wrote:
Until then, we have a solution that while imperfect
works well when used by somewhat intelligent people.
This is the kind of clear and reasonable claim that
should have been made in the first place-- and wasn't. I think it is how
profiles were implemented and not that profiles were implemented that riles
Dan and many others. IMO, it is a fact that damage has been *and* continues
to be done by "experts" making extravagant claims.
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Bob Frost"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:45 pm (PST)
Henry
Did you read Rich's post of a few days ago? It included
this paragraph
Well, of all the color spaces other than sRRGB and
AdobeRGB that have
been listed here, ROMM RGB (ProPhoto) is the only one
that has made
it through the vetting of Standards committees to
become a new
standard. The reasons it has are well-described within
the standards
themselves. A lot of people put a lot of work (and
argument) into the
new standards.
So there are standards, and it seems ProPhoto is one of
them!
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "john castronovo"
Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:46 pm (PST)
My Lord! Be honest here Dan.
I said that for the 43 cents I charge for a 4x6 print I
wouldn't guarantee that I'd be able to second guess the customer's wishes
if I wasn't told to honor the profile or not, or for that matter if there
was no profile, multiple channels, a lab or cmyk image thrown into the mix
for good measure. Many kinds of files require further work and we like to
be warned when the customer needs additional attention.
To be sure, if we're talking about a job of any size
we'd be on the phone to discuss it with the customer which is what I've
always said should be done. My position hasn't changed one bit over the
years. If there's no profile we call and if there is one, we honor it . . .
unless we're talking about work that's literally worth pennies, and that's
what your test was really about.
Because your test files had no instructions, I made you
two sets to illustrate my point: one where I honored the profiles and one
where I let the technician adjust the images according to his liking. In
the real world, there's no way to truly sort this out on the fly when
you're making hundreds of prints for peanuts. However, this group isn't
about such imaging. This is a group of professionals who work at the high
end of the imaging food chain, so I don't think this example proves
anything to them.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Richard Wagner
Fri Dec 1, 2006 7:31 am (PST)
On Nov 30, 2006, at 6:19 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
So, the eight-plus year experience can now be regarded
as producing
the following final results. In the name of making
communication
between client and service provider on a *few* jobs
unnecessary, we
now have to have formal communication on *every* job.
In the name
of offering options that improve quality marginally in
a small
fraction of images we get to watch a parade of
completely ruined
jobs. John is right when he says, "This is now the
most difficult
part of the workflow."
It used to be the *easiest*--before the theoreticians
who now push
ProPhoto got their way.
A parade of completely ruined jobs?
Are you joking? The "theoreticians" laid the
groundwork and established standards for workflows that have become widely
adopted and have eliminated much of the chaos in the field - chaos that
exists largely because of people who refuse to endorse widely accepted and
recommended standards.
Lee Varis recently wrote to tell us how 90% of the work
coming into his lab is tagged with AdobeRGB, and how HAPPY he and his
customers are. The 10% that refuse to embed profiles are the problem - and
it seems that they KNOWINGLY strip out their profiles because of an
UNFOUNDED FEAR that someone they DON'T KNOW will mis-convert their image.
So what do they get? Someone in the lab trying to guess what profile they
used so they can convert it properly. Brilliant! Do you think Lee wants
everyone to strip profiles and hand the lab "mystery meat?" I'll
bet not!
Let's see.
On Nov 18, 2006, at 1:56 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:
To quote the pertinent section of Professional
Photoshop 4E (2002),
p. 270: "The recommendations for the practical
person, therefore,
are as follows:...[for] Work primarily aimed at non-Web
RGB: If you
are certain that your workflow won't let anyone convert
(or fail to
convert) it improperly later, use Adobe RGB."
Of course, there is NO recommendation on what to use if
you are NOT sure that someone may "convert (or fail to convert) it
improperly later" and you have made it clear that you have NEVER
endorsed sRGB - for anything. And after multiple requests, you have never
recommended anything as far as color spaces go, other than what NOT to use,
and now you long for the days when profiles were not embedded. Talk about
creating chaos!!! Most of the world has settled on embedded profiles as a
standard, and AdobeRGB as a pre-press / photo lab / inkjet standard. Even
Web browsers are becoming color- managed and reading/respecting embedded
profiles. Having recognized that color management works, people are now
asking for more, not less. Standards committees, libraries, national
archives, and photographers are looking for direction for the future, and
it is definitely in wide-gamut color spaces that can preserve as much
information in an image as possible. You'd like to go back to the days when
there was no "working space" and no History palette, and every
image was mystery meat. It's almost unbelievable - but I believe it.
An embedded profile does not guarantee a perfectly
edited image - it only indicates what color space the numerical image data
should be output/processed in. John's problem with clients is not with the
embedded profile - it's with poor editing. Do they want exactly what's
defined in the image to be converted to output, or do they want the image
improved? The same is true of Lee's customers.
As a "leader" and educator, you should be
making sound POSITIVE recommendations, rather than longing for the days
when standards didn't exist and users did whatever they wanted to. (You
never did provide the specific recommendations to common APPLIED photoshop
scenarios that I requested.) The photographic community is fortunate that
Adobe engineers made the decisions that they did in PS 5 - the
implementation of color management in a desktop image editing application
was a landmark achievement by forward-thinking engineers. Their adoption of
RIMM/ROMM as the processing space in Adobe Camera RAW was no less
forward-thinking. They have used cutting-edge research to design and build
their products, and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so.
Personally, I'm thankful for the
"theoreticians" at Adobe, Kodak, and elsewhere who have pushed
the field forward and have established standards for other developers to
follow. As developers and users catch on, everyone's life becomes easier,
image editing becomes more accurate, and there are fewer surprises when
images are output on any given device. If you want to revert to Photoshop
4, go for it... the rest of the world will keep moving forward.
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Rick Gordon"
Fri Dec 1, 2006 7:32 am (PST)
Fifteen years ago, hardly anybody was sending
desktop-generated images to any kind of pro-level output. It was mostly
for-position-only graphics, leaving the the service bureaus and printers to
manage final output in whatever closed-loop manner they chose -- at big
bucks.
Where's the basis for comparison?
Rick Gordon
------------------
On 11/30/06 at 2:41 PM -0500, Henry wrote in a message
entitled
"Re: [colortheory] Honoring embedded profiles (was
ProPhoto)":
We currently have neither. We have color anarchy, and
it continues to by my impression that there was more of a
"standard" 15 years ago. What we have now sounds more like very
sophisticated, yet spoiled children arguing over who gets their way.
___________________________________________________
RICK GORDON
EMERALD VALLEY GRAPHICS AND CONSULTING
___________________________________________________
WWW: http://www.shelterpub.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Andre Dumas
Fri Dec 1, 2006 11:38 am (PST)
Hello Andrew,
Dan wrote (quoting John Castronovo): "he indicated
to the list (...) that if a stranger hands him a job,without specifying
that it the embedded profile is to be honored, John declines to offer
guarantees as to what he will do."
John has considered all the factors and has come up
with that policy, strictly speaking he is doing what is best for himself
and ,perhaps, for (the majority ?) his customers. His, is strictly a
merchant's consideration of the problem and *his* way to resolve it, it
does not negate the concept that an image file and its profile are (should
be) indissociable.
Dan's pragmatism is probably the correct attitude if
you want your 100 images of that wedding correctly done first thing
to-morrow morning.
André Dumas
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Henry"
Fri Dec 1, 2006 11:41 am (PST)
It wasn't a comparison - it was an observation that
draws a distinction. I will, though, offer another observation.
Pro and non-pro photographers alike can shoot film, pos
or neg, send it to a pro lab, and get it processed. Except for certain labs
that use a proprietary process and film, the processing is accomplished
according to A Standard. Unless the film is of a proprietary brand, it can
be processed using the standardized method, and yield fairly predictable
results.
The digital corollary has many standards, as if every
order to be processed is proprietary. I regard "many standards"
as another way of saying "no standard". Others will see it
differently. It is only an observation, but it seems to me to be the gist
of this thread. In reading, I also sense just a wee bit of denial that a
real standard might be necessary. It is almost as thought the thread is
screaming for a standard while at the same time it desires the freedom and
autonomy of many standards. I say this with regard to commercial workflows,
and not to any one user's particular working methods.
Just how many of us would like a more complicated
situation? There are solutions, but they will involve compromise.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Fri Dec 1, 2006 11:57 pm (PST)
Rich (and list), I don't have much interest in this
particular thread and will mostly stay silent - it is more than enough that
I have to keep up with each post as part of my moderation duties. That
being said, I would like to comment on your recent post - more in general
to the list than directly to you Rich.
The biggest problem for these debates is that they
cross over many issues that may or may not be connected and are true for
some users in some settings but not so for others.
An embedded profile does not guarantee a perfectly
edited image - it
only indicates what color space the numerical image
data should be
output/processed in. John's problem with clients is not
with the
embedded profile - it's with poor editing. Do they want
exactly
what's defined in the image to be converted to output,
or do they
want the image improved? The same is true of Lee's
customers.
Most come to the conclusion that for Photoshop images
and RGB work, it is a no brainer and that the embedded ICC profile is a
good thing. As has been stated many times by many people on both sides of
the fence - it is the implementation of colour management that often leaves
a lot to be desired, not the basic concept of managing colour (which used
to be closed loop, it has always been there where it really counted, in
some shape or form).
Photographers and photo labs provide a fairly simple
workflow - and that proves to be rather complex! Perhaps it is a
"grass is always greener" thing, but I envy the problems faced by
a photo lab.
For those in the CMYK world, the workflow and
complexity is greatly increased over a simple photo lab workflow. One may
have raster images in various flavours of various colour modes and the same
for vector images. These are all combined into a page layout that may also
be using various colour modes on the native layout elements. Some of these
can produce "oil and water" results that never happen in RGB only
workflows. One can colour manage manually or use ICC methods. Embedded ICC
profiles and ICC workflows in such settings can be of great help and they
can also cause major problems at other stages of the workflow - usually
closer to output than in earlier production (often outside fo the files
creators at a service provider).
Often where problems come up is with poor software
design or choice of settings at the service provider that fail to overcome
the poorly written software. The problem is most common as either a
workflow design issue or a bug/glitch that leads to undesired results. This
has been an ongoing issue in the prepress industry and is still common
today.
Even the Adobe InDesign & Illustrator CS2 software
team had to *finally* accept that a "SAFE" CMYK workflow was
needed where CMYK values were not altered based on the embedded ICC tag.
Despite the Photoshop 5 colour management workflow lessons! Thus InDesign
CS2 had a great new marketing angle (a solution to a problem of their own
creation). Idealogy overcomming common sense until InDesign CS2, after how
many ruined jobs in the hands of customers? The majority of CMYK users in
the majority of circumstances do not wish to have their files values
altered (unlike RGB users who depend on this and thus the profile is
needed). So now InDesign is workable in CS2, as one can colour manage RGB
based off the tag to convert the values in the file, while at the same time
ignoring profiles in CMYK objects and not converting their values.
As a "leader" and educator, you should be
making sound POSITIVE
recommendations,
Dan has and continues to do so. The positive advice is
to play things safe and attempt to second guess upstream issues so that one
is not burnt.
In past threads on this issue, I believe Dan made the
following broad generalisations (there have been TOO many of these threads,
check the edited list archives at Dan's Ledet site):
Generally RGB embedded tags are a good thing (there
will be exceptions such as 40,000 images all having the same known profile,
so why tag it - just assume it in the workflow upstream). This is not
controversial. Where Dan is controversial is that he understands that the
world is not a perfect place and that things can and do happen that are
beyond our immediate control. His recommendations are to consider the
various pros/cons and to be conservative and or to attempt to second guess
upstream actions. This often goes against the idealistic textbook appraoch
where software and people all interact with no error.
So rather than rant against his jobs being ruined by
upstream users or software that do not understand colour management or
worflows correctly and ruin his files, Dan avoids the issue by second
guessing them. It is a very pragmatic approach. I am sure that Dan would
like things to work as intended, but he is also a realist before being an
idealist.
I see Dan's position similar to this:
Yes, once the pedestrian crossing light is green, in
theory it is safe to walk. But it is also wise to check the traffic too.
Even if the service provider admits fault and reprints,
one may miss a deadline and an important client. Where an embedded profile
has no use and can cause problems, the lucky expert will avoid the tagging
of profiles. Even if this flies against the conventional wisdom. As has
been shown with safe CMYK workflows and automatic colour conversion -
conventional wisdom changes.
I think the idea of an embedded tag is good in some
cases, but not in others. If the software and human element was not a
factor, then there would be even less cases where it was not a good thing.
So for me, it is once again the implementation of colour management and how
software may behave and human actions, more so than the ICC tag.
The photographic community is fortunate
that Adobe engineers made the decisions that they did
in PS 5 - the
implementation of color management in a desktop image
editing
application was a landmark achievement by
forward-thinking engineers.
It would have been nice if they had been
forward-thinking enough to have looked straight to version 6 Rich!
But it is easy for me to be critical, not being a
software engineer. Photoshop 5 colour handling was far from fortunate
(mis?). But good ideas can evolve from bad ones, so Photoshop 6 colour
handling was a good thing. If Adobe had to learn from version 5, then it
would have been nice if it was done in beta testing rather than in the
hands of users, but we finally got a useable colour tool in version 6 that
went far beyond the old model.
I think we can all see where things are headed with
Lightroom, at least for RGB and camera raw data. Seamless, simple colour
management that is mostly hidden from the user all made possible with well
designed colour management software workflows (as the problem is not the
ICC tag, but how software and users decide to variably act based on the
profile). Profiles are honoured and untagged are assumed, profiles are
always embedded.
Very different to Photoshop, that has a rather complex
colour management interface (that could be made even more complex to give
more control to users and seen as a positive thing by some). Will Photoshop
and the industry head in the same direction? It is what we have all been
asking for after all. Simpler colour management that is bullet proof for
both the creator and subsequent handlers of the data.
We have options in Photoshop and with options come
complexity. Can things be simplified but still remain workable while still
providing flexibility? I am not sure, as that is where the problems come
in!
That is more than enough on the topic from me.
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Murray DeJager"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 12:02 am (PST)
Hi Dan,
Longtime list members will understand that, since John
has been a
long-time defender of a profiled workflow, this
statement brings
closure..
As John has already responded negatively to the above
statement I would guess that we're far from 'closure.'
Dan, I read your post very carefully and followed and
read through most of the links. I have perused through these articles in
the past also and I think I understand your position on this subject very
well. My first inclination when I read your views on this subject, however,
is disagreement. I am a positive thinker when it comes to the ability of
science (along with market forces) to bring positive change to the world.
With that in mind...
Alone at the time, I said that the ability to embed
profiles was
useful to "a small minority of disciplined
users", such as members of
this list,
I understand, based on my own experience, why, at the
moment, this is true. In my own workflow I work with a profiled monitor and
profiles for both my printers and scanner. Moving to a profiled workflow
was the best thing I've done.
Unfortunately, the reason I went to all the trouble and
expense of incorporating this workflow was because my experience with local
labs was a disaster! And I can't say if things have improved in the past
two years because I've eliminated outside labs from my 'loop.' I don't
think that was ever the intent of colormanagement.
To be fair I should actually go pay my local lab a
visit and see how much they've learned since I was last in; I know I've
learned a lot!
John is right when he says, "This is now the most
difficult part of
the workflow."
Nevertheless, I'm still an optimist! I do honestly
believe that the concept of color management and the embedding of profiles
is a good one. It just may take awhile for it to become mainstream. It's
still in it's infancy. As old printers/photographers die off and new
printer/photographers enter the field they probably won't even realize what
"all the fuss was about!"
And best of all, a professional's work will still be
easily distinguishable from an amateur's because as you have said many
times, Dan, "Machines and humans don't see things the same way!"
A pro will always be able to make his prints look better!
Murray DeJager
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "john castronovo"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 8:17 am (PST)
From: "Stephen Marsh"
For those in the CMYK world, the workflow and
complexity is greatly
increased over a simple photo lab workflow. One may
have raster images
in various flavours of various colour modes and the
same for vector
images. These are all combined into a page layout that
may also be
using various colour modes on the native layout
elements. Some of
these can produce "oil and water" results
that never happen in RGB
only workflows. One can colour manage manually or use
ICC methods.
Embedded ICC profiles and ICC workflows in such
settings can be of
great help and they can also cause major problems at
other stages of
the workflow - usually closer to output than in earlier
production
(often outside fo the files creators at a service
provider).
Don't be so sure about that grass is greener bit. Not
all RGB workflows are simple. We often need to convert those same page
layout files for RGB printing, so for example we're often dealing with
duotones and tints of PMS colors that have no correlation to RGB at all.
The same issues apply in that there are many incongruous elements on the
page, plus we have to deal with the issue of interpreting mystery CMYK
conversions when we have no clue about the press conditions they were
intended for. I'll accept that there may be cases where CMYK profiles may
need to be ignored because I'm not in that end of the business, but it
would sure be nice to have them when we're not printing on a press.
Ideally, printers should be able to ignore CMYK
profiles if they get in their way, but leave them embedded if they can be a
help for someone else, IMHO.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Sat Dec 2, 2006 6:22 pm (PST)
John Castronovo wrote:
Don't be so sure about that grass is greener bit. Not
all RGB
workflows are simple. We often need to convert those
same page layout
files for RGB printing, so for example we're often
dealing with
duotones and tints of PMS colors that have no
correlation to RGB at
all. The same issues apply in that there are many
incongruous elements
on the page, plus we have to deal with the issue of
interpreting
mystery CMYK conversions when we have no clue about the
press
conditions they were intended for.
I am not making slight of your type of work here John,
I have to do similar as well at times for clients wishing to use stuff in
MS Office or whatever RGB useage. For work originating from my studio,
there is not too much problem as prepress is considered and built into
every design/concept job. It is work presented from outside designers that
is the problem. Even the "print ready" jobs are not ready for
imposing or output straight off the disk as "print ready" would
imply.
The complexity I was referring to that does not exist
in RGB settings is using overprints/combinations of spot colour and process
colours for separated output, or gradations between spot colours and
process colours for separated output, or transparency features/blending
modes in illustration/photos/layouts and spot colours and or CMYK
combinations etc. All the things that relate to separations, that are not
an issue in composite CMYK or composite RGB settings (although transparency
flattener issues can affect composite RGB or CMYK users too).
I'll accept that there may be cases where CMYK profiles
may need to
be ignored because I'm not in that end of the business,
but it would
sure be nice to have them when we're not printing on a
press.
No argument there for your type of repurposing work
John, but that is the issue for me - I am not repurposing/reseparating, I
want those values!
Recent case in point. The unlucky expert rides again,
this time with the lead role being played by yours truly. <g>
* I am asked to send a CMYK job out to get film made in
a rush, I did not have time to do my usual workflow (mistake #1). After
nearly twenty years in the game, I should know that it is not worth rushing
something out when a problem can create even more time wasted than the
delay it takes to double check things.
* I usually create a pre-separated CMYK PDF and then
recombine the seps and run a rough proof before sending off the file for
film output at the local service provider. In this case there is only time
to send a *composite* PDF (mistake #2). If you prefer not to trust that the
next person will make the seps as expected, do it yourself - which is my
standard workflow when I have the time.
- But in "theory" there should be no problem
with sending a composite CMYK PDF to a service provider to make a set of
negs and an inkjet press simulation 'proof' of the data on the negs. The
CMYK numbers go in and the same CMYK numbers come out, don't they?
* I receive a call from the SP that due to an ICC
profile being present in my composite PDF (mistake #3) that their RIP had
automatically reseparated the input CMYK values based on the ICC profile
and had created new seps. Thus all the black only elements such as hairline
rules and text was now in four colours and 90%K rather than 100K only and
the pastel blue background had turned mauve with higher magenta values. The
film was output. I was asked to resupply the PDF with the profile stripped
and that we would be charged for new film a proof. If they remove the ICC
profile, strange things may happen to the PDF such as text failing to
output or other output glitches.
Simply having no ICC profile in the composite PDF stops
their RIP from automatically reseparating the job.
* Usually I do not tag output ready files, but
obviously not this time. They are useful in-house, but less so when sending
a final job out that will never need any future reseparation.
We have had this similar story repeated many times in
the past by many different people. Yes, we know that service providers can
be less than helpful and appear to sabotage jobs and if only they would
educate themselves and use the right settings then there would be no
problem. The problem is not the ICC profile but the implemented CM
workflow, software and people using it. If one does encounter these
problems, simply vote with your wallet and shop elsewhere etc.
Meanwhile Dan, myself and other practical minded people
have no problems accepting that theory does not always work as expected
when applied in the real world and that it is best to avoid problems in the
first place.
Ideally, printers should be able to ignore CMYK
profiles if they get
in their way, but leave them embedded if they can be a
help for
someone else, IMHO.
Agreed, but the world is not ideal. It pays to observe
and think rather than just parrot conventional wisdom that may have little
application to your particular environment.
This is the message that Dan tries to impart to his
students. It starts with simple curves and image evaluation by the numbers
and spreads into many other areas of our professions.
Rich has recently been asking Dan for specific
recommendations on various workflow aspects (that for the most part are a
side issue to the main focus of Dan's CMYK output experience/commentary).
For me, that is not what Dan has ever been about. The reason for his
popularity as an author is that he teaches his readers to *think for
themselves*, rather than just presenting a cook book or canned reply. Dan
can do that too, but I believe that the greatest contribution that Dan
makes as an author and educator is encapsulated in this old (Chinese?)
proverb:
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Lee Varis"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 6:22 pm (PST)
On Dec 1, 2006, at 12:53 AM, Richard Wagner wrote:
Lee Varis recently wrote to tell us how 90% of the work
coming into
his lab is tagged with AdobeRGB, and how HAPPY he and
his customers
are. The 10% that refuse to embed profiles are the
problem
Just to be clear... there is some confusion on this
point and you have to read the whole post carefully to understand it. The
biggest problem for the lab is NOT with customers who knowingly strip
profiles but with customers who use profiles improperly. If there is no
profile – in almost every case I've seen the worst case scenario is
that the customer is working in monitor RGB - if we assume sRGB we are
generally 85-90% OK. Sometimes ARGB is a better assumption and we don't
pickup on that just by looking but the point is we generally don't guess
TOO wrong!
However, if the customer ASSIGNS a wrong profile or
"converts" to Epson RGB and then "assigns" Adobe RGB
(don't laugh - this has happened!) things get REALLY screwy! The complexity
of color management is just too much for many people and a service bureau
now has to really be on guard against stupid mistakes in profile
management/application for a wide range of situations that never existed
before color management. Our customers can have very "creative"
ideas about color so we cannot automatically make assumptions about wacky
color that we see if there is a normal profile tag – but from
personal experience it takes the misapplication of a profile to really
screw up the color! If there is a profile tag, we just never know if the
color is going to be right or not. If there is NO tag we can generally
guess right ENOUGH almost 100% of the time! This is, of course, not ideal
but simply a fact of life. I'd much rather have all customers CORRECTLY tag
their files – however, there is nothing in color management nowadays
that can guarantee this.
This DOES NOT MEAN that color management doesn't
work!!! Color management doesn't kill color - people kill color. BUT...
color management, in and of itself, does not make life easier for the
service bureau dealing with the unwashed masses. I think we HAVE to make a
distinction between pragmatic workflow policies and ideal workflow
policies. I ALWAYS try to educate customers on the proper use of color
management but sometimes there's nothing you can do – for some people
its actually safer to have them do as little as possible with color
management just so they won't really screw up.
I'm hopeful that eventually color management will get
more bullet proof with regards to the majority of imaging workflows and
still allow for creative controls that advanced users can take advantage
of. Progress is being made – it just seems slow to people frustrated
by the mismanagement of color management.
regards,
Lee Varis
President, LADIG
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Matthew Rigdon"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 7:49 pm (PST)
Is this really possible? How can color management ever
be bulletproof and easy? We have a "standard" of sorts, basically
set by the web community and followed by a lot of camera vendors, that sRGB
is the default workspace we should all use. All of the Fuji and Noritsu
machines assume sRGB, often choke if you send them something different
(apparently varies from machine to machine). If the goal is to make it
"easy" for everybody, we all need to just live in an sRGB world
and be done with it.
Making Prophoto the "standard" doesn't fix
anything. Depending on your workflow, it could make things worse, in that
you can edit a photo and get a certain result on your monitor, then send
your properly tagged ProPhoto image out to be printed and discover that it
looks NOTHING like what you created on your machine. So, it looks like
color management failed.
But there's the rub. Most people, unless they REALLY
REALLY want to know this stuff, want to look at a monitor, edit, and get
what they see. They don't to look at numbers, or juggle profiles or any of
this "computer" stuff. Let's face it, most photographers like to
use their camera. they don't like using the computer. And they probably
passed up Trig in high school and took extra art classes. They hate
numbers. There are not a lot of left-brain/right-brain people. Most people
tend toward one or the other.
So you still need someone around who likes numbers, who
likes screwing around with the computer, to deal with all your color
management issues. But here's the other problem: all the color management
companies have pushed all this stuff through by saying it makes things
easier. No need to hire somebody to deal with this, we put it in all the
software. Now no one wants to budget for a guy to sit around and just
monkey with profiles. We were sold cheaper production and ease of use. I'm
not bringing somebody in to deal with that.
So you get people who aren't suited for this sort of
work who are FORCED to deal with it, often with disastrous results.
The good thing/bad thing about standards, is they are
usually a sort of lowest-common denominator. Yes, it puts limits, but it
also means nothing goes disastrously wrong, we've all reached a certain
plateau. ProPhoto doesn't seem like a good standard at this point, if not
because of issues trying to edit in the space, but for the fact that if you
work and tag everything with ProPhoto, you have to hope and pray and
slaughter chickens to make sure somebody down the line knows how color
management works. And you still won't get what you see if they're not using
an Epson printer. So the onus is still on you, the originator of the file,
to make sure you edit and tag so that it won't get ruined down the line.
Or just tell your clients "I do what the standards
body tells me, I can't help it if somebody else down the line screwed
up."
But the real question is, what have the standards
bodies really done? There are myriad examples of manufacturers either
outright ignoring or throwing out parts of the standards to get a machine
out the door in a hurry, or because they want to make you adapt to their
workflow so you can never just pick up and go to another provider. Web
designers have been putting up with this for years. There are standards,
but no one can blindly follow them because, dun, dun, dun, they don't work
on IE. So you throw the standards out the window and you design in a way so
that websites look right on IE, where your clients are looking. And it's
because standards bodies HAVE NO POWER. Simple. Nobody has to do what they
say and being the early adopter, in the hopes of leading the way, is a
recipe for being unemployed because you don't work the way everybody else
does.
In fact, there's a lot of web designers now who are
just saying "Forget the standards bodies, they're not doing any
good." And in a free-market capitalist system, the company that sells
the most machines wins, not the one that follows standards. It's the
problem with enforcing standards from outside rather than just looking
around and figure out which system the market has chosen and shoot for
that.
Which obviously doesn't make for pat answers.
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "john castronovo"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 10:40 pm (PST)
From: "Stephen Marsh"
I receive a call from the SP that due to an ICC profile
being
present in my composite PDF (mistake #3) that their RIP
had
automatically reseparated the input CMYK values based
on the ICC
profile and had created new seps. Thus all the black
only elements
such as hairline rules and text was now in four colours
and 90%K
rather than 100K only and the pastel blue background
had turned mauve
with higher magenta values. The film was output. I was
asked to
resupply the PDF with the profile stripped and that we
would be
charged for new film a proof. If they remove the ICC
profile, strange
things may happen to the PDF such as text failing to
output or other
output glitches.
I wish I could charge for my problems like that. I just
had a PDF last week that didn't output correctly due to a transparency
issue that the RIP didn't like, but I fixed it and did the job over at my
cost rather than blame the customer who prepared it. It was a low bid job
too - one that was supposed to just drop on the RIP and print. Is it common
practice for service providers to make customers pay for remakes due to
their RIP workflow errors? If so, that's the problem in a nutshell because
it will never get fixed. Meanwhile, I suppose I must agree with your more
pragmatic defensive driving approach.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "john castronovo"
Sat Dec 2, 2006 8:25 am (PST)
I need to clarify my position further.
I always ask that my customers provide images with
embedded profiles so that we can provide profiled results, if that's what
they want - some don't because they don't trust their own workflow.
The difficulty is when we get orders without
instructions. The lack of communication from the customer is the issue and
this is mostly a problem with amateurs, many of whom are also in business
and commercial settings. Without their instructions, the options at the lab
are:
1-educate them at our cost (not always possible and
sometimes it makes us look worse because "we're so much trouble")
2-attempt to make the best looking image for the price
(most people have always wanted this in photo printing)
3-guess to match what the customer probably saw on an
unknown display (dangerous)
4-just run it through the machine and let the customer
adjust his files for the next time (what most labs do)
5-convert from an embedded profile to our printer
profile (best for everyone, if we have an understanding with the customer
that the image has been corrected already, see #1 above)
Clearly, the choice depends upon our communication with
and evaluation of the customer. That's what I mean when I say that this is
the most difficult part of the job, not that all bets are off when we print
an order.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Richard Wagner
Sun Dec 3, 2006 11:16 am (PST)
On Dec 2, 2006, at 6:45 PM, Stephen Marsh wrote:
Agreed, but the world is not ideal. It pays to observe
and think
rather than just parrot conventional wisdom that may
have little
application to your particular environment.
Fine, but the "conventional wisdom" may apply
to the vast majority of cases, and when it does, ignoring it causes
unnecessary problems. There are those who think zebras every time they hear
hoofbeats, even though they may be standing in (and getting trampled by) a
herd of horses.
This is the message that Dan tries to impart to his
students. It
starts with simple curves and image evaluation by the
numbers and
spreads into many other areas of our professions.
Dan is without a doubt an excellent practitioner and
teacher of image correction, particularly for pre-press, and particularly
when starting with bad images. However, those are not the only skills
needed by people who use Photoshop as one of the tools of their profession.
There is a huge population of professional Photoshop users who are not
working in pre-press departments, who need to know how to use Photoshop for
output to devices other than just 4-color offset. The advice that is
applicable for CMYK presses is not necessarily applicable to other devices,
and these differences are often ignored or downplayed. For those working in
pre-press, even the printing world is moving aggressively towards color
management and better standardization, such as that described by GRACol 7.
There is an excellent 3-day workshop on color management for those in the
printing industry that starts tomorrow, sponsored by PIA/GATF
(www.colormanagementconference.com). Remote proofing and approval are now a
reality for many publishers. None of this would be possible without
ICC-based color management.
Rich has recently been asking Dan for specific
recommendations on
various workflow aspects (that for the most part are a
side issue to
the main focus of Dan's CMYK output
experience/commentary). For me,
that is not what Dan has ever been about. The reason
for his
popularity as an author is that he teaches his readers
to *think for
themselves*, rather than just presenting a cook book or
canned reply.
To "think for oneself" one must be aware of
the options. In many ways, this List reminds me of Plato's Allegory of the
Cave. People are content with their workflow and what works for them, and
they fail to realize that what they are seeing are only shadows of what
exists outside the cave. They are afraid of what they have been told exists
outside the cave, and therefore they are unwilling to leave the cave and
explore. Anyone who leaves the cave and returns with wonderful stories of
what they have seen outside is considered to be crazy or a liar and is
attacked relentlessly to protect the status quo.
Dan appears to be strongly anti-ICC workflow (witness
most recently his method of "calibrating" the monitor of his new
computer), yet that is the direction that the majority of the imaging
community is going. If Dan's students are to "make choices,"
there should be discussion of the advantages of different color spaces, and
recommendations on the advantages and disadvantages of each, so that the
student would have resources on which to base decisions. Instead, none of
that discussion exists, and useful information is replaced by anecdotes and
fear, and the only recommendations are of what *not* to do. As I mentioned
previously, a reader of Dan's Lab book would have no idea how to rationally
choose a color space, as the discussion of the differences between color
spaces simply does not exist in the book. Is it a book about Lab? Sure, but
images seldom start out in Lab, and Lab is seldom the ultimate destination.
I haven't seen the new PS book, but again, if this is a book for the
professional who uses Photoshop as a tool, a discussion of workspaces and
the Photoshop preferences should form the foundation of the book, as these
are the first (and often most important) decisions that users must make,
and users in the workforce will often have to deal with images that are not
in sRGB or SWOP.
Lastly, there are real expectations in the global
workplace about how image data is communicated. Millions of images are
moved between buyers and sellers though agencies like Corbis, Getty, Alamy,
and other stock agencies. There is the expectation by photographers, the
agencies, and the purchasers of the images that these images will comply
with an ICC workflow. There is a reason that ASMP and UPDIG have developed
image distribution standards, and it is primarily to facilitate commerce.
**Not** advising students to generally follow the standards, and instead
advising that "If you are certain that your workflow won't let anyone
convert (or fail to convert) it improperly later, use Adobe RGB" goes
against the grain of *all* current recommendations and invites trouble. It
is this kind of advice that encourages users to strip profiles from images
before passing them on, creating chaos down the road where there would
otherwise be little. If you want to teach someone how to deal with the
exceptions and difficult cases, you must teach the general rules first, or
the student goes away thinking that every case is an exception or is
unusually difficult.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and
you feed him for a lifetime."
Teach him how to sail and navigate, and he can feed
himself and the masses, and create a viable fishing industry.
With regards,
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Richard Wagner
Sun Dec 3, 2006 11:17 am (PST)
On Dec 2, 2006, at 8:26 PM, Matthew Rigdon wrote:
Is this really possible? How can color management ever
be bulletproof
and easy? We have a "standard" of sorts,
basically set by the web
community and followed by a lot of camera vendors, that
sRGB is the
default workspace we should all use. All of the Fuji
and Noritsu
machines assume sRGB, often choke if you send them
something
different (apparently varies from machine to machine).
If the goal
is to make it "easy" for everybody, we all
need to just live in an
sRGB world and be done with it.
Matthew,
sRGB is a standard for WEB use, but it makes a lousy
standard for other image uses. Making it "easy" for everyone by
resigning every image to sRGB would limit image quality for everyone to the
lowest common denominator. sRGB is a terrible color space for many uses,
and most professionals and certainly archivists would find that
unacceptable. Even Kodak imaging kiosks that allow consumers to insert
digital camera memory cards and "edit" and print images on the
spot take advantage of extended gamut JPEG 2000 format images from cameras.
That format can contain data in ERIMM/ROMM (= ProPhoto), giving the
advantages of editing/printing in a much wider color space than sRGB.
Software that can read JPEG2000 can also use the embedded profile to
convert the image to a video RGB color space like sRGB when it's needed.
There are ways to make life "easy" without resorting to the
lowest common denominator. In addition, most cameras now allow users to
shoot in AdobeRGB or RAW, so the likelihood of everyone regressing to sRGB
is essentially nil. The masses want better quality, AND an easier workflow.
The two are not incompatible.
In fact, there's a lot of web designers now who are
just saying
"Forget the standards bodies, they're not doing
any good." And in a
free-market capitalist system, the company that sells
the most
machines wins, not the one that follows standards. It's
the problem
with enforcing standards from outside rather than just
looking around
and figure out which system the market has chosen and
shoot for that.
Well, Microsoft's biggest change with the newly
released IE7 was to conform to W3C standards. Microsoft has discovered that
they're not the only game in town, and that by not conforming with
standards, they're losing market share. They're tired of being the brunt of
jokes and books on Microsoft IE "hacks and filters." For the
developers who have been writing to standards and including Microsoft-
specific "patches" to their code, it will be trivial to update
their sites for IE7 - just disable the patches. For those who have written
IE-specific code and blown off the standards (and the other browsers),
well, they're going to have a lot of work to do.
"Internet Explorer 7 contains a number of
improvements to cascading style sheet (CSS) parsing and rendering over IE6.
These improvements are aimed at improving the consistency of how Internet
Explorer interprets cascading style sheets as recommended by the W3C in
order that developers have a reliable set of functionality on which to
rely. In some cases a few of these changes may have the effect of making
existing content render in ways that are not compatible with IE6 [or any
previous version of I.E.]."
http://msdn.microsoft.com/ library/default.asp?url=
/library/en-us/IETechCol/cols/dnexpie/ie7_css_compat.asp
http://tinyurl.com/b245h
"When development of Internet Explorer 7 began,
one of the key efforts was to address the comments and concerns of web
developers. Among the most persistent requests was for better compatibility
with the W3C Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) working draft. As a result,
Internet Explorer 7 has improved support for CSS 2.1."
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=
/library/en-us/IETechCol/cols/dnexpie/ie7_css_ZenTek.asp
http://tinyurl.com/y8bgwk
Standards exist to make life easier and more
fool-proof. That's why we have standard electrical voltages, nut and bolt
sizes, internet protocols like TCP/IP, JPEG, and so on.
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Dan Margulis
Sun Dec 3, 2006 11:17 am (PST)
Bob Frost writes,
Surely the formal communication IS the embedded
profile. All teachers of
digital imaging have to do is to make their pupils
realise this.
But then adds,
To save time I sent 100 images (in sRGB) to a
commercial processor
recently, and they came back all sorts of colors; I
shan't send them any more -
I've just printed them (in the original Adobe98) on my
Epson inkjet (using a
custom profile) and they are perfect.
Now I'm confused. If the files are in Adobe RGB, then
why is the lab getting sRGB? Is this your standard workspace?
If, OTOH, you are *converting* them to sRGB because you
don't trust the lab to honor an embedded profile and don't wish to have
your job destroyed in consequence, then it is hard to comprehend the
purpose of your post. You seem to be attacking what I said, but what I said
was that few are masochistic enough to trust a STRANGER to handle an
EMBEDDED profile. If you are converting to sRGB because you are afraid of
what this stranger might do with a tagged Adobe RGB file, you're
acknowledging the truth of that statement.
If you feel that this is *not* the way the world should
operate (or if you're a masochist), your course is clear. Stand up for
principle. Give the files to the strangers in tagged Adobe RGB. Absolutely
do *not* tell them the tag is there. This would simply encourage laziness
on their part! After all, as you say, surely the formal communication *is*
the embedded profile. It is their responsibility to get it right without
being told--that's the whole point of the embedded profile, no?
If they do mess your job up, it's not *your* fault--it
just proves that they're stupid or lazy or both. You can tell them what
fools they are and how they are stuck in the past and how resistance is
futile. That'll teach 'em! And maybe it will make you feel better, too, as
you think of how to explain what happened to your client.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Ron Kelly"
Sun Dec 3, 2006 3:25 pm (PST)
On 2-Dec-06, at 8:26 PM, Matthew Rigdon wrote:
Is this really possible? How can color management ever
be bulletproof
and easy?
The reason it's not easy is that even though the theory
of a calibrated workflow is relatively straightforward, the implementation
is anything but.
I'm talking about the chaos caused by a large group of
uncalibrated/random "users", not the difficulties in diverging
from "common" practice for creative purposes.
It would be a much different situation if color
management were dead simple to install and use. Everyone out there could be
running a color managed workflow, and then the debate could properly be
focused on the best workflow/ colorspace for a given purpose.
I suspect much of the difficulty lies in the large
group of users who are struggling to maintain/achieve a color managed
workflow, or who have tried to do so and given up.
To begin and maintain a profiled workflow means wading
through too much complexity in dialogue boxes, Photoshop settings, and
choices in the print drivers for many people.
Inevitably, things go astray and so the hunt is on:
where *is* that profile stored? Why do there have to be so many places to
store them? If I have special software/hardware on my printer that makes a
custom profile, why can't I access it? Is it hidden? How will I know it by
name if I do see it? Etc., etc.
Spend even more time in your life on the help line,
looking through install disks, manuals . . .
Who can say that they haven't been frustrated in this
way? I can imagine a few replies to this from the usual suspects.
"It's not that hard", "Just get this package" and
"This is nothing compared to channel blending,"etc. To them I
would say: your job is working with these tools 40 hours a week so it's
hard for you to relate to the average photographer/Photoshopper who spends
as little time as possible being a computer weenie.
A whole bunch of people and organizations are in charge
of this situation which is another way of saying that no one is.
A standards committee of Adobe, Epson, HP, Canon,
Nikon, Microsoft, Apple, etc. could solve it, don't you think?
Ron Kelly
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Matthew Rigdon"
Sun Dec 3, 2006 8:29 pm (PST)
On Dec 2, 2006, at 10:41 PM, Richard Wagner wrote:
Well, Microsoft's biggest change with the newly
released IE7 was to
conform to W3C standards.
Which works fine in a world of press releases.
Unfortunately, out in the real world, here's what web developers have found
(http:// www.idealog.us/2006/08/microsoft_drops.html http:
//www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/MSIE7Bugs/CWilsonMSIE7AndCSSCompliance.html).
Which isn't to turn this into a Microsoft web discussion, but to point out
that it's easy to follow standards in the marketing department.
But it gets back to the issue that many are running
into, that standards bodies really can't do anything. So what's the point?
You have to work with what you're given. You seem to keep harping on Dan to
create a new "standard", for whatever reason. I read the LAB book
, too, and i noticed that it never talks about profiles or color
management. And you what? it didn't bother me because it was a book about
LAB. I didn't expect a discussion of those other things. Just like I never
expected a discussion of concrete in my statics classes in college, or a
discussion of material science in my boolean logic classes.
Standards exist to make life easier and more
fool-proof. That's why
we have standard electrical voltages, nut and bolt
sizes, internet
protocols like TCP/IP, JPEG, and so on.
In most cases, they became standards because the
competitors just went away. TCP/IP just happened to be the protocol for
Arpanet. Once upon a time, people used AOL and Compuserve and Prodigy,
which were just dial-up systems. I doubt they were built on TCP/IP. I know
that early Novell networks weren't and even Microsoft's early networking
wasn't built on TCP/IP. TCP/IP became a standard because the market chose
it, not because anybody decreed it.
I know too many photographers myself who just want to
take pictures. They don't care about profiles or soft-proofing. They get
pissed off because they want to see what they shoot on their monitor.
Otherwise, why go digital? If you don't want to see it on your monitor, and
then have everybody else see the same thing on their monitor, and it come
out the printer the same way, why go digital? You can shoot film and just
guess at your results. And I would have to say to a lot of people, whether
I use or like sRGB, just go with an sRGB workflow. Forget what the
standards bodies say, it's the one that's winning out there in the
marketplace. Most labs that use the Fujis and Noritsus say "send us
sRGB". It is the profile ligua franca of the internet. Every dSRL I'm
aware of has sRGB embedded as the default color space. And if you edit in
sRGB, what you see on your monitor is what you'll get out of your Epson
printer. Why swim upstream?
I know you keep putting Dan on the spot, but tell me,
for the people I work with, who want to see on screen what prints out, who
don't want to hear about how it "looks different on my friend's PC
than it does on my Mac", how switching them to ProPhoto RGB is going
to make those things go away?
On Dec 3, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Ron Kelly wrote:
A standards committee of Adobe, Epson, HP, Canon,
Nikon, Microsoft,
Apple, etc. could solve it, don't you think?
Name one thing that these companies have gotten
together and fixed, lol.
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Ron Kelly"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 1:02 am (PST)
Matthew:
I didn't use the smiley guy.
Next time I'll make it reeeeeel clear when I'm being
sarcastic.
Ron Kelly
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Mon Dec 4, 2006 2:35 am (PST)
"john castronovo" wrote:
I wish I could charge for my problems like that. I just
had a PDF last
week that didn't output correctly due to a transparency
issue that the
RIP didn't like, but I fixed it and did the job over at
my cost rather
than blame the customer who prepared it. It was a low
bid job too - one
that was supposed to just drop on the RIP and print. Is
it common
practice for service providers to make customers pay
for remakes due to
their RIP workflow errors? If so, that's the problem in
a nutshell
because it will never get fixed. Meanwhile, I suppose I
must agree with
your more pragmatic defensive driving approach.
When the film shop called, I commented that it was not
right to have their RIP automatically converting my colours to something
else - even more so with no warning from them that this will happen (if an
ICC profile is in the PDF). And then to want to charge for that on top of
everthing else?
To be fair to the SP, they did not charge for the new
film or proof and I stressed that I would try to ensure that none slip into
future files.
There are not many choices around today in our area if
you want film within 24hrs. It is hard to vote with your feet. Eventually
we will be forced into some small run direct to plate setup to replace film
and camera ready plates, but that day is still not here for this small
shop!
So, the job was *only* a day late to press after all
that. Like I said, I prefer to send pre-separated data than composite where
possible.
Yes, agreed John, there is no easy answer as the
service provider (I am one too) has to do a lot of non billable work to
make jobs fly.
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Bob Frost"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 2:37 am (PST)
Matthew,
Well, it was HP and Microsoft (with acknowledgements to
people at Kodak, W3C, and others) who got together and created the standard
color space sRGB (for standardising color without having to embed
profiles).
Forgot to add that they are all (perhaps not MS?) part
of the International Color Consortium (ICC), together with many other
industry big names. Adobe, Agfa, Apple, Kodak, and Sun were the founder
members of the ICC.
So, whether Ron's comment was sarcastic or not, it
exists!
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Matthew Rigdon"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 3:29 am (PST)
On Dec 4, 2006, at 1:57 AM, Bob Frost wrote:
Well, it was HP and Microsoft (with acknowledgements to
people at Kodak,
W3C, and others) who got together and created the
standard color space sRGB
(for standardising color without having to embed
profiles).
Which we've all apparently rejected now (or should
reject).
Forgot to add that they are all (perhaps not MS?) part
of the International
Color Consortium (ICC), together with many other
industry big names. Adobe,
Agfa, Apple, Kodak, and Sun were the founder members of
the ICC.
What is Microsoft, Alex? Bing, bing, bing! That is
correct. Microsoft is not a member of the International Color Consortium
(http:// www.color.org/memberlist2.html). Mi-cro-soft.
I'll take "Major Software Corporations who don't
participate in standards bodies" for $800, Alex.
which just goes to show, when you're the major software
vendor, you can basically ignore standards bodies. I mean, Microsoft isn't
even an HONORARY member. Western Michigan is. Microsoft helped create sRGB,
isn't that worth something?
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: Dan Margulis
Mon Dec 4, 2006 10:16 am (PST)
Murray writes,
Dan, I read your post very carefully and followed and
read through
most of the links. I have perused through these
articles in the past
also and I think I understand your position on this
subject very
well. My first inclination when I read your views on
this subject,
however, is disagreement. I am a positive thinker when
it comes to
the ability of science (along with market forces) to
bring positive
change to the world.
As am I.
In my own workflow I work with a profiled monitor and
profiles
for both my printers and scanner. Moving to a profiled
workflow was
the best thing I've done.
No. Moving to a *calibrated* workflow, where you could
depend on relationships between these devices, was the best thing you've
ever done. ICC profiles offered you a convenient way of doing it, and would
definitely be the method of choice in today's world. However, people were
able to do what you did effectively long before ICC profiles existed.
Unfortunately, the reason I went to all the trouble and
expense of
incorporating this workflow was because my experience
with local labs
was a disaster! And I can't say if things have improved
in the past
two years because I've eliminated outside labs from my
'loop.' I
don't think that was ever the intent of
colormanagement.
Certainly that was not the intent of color management.
The intent was that it would be the "universal language of
color", that we would reach an age of "pushbutton color,"
where "color will become a commodity" that is produced by
printing firms and photo labs of very little skill. To some extent the
prediction of a decline in skill level was correct, but the idea that the
profile would become the universal language of color was not. People use it
as you do, and effectively. But the fundamental promise--that we would be
able to transfer the file to others, without calling them up and explaining
what needed to be done with it--was never fulfilled.
Nevertheless, I'm still an optimist! I do honestly
believe that the
concept of color management and the embedding of
profiles is a good
one. It just may take awhile for it to become
mainstream. It's still
in it's infancy.
To that, I can only repeat what I wrote more than five
years ago. This appeared in the Seybold Report, in early 2001.
"In 1991, if memory serves, an
audience at a Seybold Conference
was told that a new day of profile-based color
management
was at hand; that it really works now; that progress
has been slow
so far but you have to understand the technology is in
its infancy,
now it's just a matter of educating users and getting
the vendors on
board, and next year (i.e., 1992) we'd see adoption in
a big way.
This mantra has been recited approximately word for
word at
all subsequent Seybold conferences. Every year, the new
day that
was supposed to have dawned last year kept having its
appearance
postponed until *next* year.
"In 1991, I replied that the
concept has merit and would benefit
some people, but that the idea of the mass of users
embracing
a complicated scheme of embedding profiles and
on-the-fly color
conversions is hogwash. I've continued to say so since,
as color
management has matured into the world's only teen-aged
infant."
As old printers/photographers die off and new
printer/photographers enter the field they probably
won't even
realize what "all the fuss was about!"
I doubt it. We have new generations at Kodak, at Adobe,
and most photo labs and printers. We have a new generation of Photoshop
writers. And still, the chances of a stranger automatically honoring your
profile are slim--probably less than they were at the turn of the century.
And best of all, a professional's work will still be
easily
distinguishable from an amateur's because as you have
said many
times, Dan, "Machines and humans don't see things
the same way!" A
pro will always be able to make his prints look better!
That, fortunately, will always be the truth. Profiles
help to do that, properly used. But my post was about whether it is safe to
depend on a stranger to interpret an embedded profile correctly.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Bob Frost"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 10:21 am (PST)
Matthew,
Which we've all apparently rejected now (or should
reject).
All? You and who else? I should think at least 90% of
computer/camera/printer/scanner users 'use' sRGB whether they know it or
not. Anyone who doesn't calibrate their monitor properly (!), doesn't care
for or know about ICC profiles, and doesn't know what their printer (human
or otherwise) is going to do with their snaps, relies on sRGB - the Windows
default color space.
which just goes to show, when you're the major software
vendor, you
can basically ignore standards bodies.
MS (the major software company) and HP (the major
hardware company) invented the default standard, used it in their own
products, and then let the rest decide if they wanted to adopt it as well.
In another ICC document MS IS listed as a founder
member:-
"The founding members of the ICC were Adobe
Systems Inc., Agfa-Gevaert N.V., APPLE Computers Inc., FOGRA (honorary),
Microsoft Corporation, Eastman Kodak Company, Sun Microsystems, Silicon
Graphics Inc., Taligent Inc. "
I have written to them to point out this inconsistency
on their website.
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles (was ProPhoto)
Posted by: "Bob Frost"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 2:41 pm (PST)
Correction. According to the ICC secretary, there were
originally 8 founding members plus FOGRA, but four have dropped their
membership, leaving 4 of the founding members - Adobe, Agfa, Apple, and
Kodak, plus FOGRA.
Bob Frost.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "Dan Margulis"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 10:24 am (PST)
John Castronovo writes,
I need to clarify my position further. I always ask
that my customers
provide images with embedded profiles so that we can
provide profiled results, if that's what they want - some don't because
they don't trust their own workflow. The difficulty is when we get orders
without instructions.
That's how I have understood your position, which I
believe is Lee Varis's position also. I assume that it would be my position
as well if I were in either of your shoes.
You appeared to be criticizing a test in which I gave
various photo labs a suite of 25 images with no instructions, on the
grounds that a high-end user would never behave in that fashion. The
purpose of the test was to see what variation could be expected among labs
and also whether output was repeatable some weeks after. Finding out how
labs reacted to embedded profiles was merely a matter of curiosity--how
many would honor them automatically, or at least question me as to whether
I wanted them honored. I expected the percentage to be low, but in fact it
was zero. I had various tricks in the test to see what level of service
would be provided. Almost half the labs noticed that one of my files was of
very low resolution and warned me, for example. Not one warned me about
embedded profiles; they simply were ignored. (Your lab doesn't count, since
we had discussed the presence of the profiles in advance.)
OF COURSE a high-end user would not behave in that
fashion. We HAVE to communicate every time, because the fundamental promise
of the "ICC workflow" never was kept. You and Lee, who are both
high up on the sophistication scale, have indicated that if a tagged file
comes in from a stranger, you will guess at whether to honor the tags or
not, and in the case of el cheapo work, probably ignore them. These other
labs and most commercial printers probably don't even know what an embedded
profile is, let alone how to deal with it. Such uncertainty is obviously
unacceptable for high-end work even if we assume that the guess is made by
you or Lee personally.
So, we need to call you or Lee (or whatever person,
printer, or photo lab is the next recipient of our file) to make sure of
what you propose to do with a tagged file, before we enter into any kind of
relationship with you. That is precisely what the advocates of color
management promised that we would NOT have to do. The entire original
purpose of the "ICC workflow" was to make this handoff seamless.
All the other fancy stuff we do with profiles today either has developed
since that time or pre-existed Photoshop 5. Things like how to make sure
our printers match each other and our screen, or how to use third-party
profiling software, or how to use false profiles in color correction--those
weren't the initial rationale.
Simplifying the handoff would in fact have been useful,
and ICC profiles, if proper software had been written to exploit them,
would have worked well. People had *already* started to use wider-gamut
RGBs and disliked having to make special arrangements with the next
recipient in order for their files to be handled correctly. Embedding a
profile was a sensible response in principle.
Unfortunately, the *implementation* of this idea was so
weak as to make the handoff much worse, not better. Consider the
"progress" we have made--and remember, we are speaking only of
the handoff to the stranger, not anything to do with calibration or with
how we deal with trusted associates.
1998 way:
1) You may use any RGB definition you like, subject to
the same limitations in effect today.
2) If you choose a definition that's substantially
different from the Photoshop default and wish to pass the RGB file on to a
stranger, the onus is 100% on you to pass the appropriate support files on
to him with clear instructions on how to proceed.
3) If you are one of the 95%+ of users to whom #2 does
not apply, you just pass on the file, no instruction necessary.
4) The RGB definition that will be used in the absence
of any instruction is clearly understood, although it is a mediocre
definition.
5) If the handoff fails, it is always clear whose fault
it was.
6) The handoff is successful if neither the provider
nor the recipient screws up. No third party can cause an error related to
the conversion later.
Now, for the stated purpose of avoiding the problem of
#2, we have "progressed" to the following scenario today.
2007 way:
1) You may use any RGB definition you like, subject to
the same limitations in effect in 1998.
2) If you choose a definition other than sRGB and wish
to pass the files on to a stranger, some say the onus is 100% on you to
give him clear instructions on how to proceed, but some hardliners say that
the onus is on the stranger to get it right.
3) If you are one of the users to whom #2 does not
apply, you have to issue instructions to the next person anyway if the job
is of any consequence.
4) The RGB definition that will be used in the absence
of any instruction is kinda sorta maybe understood to be sRGB, which is an
even worse definition than the mediocre one used in 1998.
5) If the handoff fails, the yelling begins, because
there is no agreement on what the recipient is supposed to do; if the
recipient fails to honor a valid RGB profile it is not clear who is to
blame; and if the provider embeds an incorrect profile and the recipient
honors it, it's not clear who is to blame either.
6) The handoff is not necessarily successful if neither
the provider nor the recipient screws up. Catastrophic errors may--and
often do--take place down the line.
The net result of this "improvement" to the
process is correctly described in your initial post: "This is now the
most difficult part of the workflow."
Don't listen to anybody who calls these problems
"the price of progress." The problems are exclusively due to the
fact that the specifics were designed by people who were clueless about
real-world workflows and then were implemented incompetently. Knowledgeable
software design would have prevented these handoff problems while giving us
all the benefits of ICC profiles that we now enjoy.
Similarly, ignore the garbage about how anybody who
criticizes how the handoff process has been degraded must want people to
strip out all profiles, revert to Photoshop 2, uncalibrate all devices, and
require the use of sRGB. This noise is, history has demonstrated, merely
par for the course for those who are unable to accept responsibility for
their role in propounding a "standard" that failed so utterly in
achieving its fundamental purpose.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "Dolores Kaufman"
Mon Dec 4, 2006 5:31 pm (PST)
Ok guys, after all of the 6 billion plus words we've
been subjected to on this thread I feel compelled, as an
"outsider" here, to distill it all to the fewest possible:
l. Workflow using embedded profiles = good idea
2. Handing off cmyk file to unknown printer with
profile embedded = bad idea
3. Handing off rgb file w/profile is fine but not w/o
warning or discussion
4. Handing off rgb file to unknown (or unavailable)
recipient - convert to sRGB.
From what I can tell, this has been Dan's position all
along. For those who believe otherwise I suggest a good hearing aid.
Real world experience: as a commercial photographer I
had to submit files to graphic designers (with various levels of knowledge
regarding profiles) who would in turn hand those files over to various
printers - some of whom I was able to contact and some not. Moreover, the
graphic designer who sent us the most work had no patience for these
discussions.
More recent experience: uploading rgb files to be
juried into an art exhibit and forgetting to convert from AdobeRGB to sRGB.
Result: I was juried in but when the catalog was printed the work came out
looking dull as dishwater. Printed out beautifully on my Epson though!
Best,
Dolores Kaufman
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "john castronovo
Mon Dec 4, 2006 7:38 pm (PST)
From: Dan Margulis
The net result of this "improvement" to the
process is correctly described in
your initial post: "This is now the most difficult
part of the workflow."
Don't listen to anybody who calls these problems
"the price of progress." The
problems are exclusively due to the fact that the
specifics were designed by
people who were clueless about real-world workflows and
then were
implemented incompetently. Knowledgeable software
design would have
prevented these handoff problems while giving us all
the benefits of
ICC profiles that we now enjoy.
Similarly, ignore the garbage about how anybody who
criticizes how the
handoff process has been degraded must want people to
strip out all
profiles, revert to Photoshop 2, uncalibrate all
devices, and require
the use of sRGB. This noise is, history has
demonstrated, merely par
for the course for those who are unable to accept
responsibility for
their role in propounding a "standard" that
failed so utterly in
achieving its fundamental purpose.
I trimmed your post a lot, but I just want to say up
front that I agree with much of what you said. However, the problems we're
talking about in this recent thread occur mostly at the extreme low end of
the pay scale. It simply isn't worth contacting someone to discuss profile
questions for literally pennies. If they say anything, most photo labs will
either ask to be allowed to make the best looking prints or to ask for
images to be in sRGB which is close to the gamma that the machine expects.
With volume customers we have routine workflows that we both agree to, but
amateur work usually doesn't warrant the discussion unless we're talking
about custom enlargements or large orders.
On the other hand, more high end work is always
examined for embedded profiles and they're always honored. If there's no
profile, we have to call so in that world, images without profiles are the
problems.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: Richard Wagner
Tue Dec 5, 2006 3:54 am (PST)
A "standard" is not based on what works well
for one individual.
The American Heritage Dictionary definition of
"standard" is:
Something, such as a practice or a product, that is
widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence.
The Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines
Version 2.0, released in October 2006 (http:
//www.updig.org/guidelines/UPDIG_v2_0.pdf) are a set of standards supported
by a large number of international photographic associations, including:
Australian Commercial and Media Photographers (http:
//www.acmp.com.au)
American Society of Media Photographers (www.asmp.org)
Advertising Photographers of America
(www.apanational.com)
American Society of Picture Professionals
(www.aspp.com)
Editorial Photographers (www.
editorialphotographers.com)
International Digital Enterprise Alliance
(www.idealliance.org)
National Press Photographers Alliance (www.nppa.org)
Picture Archive Council of America
(www.stockindustry.org)
Professional Photographers of America (www.ppa.com)
Stock Artists Alliance (www. stockartistsalliance.org)
and others.
If you have not read these guidelines, and you are a
professional photographer or imaging professional, you should. It is a free
download.
The guidelines cover:
ICC Color Management Using and embedding ICC color
profiles
Monitor Calibration Hardware calibration and profiling;
monitor soft-proofing
Color Spaces Camera settings; image editing; offset
printing; CMYK conversions; photo lab prints
File Formats Camera RAW; DNG; formats for the web;
formats for print
Naming Files Cross platform compatibility; avoiding
duplicate file names
Resolution How to describe; optimizing for the screen;
for inkjet prints; for continuous-tone printing; for offset printing
Sharpening Capture sharpening; process sharpening;
sharpening tools; dealing with noise; output sharpening
Metadata IPTC Creator and Copyright; keywords; the
importance of metadata
File Delivery Media; methods; file info; ReadMe files
Guide Prints and Proofs Print and proof viewing
Archiving Who; what; where
Digital Image Workflow
Regarding color space selection, the Universal
Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines are as follows (edited for brevity
and relevance):
3. Color Space
Camera settings for color space are critical when
shooting TIFF or JPEG files. Color space for RAW files does
not need to be set in the camera because it can be set
in post-production. Choosing a large-gamut space such as
Adobe RGB is better for image editing, while shooting a
narrow-gamut space such as sRGB is convenient if
images do not require color correction or editing, or
if the images are intended for Web or sRGB lab prints. One
consideration: A wide-gamut space can always be
converted to a narrow space such as sRGB, but a narrow-gamut
space converted to a wide space will not recapture the
extra gamut.
Color Space (p. 7 - 8)
Camera settings for color space are critical when
shooting TIFF or JPEG files. (Color space settings are irrelevant for
RAW files, since color space will be determined in the
RAW file processor.) Most professional digital cameras allow
the output color space for JPEG and standard TIFF to be
selected in the camera, with usually two options: sRGB and
Adobe RGB. Photographs meant for high-end printing
should be captured in a large-gamut space, such as Adobe
RGB. Photographs meant for consumer-level printing or
only for the web can be captured in the narrower-gamut
sRGB color space.
Embed the profiles. All digital files should have
embedded profiles (should be tagged), unless otherwise noted.
Photoshops color management policy should be set to
always preserve embedded profiles, and the ask
when opening boxes should be checked to alert you to
profile mismatches and missing profiles.When profile
mismatches occur, you should elect to preserve the
embedded profile.
Color Space Recommendations
a. Open-ended uses: When the final use of an image is
not known, such as stock photography, or when the
client will make multiple uses of the images, best
practice is to supply a file in the Adobe RGB color space,
with the Adobe RGB profile embedded.
b. World wide web presentations: Convert images to sRGB
and embed sRGB profile before delivery.
...
e. Offset printing: there is extensive discussion, too
long to list here.
f. Inkjet and dye-sub printers: Use a wide-gamut color
space, such as Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB, for the
source space. These printers have internal RGB-to-CMYK
conversion algorithms, so they should be profiled
in RGB and no secondary conversion to CMYK should be
done. Use a custom profile** for the printer-paper
combination in the print space to get the best quality
and the best match to a profiled monitor.
If anyone has current published guidelines or
recommendations that contradict those stated here, I'd like to see them.
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: PP5 and a comment
Posted by: "Werner Tschan"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 3:57 am (PST)
Mike Davis wrote:
I use photography as a professional and as a hobbyist.
99% of my
images sit easily within sRBG. I do not see it as a
"standard", rather as my wife does
when putting leftovers in containers for refrigerator
storage. You don't
use a one-gallon jar to store the remains of a can of
green beans. If the
image dictates the use of huge color spaces, by all
means use them, but
unless you are going to add a bunch of leftover
meatloaf, corn, bread scraps
and what-have-you to the jar of beans, there is nothing
to be gained from
using out sized containers. It doesn't degrade the
image in any way when all
original colors fit into a smaller color space.
Total agreement..
So we now have inkjet printers that can exceed sRGB.
That should
require us all to find real world colors that can show
them off? Perhaps that's
partially responsible for the current trend of
over-saturating images for
"punch."
It's done because we can do it. In Europe, the trend is
away from over
saturated images.
There's an old saying: "Everything looks like
grass when you have
a lawnmower." Some of you guys are mowing weeds
sticking up through cracks
in the sidewalk.
Total agreement again.
Werner Tschan
professional photographer
___________________________________________________________________________
Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Matthew Rigdon"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 8:27 am (PST)
After reading the standards recommendations (plural)
it's clear that there is no simple answer. There are many factors that have
to be weighed and balanced you have to ultimately figure out what to do on
your own. In fact, reading through the color space recommendations, I don't
see one answer to any of the issues. I see "sRGB or Adobe RGB". I
see "Adobe RGB or Prophoto RGB" and I see "Adobe RGB or
Colormatch RGB" for various scenarios, but I certainly don't see
anywhere that the standards body is advocating the use of ProPhoto for
everything. In fact, they don't even make it the only recommendation for
high-end inkjet printing.
I would like to apologize to anyone who's on the
standards committee if I came across as anti-standards myself. These are
well-thought out and represent, not just what the standards bodies would
LIKE to see, but also recognition of where things are in the industry. I
brought up the web standards bodies because there are a lot of web
designers who are frankly tired of the standards boards going off into
territory where no one is following, not listening to the developers in the
trenches who often have the attitude (I'm paraphrasing a comment I read
somewhere, I can't find the source now), "I don't care about about CSS
99 because by the time it comes out, Microsoft will have just implemented
CSS 2". That's the danger that some of these standards bodies run,
that they'll get so far out ahead that they seem to have no basis in the
real world and the users just ignore them.
Now, I see nothing in the color space recommendations
that says "ProPhoto is the best color space to use." They make
the point that you can't add colors you've thrown out when you pick a
narrow space, but the only time ProPhoto is even mentioned in the standards
recommendations is in the case of users printing to high-end inkjet
printers, and in that case it is recommended that you use Adobe RGB OR
ProPhoto.
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Pajuaba Gmail"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 10:53 am (PST)
Richard Wagner escreveu:
Embed the profiles. All digital files should have
embedded profiles
(should be “tagged”), unless otherwise
noted.
Photoshop’s color management policy should be set
to “always preserve
embedded profiles,” and the “ask
when opening” boxes should be checked to alert
you to profile
mismatches and missing profiles.When profile
mismatches occur, you should elect to preserve the
embedded profile.
This part is counter-productive. If the settings are
already set to preserve, what´s the use of another annoying menu
opening, asking us to do what we´ve already said to be done?
Regards,
Rodolpho Pajuaba
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Lee Clawson" Lee Clawson
double_cloth
Tue Dec 5, 2006 1:37 pm (PST)
on 12/5/06 12:56 PM, Rodopho Pajuaba wrote:
This part is counter-productive. If the settings are
already set to
preserve, what´s the use of another annoying menu
opening, asking us to
do what we´ve already said to be done?
Its one of the few added annoying things that also adds
info. It tells me
what profile is embedded. Depending on who its coming
from I get an idea of
what to expect when the image opens.
And it's usually consistent from photographer to
photographer so I also can
see (an educated guess) if a mistaken profile comes in
before we start the
design work.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Andrew Rodney"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 4:44 pm (PST)
On 12/5/06 6:32 AM, "Matthew Rigdon" wrote:
Now, I see nothing in the color space recommendations
that says
"ProPhoto is the best color space to
use."
For some output needs, it©ˆs best. For
others, it will be awful. If you have
to output files to the Internet, sRGB is a far better
option.
You need both! In fact you need lots of color spaces.
They make the point that
you can't add colors you've thrown out when you pick a
narrow space,
but the only time ProPhoto is even mentioned in the
standards
recommendations is in the case of users printing to
high-end inkjet
printers, and in that case it is recommended that you
use Adobe RGB
OR ProPhoto.
The question becomes, if you need at different times
for different uses both
ProPhoto RGB and sRGB, which do you use from the
beginning? Going ProPhoto
RGB to sRGB is fine. Going sRGB to ProPhoto RGB buys
you nothing.
If there were a prefect working space, we©ˆd
all use it for all uses. Isn't
going to happen!
Andrew Rodney
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Murray DeJager"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 4:45 pm (PST)
Hi Richard,
The problem as I see it is that these are referred to
as Imaging "Guildlines."
That suggests involvement is optional. What these
Standards bodies really need is their own police force. Maybe even a secret
police force!
They could spread out through-out the world and do
random checks on what peoples cameras are set at. As well random raids on
local color labs would be justified.
Penalties for could range from fines to public
executions!
I think I'll become a mechanic. :)
Murray DeJager
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Matthew Rigdon"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 7:54 pm (PST)
Well, everything ultimately comes down to LAB when you
get under the hood, so my own thinking is if you're going to go to ProPhoto
(which is a wider space than all of the available output devices now), why
not just go to LAB?
When you use ProPhoto, you probably need to go 16-bit
to give yourself enough levels of data to cover the wider gamut. Everything
you edit in ProPhoto still needs to be adjusted before going to sRGB, CMYK,
or even before printing on your Epson, to compensate for possible color
clipping.
when you work in LAB, there's no color space issues at
all. That's the last step before you send a file out the door (if you need
to). It has the added benefit that you can follow Dan's advice and send out
LAB files and know that if someone can deal with a LAB file, there's a good
chance they know something about color spaces. Worst case, they'll HAVE to
call you up to figure out what to do (this is in a situation where, for
whatever reason, you're not allowed to communicate downstream). Plus, I
find that, once you've figured out how it works, reading LAB numbers is
much quicker and easier than divining RGB numbers.
If you're going to take on the extra work, why not go
all the way?
Matthew Rigdon
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Wed Dec 6, 2006 12:23 am (PST)
Matthew Rigdon wrote:
Well, everything ultimately comes down to LAB when you
get under the
hood, so my own thinking is if you're going to go to
ProPhoto (which
is a wider space than all of the available output
devices now), why
not just go to LAB?
Mathew, this may have been sort of true in v4 but since
v5 this has not been the case (and in v4 it was not exactly the same thing
as going into LAB mode).
AFAIK profiles change all that, the PCS (LAB or XYZ) is
the universal langauge and the *pixels* are never actually in this PCS
mode, but the calculations are in LAB values between the source and
destination.
I am sure that I will be corrected if wrong in part or
full.
Sure, the gamut of LAB is large like ProPhoto, but one
can't compare editing in wider gamut RGB vs LAB as they are different
beasts that react differently to similar edits with different channel
structure.
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 10:45 am (PST)
Dolores,
Thanks.
I was thinking the same thing about the long ProPhoto
thread and it's sub-threads. Seeing as how I expect the subject to reappear
next spring I'd like to see a summary of where we left off ???
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "Murray DeJager"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 4:48 pm (PST)
Thank-you Dolores,
Now that your work here is done, I think we need to get
you on a plane to the mid-east!
Murray DeJager
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Honoring embedded profiles
Posted by: "Dolores Kaufman"
Tue Dec 5, 2006 7:52 pm (PST)
On Dec 5, 2006, at 10:50 AM, Lee Clawson wrote:
Dolores,
Thanks.
I was thinking the same thing about the long ProPhoto
thread and it's
sub-threads. Seeing as how I expect the subject to
reappear next
spring I'd like to see a summary of where we left off
???
Well I think I'll let you summarize that one, Lee ;-).
Looking forward to it.
Best,
Dolores
___________________________________________________________________________
ProPhoto Thread - Summary (was: Honoring embedded
profiles)
Posted by: Stephen Marsh
Wed Dec 6, 2006 1:21 am (PST)
I will preface this short post with some longer quotes
from Bruce Lindbloom and Bruce Fraser that were written long before this
thread started.
www.brucelindbloom.com/WorkingSpaceInfo.html
" The Lab Gamut Efficiency % indicates the percent
of the entire Lab Gamut (i.e. all colors visible to the eye) that the
working space encompasses. As a general rule, a larger value is superior to
a smaller value, since it defers any gamut compression and color clipping
decisions to a later time. The higher the efficiency, the less likely it is
that a color may be clipped in the capture/encoding process.
The Coding Efficiency % indicates the relative portion
of the encoding space (e.g. RGB) that represents real colors. Some of the
larger volume working spaces contain many RGB triplets for which there is
no physical counterpart, and therefore could be considered wasteful.
These two efficiency metrics are perhaps better
understood by looking at an example comparing ProPhoto with sRGB. ProPhoto
captures a relatively large portion of the Lab Gamut (91%), but in order to
do that, it must sacrifice much of its coding space to waste (13%). By
contrast, sRGB captures a smaller portion of the Lab Gamut (35%), but every
single RGB triplet represents a real color, so there is no waste. As you
can see, these two efficiencies are at odds with each other — as you
strive for higher Lab Efficiency, you generally lose in Coding Efficiency.
"
And:
www.brucelindbloom.com/BetaRGB.html
" One important characteristic would be that the
working space is suffiently large that it can properly encode (or contain)
all colors that are important to an application. This implies "larger
is better."
Another attribute, which conflicts with the above, is
that the working space should be as small as possible, so that quantization
errors may be minimized. This implies "smaller is better."
"
Some similar thoughts from Bruce Fraser:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/6541.html
" First, let's kill some myths.
* There's no such thing as an ideal working space:
There are always trade-offs involved. If you understand the trade-offs,
you'll be in a much better position to make an intelligent choice of
working space.
The size of the working space's gamut determines the
spacing of the 256 possible values of each channel. In a large-gamut space,
the values are spread farther apart than in a small-gamut space. Hence the
trade-off: A wider gamut gives you a wider range of color, but it doesn't
give you more colors. The same number of colors are simply stretched over a
larger color range. This means you don't have as fine control over the
color as you would in a smaller-gamut space.
In a smaller-gamut space, you have finer control over
color and tone, because the data points are packed closer together, but you
lose the ability to specify the very saturated colors that would be
available in a larger-gamut space. "
And:
www.creativepro.com/story/feature/8582.html
" First, lets look at the reasons for using a
wide-gamut, input-centric approach:
* You want to create archival digital color that
preserves the entire gamut of the original.
* You want to control gamut mapping manually, rather
than accept what's built into the rendering intents of your various
profiles.
* You want to print to wide-gamut output processes such
as film recorders or HiFi-color offset press, without compromising the
color in the source space.
* You're an incurable optimist who believes that the
current gamut limitations on output devices are merely a temporary
inconvenience.
If none of these criteria apply to you, you probably
are not a good candidate for using wide-gamut spaces, because doing so does
have its disadvantages. Some of these drawbacks are inherent, while others
are caused by limitations in current software implementations. "
Bruce then goes on to state why such spaces may be good
for certain users in certain cases.
Enough of the introduction, time to wrap this thread
up! <g>
Dolores Kaufman wrote:
Well I think I'll let you summarize that one, Lee ;-).
Looking
forward to it.
It seems that we did not need some of the ProPhoto
thread this time around, so next time the thread should be short. <g>
Yeah, right.
http:
//tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colortheory/message/15923
If there were a prefect working space, we©ˆd
all use it for all uses.
Isn't going to happen!
Andrew Rodney
This is my take and has always been so. But some have
been suggesting that one could now just use ProPhoto for all work when they
used to think otherwise, regardless of the image content or image edits.
It would now appear that the concensus has flopped back
to where it has always been.
http:
//tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colortheory/message/14985
http:
//tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colortheory/message/14994
http:
//tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colortheory/message/14996
Sincerely,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: ProPhoto Thread - Summary (was: Honoring embedded
profiles)
Posted by: "Ray Van Dusen"
Wed Dec 6, 2006 7:28 am (PST)
Stephen
thank you for such a succinct and brilliant summarizing
of the working color space issues. It's evidently a very complex subject
which forces us to accept that there is no single best solution, that there
are costs to pay for every choice. Your summary helped shed some much
needed light of clarity on the subject, for this reader at least.
cheers and thanks again for your efforts
Ray Van Dusen
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: Dan Margulis
Wed Dec 6, 2006 7:30 am (PST)
Matthew writes,
I would like to apologize to anyone who's on the
standards committee
if I came across as anti-standards myself. These are
well-thought out
and represent, not just what the standards bodies would
LIKE to see,
but also recognition of where things are in the
industry. I brought
up the web standards bodies because there are a lot of
web designers
who are frankly tired of the standards boards going off
into
territory where no one is following,
As the old saw goes, how many Microsoft programmers
does it take to change a lightbulb? None, the standard is now darkness.
Setting up standards is a thankless, not to mention
nearly impossible job. Either they're propounded by vendors who often put
their own interests ahead of ours, or they're done by groups of volunteers
who can't give their maintenance a high priority, or, in cases like the
ICC, they're groups of representatives of various companies that usually
feud, and they tend to be diplomats rather than technically astute.
Standards become standards when people agree to abide
by them, not before. The profile format propounded by ICC became a standard
for calibration of systems because people thought it was a good idea.
People decided that all things considered, it could not be used for
interchanging documents with strangers, so that is no standard, no matter
what the vendors think of it.
In fact, you could probably count on the fingers of one
hand all of the things that somebody has declared to be standards that
almost everyone agrees *are* standards--and even those have the big flaw
that they can't change as rapidly as industry development warrants.
The ICC's glacial pace in implementing changes is what
provoked Microsoft to resign, as I understand it--with a group that
unwieldy and fragmented, it's hard to agree on anything, especially when
new problems show up that nobody was anticipating.
While the ICC is a good example, SWOP is a better one.
It was adopted because something *had* to be done--as it became cheaper to
produce color in magazines, the demand for it exceeded the number of pages
that the magazines could print it on. And with clients already being sore
that their ads were being turned away for want of press space, they were
not really in the mood to find huge variations in the same ad from one
publication to another. So the magazine and agency business got together
and standards emerged.
The problem is, though, with SWOP and every other
standards body, changes are too slow. When direct digital-to-plate
workflows took hold, they did so in a hurry. Between each rev of SWOP new
and smarter practices emerged and the existing "standard" no
longer applied.
While it's understandable that a standards body can't
respond to changes that are only a year or two old, often things take even
longer to correct. SWOP, like most such bodies, is underfunded and relies
on outsiders for expert help. Highly technical matters can't get changed.
For example (unless they changed it in the last
edition) SWOP's recommendation to printers is to run the magenta screen at
a 45-degree angle. That made sense in the 1980s, but in the PostScript era
the standard is to run the *black* at that angle, and it is fact difficult
today for the printer to comply with this "standard" even if he
wants to. Yet the specification is there, ready to confuse.
Similarly, the SWOP GCR recommendation is in terms of
"percentage". It refers to the designation system of a certain
scanner vendor in the 1980s. A user today cannot extrapolate anything from
it, any more than a 1980s user would know what Photoshop's
"Light" GCR meant. A percentage, without further information
about black generation, is useless.
SWOP's standards for ink colors, solid density, and dot
gain are highly useful, and SWOP continues to provide a major service to
the industry. Even such a prestigious standard, however, as we have just
seen, has a couple of areas that are literally twenty years out of date.
The photographic recommendations posted by Rich Wagner
have been around for a while, too. Most of them are logical, a few
overreach. The recommendation to embed Adobe RGB before releasing files to
strangers dates, I think, from around 2000. a period of relative chaos with
respect to RGB definitions. In those unsettled circumstances, the
recommendation made a certain amount of sense.
Now, however, we've seen how things have played out. In
the last month alone, we've had three new reports of jobs spoiled by misuse
of embedded profiles. Everyone now recognizes that strangers are likely to
ignore any profiles they find in documents and assume sRGB; this was not as
well understood in 2000 as it is today. So, the recommendation that made
sense when it was first offered is today a recommendation for professional
suicide--a relic of the last century, much like ProPhoto as a working
space.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Murray DeJager"
Thu Dec 7, 2006 8:33 am (PST)
Andrew,
For what it's worth, I agree with you 100%.
Murray DeJager
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: Richard Wagner
Thu Dec 7, 2006 8:35 am (PST)
On Dec 6, 2006, at 7:42 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:
The problem is, though, with SWOP and every other
standards body,
changes are too slow. When direct digital-to-plate
workflows took
hold, they did so in a hurry. Between each rev of SWOP
new and smarter
practices emerged and the existing "standard" no
longer applied.
Right, as technology improves, standards need to be
updated, whether those standards are for aircraft or printing/imaging
technologies. There is debate as to whether or not these changes are
"too slow." Some say they are too fast, and they want to stick to
the same technology/standards that they've used for the last 20 years. Some
can't/don't want to learn anything new.
While it's understandable that a standards body can't
respond to changes that
are only a year or two old, often things take even
longer to correct. SWOP,
like most such bodies, is underfunded and relies on
outsiders for expert help.
Highly technical matters can't get changed.
Underfunded? I've never seen that complaint, although
any organization is "underfunded" if asked - no one would turn
down more money nor be at a loss for what to do with it. "Relies on
outsiders for expert help?" Absolutely!!! Working experts who are at
the cutting edge of the technology, who have the vision to lead the field.
"Highly technical matters can't get changed"??? Have you read
GRACoL 7?
For example (unless they changed it in the last
edition) SWOP's
recommendation to printers is to run the magenta screen
at a 45-degree
angle. That made sense in the 1980s, but in the
PostScript era the standard
is to run the *black* at that angle, and it is fact
difficult today for the
printer to comply with this "standard" even
if he wants to. Yet the specification
is there, ready to confuse.
I have no idea what version of SWOP you're referring
to, but there is no requirement that magenta screens run at a 45 degree
angle, and the current specs (v10) are anything but "ambiguous, ready
to confuse." They actually state, ""When significant Gray
Component Replacement (GCR) is used, and if black becomes the dominant
color, black should be printed at the 45º angle instead of
magenta."
http://www.swop.org/specification/SWOP_EdX_Specs.pdf
Furthermore, by the SWOP specs it is ultimately up to
the **printer** to choose the screen angles.
"Digital files sent to the publication printer
should not include
screening parameters and dot shape. Whoever generates
film or plates from digital files must follow specification shown
below."
and
"If the advertiser / agency desires to specify
screening requirements to the printer, it must be done with prior agreement
of all parties involved. In computer-to-plate workflow the responsibility
for meeting the customer’s screening requirements lies with the
plate- maker / printer. The printer is responsible for reporting
moiré to the publisher or advertiser/ agency and to help resolve the
problem."
Similarly, the SWOP GCR recommendation is in terms of
"percentage".
It refers to the designation system of a certain
scanner vendor in
the 1980s. A user today cannot extrapolate anything
from it, any
more than a 1980s user would know what Photoshop's
"Light" GCR
meant. A percentage, without further information about
black
generation, is useless.
Please show me this recommendation.
SWOP's standards for ink colors, solid density, and dot
gain are
highly useful, and SWOP continues to provide a major
service to the
industry. Even such a prestigious standard, however, as
we have
just seen, has a couple of areas that are literally
twenty years
out of date.
If you feel that parts of the SWOP spec are
"literally 20 years out of date," I would submit that the
printing industry in general, and the SWOP Standards Technical Committee in
particular, disagree with you.
SWOP is currently nearing completion of the move to the
G7 method of calibrating, proofing and printing used by GRACoL (http://
www.gracol.org/resources/G7_how-to_v6[final].pdf). Rather than "moving
too slow," some printers are kicking and screaming that the standards
committees are moving too fast. The time has come when densitometric-based
TVI ("dot gain") standards will be replaced by colorimetry-based
standards. Those who have not taken the time and made the investment to
learn and understand color management will certainly be at a disadvantage.
Yes, they'll be kicking and screaming.
For example, to look just at soft proofing and to not
even address the big changes in G7, soft proofing SWOP requires:
• A wide-gamut, high-contrast monitor in good
condition (Note: an iMac or Powerbook won't cut it. R.W.)
• An accurate ICC profile of the monitor - Version
4 ICC monitor profiles are recommended.
• A good ICC profile created from the device or
characterization data to be imitated
• Software capable of converting a CMYK image from
the source profile (press) to the display
profile in absolute colorimetric mode – for
example Adobe Photoshop
• A controlled viewing environment in which the
monitor is the brightest element in the observer's
field of view, and in which the ambient lighting in
which the press sheet or proof is compared to
the screen is the same 'color' and brightness as the
monitor white point – for example a dimmable
D50 viewing booth like GTI's SOFV-1e.
The IDEAlliance Print Properties Working Group has
posted 3 finalized datasets (http:
//www.gracol.org/resources/datasetdownload.asp) after two years of
research, several press runs, and international comment. GRACoL 7 and SWOP
11 will reference these datasets. ICC profiles built to the new datasets
are already starting to appear. (http:
//www.tglc.com/english/presentationPerfX_ENG.html) There is a whole new
vocabulary to go with the new standards - Neutral Print Density Curves,
Highlight Range, Shadow Contrast, Highlight Contrast, and others, and the
entire process is now colorimetry-driven. (Yes, using more "toys"
for calibration.)
To quote from the G7 Calibrating, Printing, and
Proofing document:
"This document describes how to calibrate a
printing press, proofing system, or any CMYK imaging device to the new
GRACoL 7 specifications, and how to maintain those specifications during
production. The calibration process is broken into two stages. The first
stage uses ISO-standard colorants and substrate, and the new G7™
method to match the NPDC (Neutral print Density Curve) and gray balance of
neutral gray tones. The second stage uses ICC (International Color
Consortium) or similar color management to optimize the match to a
reference characterization data based on ISO-standard print conditions,
such as produced by FOGRA, GRACoL, SWOP, etc.
Simply using the G7 calibration method will often be
enough to match multiple devices to each other, at least in neutral gray
tones. But in other cases, for example with non- standard colorants, to set
up a digital proofer, or when repurposing from one print method to another,
additional color management will be needed, with G7 acting as an optimized
and repeatable calibration basis."
Those who feel/wish that the complexities of color
management would just go away will be bitterly disappointed. As many of us
have stated ad nauseam, color management is here to stay. Learn it and live
it, or get left behind. The choice it yours.
--Rich Wagner
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Chris Corich"
Thu Dec 7, 2006 11:47 am (PST)
Dan Margulis wrote:
Now, however, we've seen how things have played out. In
the last
month alone, we've had three new reports of jobs
spoiled by misuse of
embedded profiles. Everyone now recognizes that
strangers are likely
to ignore any profiles they find in documents and
assume sRGB; this
was not as well understood in 2000 as it is today. So,
the
recommendation that made sense when it was first
offered is today a
recommendation for professional suicide--a relic of the
last
century, much like ProPhoto as a working space.
Here's a thought, and y'all are welcome to shoot gaping
holes in it: give the files to the printer in LAB. Not much you can
misconstrue in that space. They *have* to make a conscious effort to get it
into the space they need to print.
Chris Corich
___________________________________________________________________________
Re: Color Spaces, Embedded Profiles, and Standards
Posted by: "Henry"
Thu Dec 7, 2006 12:41 pm (PST)
One thing that I haven't seen addressed, though
nit-picking, is this:
If a service provider makes the conversion, is it a
guess as to which color engine and rendering intent might be the most
pleasing to the print buyer, or is this another part of the
"communication solution"? This seems to add yet a few more check
boxes to the process before printing can begin.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Receive Schedule
and Pricing updates.
If you let us know how to contact you, we will enter you into our monthly drawing for a free 2-day class (A $895 value).
- Get free video training
- Get free tips, tricks and shortcuts
- Get special sale pricing and free seminar invitations
Sterling Ledet & Associates, Inc. 4100 Perimeter Park South Atlanta, GA 30341
work sales@ledet.com work administration@ledet.com work webmaster@ledet.com
P work 770.414.5007 P work 877.819.2665 F fax 312.896.9094
- Authorized Training Provider
Copyright 2012. Sterling Ledet & Associates. All Rights Reserved.
Design by Digital Scientists, a Conversion Optimization Company.
