Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory
Dan's Photofinishing Test for PP5E, Prequel
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:00:42 EST
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Has Anyone Tried This?
For the next Professional Photoshop, I am planning an
experiment. I am going to make a CD of some good RGB images that I believe
are challenging to print. Most will be intended to be sRGB but untagged,
some will have sRGB or other profiles embedded.
I will pretend that I am just getting into digital
photography and am experimenting with Photoshop for the first time. I will
take the CD to a dozen different drug stores and mom-and-pop camera shops
that advertise instant processing, and see what happens. Then, a week
later, I'll send the same CDs to the same shops and see if there's
significantly different results.
Unfortunately, I've fallen seriously behind, and I will
be on the road and unable to run these tests before I actually draft the
affected chapter. So, I'm going to assume that I know the answer but be
ready to throw the whole thing out if it turns out that the tests show
something different. But before taking that gamble, I'll ask if anybody on
the list has tried something similar or might have a different opinion than
the one expressed below.
What I *expect* this will show, based on a limited
sample plus some word of mouth from amateurs, is:
*There is considerable variation from shop to
shop--more than there would be in the CMYK world between one commercial
printer and another.
*The day-to-day variation in a given consumer-oriented
shop seems to be fairly reasonable, indicating that the machinery
self-calibrates well, because it sure doesn't look like anybody's assigned
to maintain it.
*Some really weird output has happened to me with blue
skies.
*Nothing that I have seen pays attention to any
embedded profiles. It seems like everything is assumed to be something like
sRGB.
*The chances of getting any sort of sensible advice
from a shop employee are slim.
Does anybody think that the actual tests will show
something else?
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 01:56:58 -0500
From: "jc castronovo"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Your assumptions are largely correct and I can tell you
exactly what you will find. It all depends on where you go, what kind of
equipment is there and who is manning the controls. Of course, this was
always the case with "machine" printing, even with film, but it's
worse now. Frankly, how much can you expect when the typical order is
selling for literally pennies a print. Price is generally the only
consideration when people shop for consumer grade prints, so expect very
little in the way of quality control and intelligence. The industry has
been successfully dumbed down to the level of Wal-Mart and Costco.
If the order is for more expensive enlargements in a
better shop, it should depend on your instruction to the order taker.
First, you should be asked to give the instruction to either "print
without correction" or to "make the best looking print". In
the later case, results will obviously vary, even with the same operator,
from day to day. The former case sounds easy, but it's actually harder and
it depends on the shop's capabilities.
Although the machines are quite good at maintaining a
linearized gray scale, none of these printers recognize profiles. Also,
they're not set up to reproduce sRGB or any other profile accurately, so it
doesn't matter what you embed. In fact, the typical minilab software will
alter the image all on its own before the operator even gets it on the
screen. Even if he thinks he's printing without correction, he can't. Two
identical machines on two versions of software may yield different results
from the same file, even though they're both calibrated and working
properly. Better labs have the ability to turn such
"intelligence" off, but most shops never do because it isn't
profitable. Most can't turn it off.
In a better shop with better equipment, your files will
be opened in Photoshop and converted to a profile that was custom made for
the printer, resized to 400ppi at the final size and this new file then
sent to the printer in a "repro" mode where the printer's
software is entirely locked out of the equation. You should get a call on
the un-profiled images to verify their origin. In this scenario, you will
get exactly the same image every time, month after month, and it should be
nearly as reliable and accurate as a contract proof.
Most operators know nothing about any of this and some
don't even have the capability let alone the knowledge or desire to work
this way. Unfortunately, most customers don't know the difference either,
nor do they care, because in this business today, price is the only
consideration.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:38:28 -0800
From: "Darren & Leanne
Bernaerdt"
Subject: RE: Has Anyone Tried This?
Dan,
As one of those "drug store" chains with a
photolab in every store, we have implemented ICC based color management
across the board. Whatever flavour of RGB our customers decide to use will
be recognized and converted to sRGB. We're not using custom profiles for
the printers, although that could be implemented.
Control strips are run every morning to help ensure
consistency from day to day. The most common cause for inconsistent results
from printing the same file on different days would be the operator. If one
operator figured a particular correction would better enhance an image
compared to another, then you may receive two different prints. Ask them to
print with "no adjustments" and this does not occur.
I received a brochure from Costco about a year ago
targeted to pro photographers. It had recommendations about RGB working
spaces and pointed their clients to "drycreekphoto.com" for
custom printer profiles. I've printed the same file on different occasions
and received slightly different results. Nothing huge, about on par with
the variation we see on press with our flyers.
IMHO, yes the variation from shop to shop is huge
depending on the type of stores you include. sRGB is pretty much the
assumed standard for the Noritsu and Fuji printers, but it depends on the
front end driving the printer and some labs are recognizing embedded
profiles. The level of staff knowledge also varies widely with most in the
"very limited" camp.
I haven't personally experienced any funky blue skies,
but the metamerism (or likely more accurately, it is color constancy) on
the Fuji Crystal Archive paper is awful. Makes the Ultrachrome inks look
great.
Darren Bernaerdt
London Drugs Ltd.
(although the opinions expressed above are entirely my
own and not the
official corporate line)
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 22:40:08 -0800
From: "J Walton"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
On 3/28/06, Dan Margulis wrote:
I will pretend that I am just getting into digital
photography and am
experimenting with Photoshop for the first time. I will
take the CD to a dozen
different drug stores and mom-and-pop camera shops that
advertise instant
processing, and see what happens. Then, a week later,
I'll send the same
CDs to the same shops and see if there's significantly
different results.
That's an interesting parallel. At first this sounded
like one of those things you see on the news where they send the same car
to different mechanics to find out who's cheating customers – but
something tells me you've got a bigger axe to grind.
Your expectations seem to be right on the money.
My question: I wonder what would happen if you gave
them LAB?
-----
J Walton
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:39:11 +0100
From: Francis Corvin
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Anecdotal evidence from using the same high-street shop
a number of times:
- There is some variation in colour from time to time:
from red cast (& oversaturated reds), to greenish grays
- I've always used sRGB, or removed the profile
altogether. Prints appear quite highly saturated so there may be an
expectation that files should be Adobe RGB. In any case, attempting to make
an allowance for the daily variation, there doesn't seem to be any change
between embedded sRGB profile and untagged images.
- I haven't had experience of pure intense blue skies
yet. They doesn't exist here :( I don't think I've asked them to print
out-of-sRGB-gamut images either.
- Neither have I spoken to the staff about the kind of
correction they make. On the few occasions when I've tried, it looks like
I've never been able to speak the same language. For instance their idea of
an "uncorrected print" is when they let the machine do the
corrections. They don't call them "corrections" though, just what
the machine *has* to do.
- The pro lab I use is a bit different but request
Adobe RGB (never tried another profile or an untagged image to see what
they say)
It's just one data point. My strong suspicion is that
like the wet labs of yore, there may be ghastly operators at work, or
hidden gems, and you won't know until you try them all. They all play in
the same price range so there isn't very much to tell them apart; possibly
word of mouth from trusted persnickety finicky hair splitters ;)
Regards,
Francis Corvin
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:31:40 -0500
(EST)
From: MARK SEGAL
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Dan,
Frankly I don't understand the point of doing
this altogether. What exactly are you trying to achieve? You're writing a
book on PROFESSIONAL Photoshop. I have images that are difficult to print
and they fall into two distinct categories: (1) images with seriously out
of gamut colours that suffer from gamut compression unless I
"tinker", and (2) images that have considerable detail in levels
L = 3 to 20 that I would like to see better differentiated, and here again
I have adapted or developed some ways to separate those tones, but there is
probably still room for improvement on both accounts. The idea that Costco
or Shoppers Drug Mart could even begin to handle such images is simply
beyond the pale. What I hope to get from the next edition of your book is
fresh insight on how I can deploy my battery of Photoshop, Epson 4800 and
all the colour management science behind them, and in which I have invested
so much time and money, to handle such images that have problems printing
properly. Experiments with a variety of local drop-off processors won't do
it for me. Maybe you are trying to prove some arcane theoretical
proposition with this, but unless I'm missing something it will be largely
irrelevant to my interests.
Cheers
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 09:57:46 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
On the other hand do this same test with a couple of
images placed on a page prepped for offset and I'm there. With all the
printers on this forum we should be able to see lots of variations and
pitfalls.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:55:15 -0400
From: Paco Marquez
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Hi Dan,
I think that what we are missing here is your
explanation as to why you want to do this. You know what your target
readership is so I am sure this exercise has to do with something
applicable to the
professionals who buy your books.
All the best!
Paco Márquez
661 McKinley St.
MIramar
San Juan, PR 00907
787-721-8554
787-587-7384 Cel.
http://www.pacomarquez.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:19:00 -0500
From: Henry
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
The greatest variation I have experienced is with the
large chains, whose results are all over the place. Independent labs,
such as those that offer professional film processing, have been accurate
and consistent.
The machines are more stable than the workflow.
You will find great variation whenever user adjustments are made, and
reprints will seldom match when the workflow includes user adjustments.
From the large chains, I have gotten both
over-saturated and weak sky blue.
Yes, sRGB is a good assumption. One confusion is
whether the printing system makes conversions or not, and if so, by what
method. I have found that ColorMatch RGB on the Fuji Frontier gets a
"better", less cool neutral but is overall a bit flatter in
contrast than sRGB.
The chances of a shop employee or shop owner getting
straightforward information from the OEM is slim. They are quite
tight bout their proprietary systems.
Sure, one thing to check would be if there is any
scaling with regard to image size. Given a 4x6 image file @ 300ppi,
I'll bet that the print you get back has subject matter that is a bit
larger or smaller. This is totally no the case in offset.
I think that the test results might be insightful
beyond what I have already experienced. Especially if you could get a
knowledgeable rep from and OEM or two to get involved.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:16:16 -0800
From: "J Walton"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
On 3/29/06, MARK SEGAL wrote:
Frankly I don't understand the point of doing
this altogether. What
exactly are you trying to achieve? You're writing a
book on PROFESSIONAL
Photoshop.
Obviously Dan is the best one to answer t his question,
and I'm sure at some point he will.
But if you boil the situation down to its basic
components, there are plenty of similarities between handing files off to a
drug store print process and handing files off to a random sheetfed
printer. The process may differ, but you are basically giving tagged (or
untagged) files to an unknown person with unknown process control. Just as
you cannot choose to processes your photos, many of us do not get to choose
who prints our CMYK files.
And yet we still need to provide a good finished
product. At some point we need to protect ourselves from the truly inept
while still giving a quality printer something to work with.
Unless he has some working space experiment working,
I'd guess that's his angle on this.
-----
J Walton
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 01:03:55 -0000
From: "Stephen Marsh"
Subject: Re: Guessing the RGB space of a photo lab
printer
Yes, sRGB is a good assumption. One confusion is
whether the printing
system makes conversions or not, and if so, by what
method. I have
found that ColorMatch RGB on the Fuji Frontier gets a
"better", less
cool neutral but is overall a bit flatter in contrast
than sRGB.
Henry, this is interesting, as both spaces are
idealised editing spaces, R=G=B in both, so neutrals should not be
affected...it sounds like calibration drift or perhaps some undocumented
glitch/conversion etc. Is this repeatable at this shop, what happens if you
use Apple RGB or Adobe RGB etc.
While on profiles being used or not, Adobe Acrobat and
Adobe Reader use profiles and it would appear that Adobe Reader has
hardwired profiles to assume untagged data (my guess is the assumption is
sRGB, US Web Coated SWOP v2 and Gray 2.2 gamma). So one can get variation
depending on source colour modes and the profiles assigned/assumed to these
objects. We often get PDF file supply for print (but we are not a photo
lab) and there can be lots of fun with 100K or 0CMY100K being treated
different in composite output and other colour issues.
Regards,
Stephen Marsh.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:55:26 -0500
From: onno de jong
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
dear Dan,
I would consider the on line stores as well.
My guess is that you are increasing the size of your
audience, just following photoshop sales.
Pursuing that idea a little further, I would think that
a representative chapter on home printers: epson, canon and hp printers is
also in this category.
on the personal front, the printer companies almost
give away the printers with the expectation that they will make it up on
ink sales, but since I purchase third party $1.60 (canon) or $2.00
(epson) ink cartridge replacements that appear to be spot on color-wise,
water and fade proof, and cost pennies per print (I get my paper at Costco)
with consistent enough color, I can't see spending 20 cents for a
print, but would benefit from your informed understanding to manage the
colors even better than I do now -which, at default settings, are most of
the time good enough.
I do notice that the gamut of these printers
appear to be larger than standard CMYK printers, especially the more recent
models, which, I know, opens up a major challenge in what color space
to use. I would guess that a lot of us could benefit from your wisdom
in this area.
onno de Jong
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:13:41 -0800
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
In a message dated 3/28/06 11:38 PM, Darren &
Leanne Bernaerdt wrote:
As one of those "drug store" chains with a
photolab in every store, we have
implemented ICC based color management across the
board. Whatever flavour of
RGB our customers decide to use will be recognized and
converted to sRGB.
We're not using custom profiles for the printers,
although that could be
implemented.
Hi.
I don't understand: if your chain is implementing
ICC-based color management "across the board," how can it be that
there are no custom profiles for the printers? Shouldn't that be considered
a crucial step?
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:51:00 -0000
From: "Randy Wright"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
As someone who is responsible for the operation of a
Fuji Frontier, I generally concur with jc castronovo. It is a good idea to
keep in mind that digital minilabs are designed for the mass market
retailer. While the Frontier represents more than half of the digital
minilab installations, most machines operate in much the same way
regardless of manufacturer.
The machines themselves are quite capable of very
consistent work. To bear witness to this, it is now a common practice to
print black and white images on color photographic paper and get remarkably
neutral prints. Bear in mind that photo paper has no black plate, the image
is constructed exclusively of CMY dyes. Digital minilabs can do this out of
the box with no special adjustment. This task was challenging at best with
analog equipment, and not really practical to do in production.
Of course, like any printer, the actions of the
operator, or lack thereof, have an impact on the result. It has been
standard practice within the photo industry for years to calibrate your
printer and processor daily. In the case of the Frontier, the operating
manual instructs this, and the software makes it simple and easy to do
without any particular knowledge. It takes about 20 minutes to accomplish,
with maybe 5 minutes of active operator involvement, tops. A couple of
years ago we were asked to complete a survey for Fuji. One of the
multiple-choice questions was "How often to you process a control
strip?" The answer options were:
1. Weekly
2. Monthly
3. Never
4. Don't know
Daily was not offered as a possibility. From
experience, the machines do not drift much, and while you can get by
without monitoring them a lot, they are not immune to variability. If you
put this into an environment where the operator has no understanding of
color, and may in fact be prohibited by his management from making
adjustments, you do increase the chances for variability no matter how good
the equipment may be.
With respect to the files themselves, the Frontiers
assume sRGB and convert from there to a proprietary internal working space.
Fuji has not published any information about this, but conversations with
engineers and empirical evidence leads me to believe that this is a
consistent and predictable process, like doing the exact same
profile-to-profile conversion every time in Photoshop. This is a reasonable
approach in the intended market since the vast majority of consumer digital
cameras do not embed a profile, and if they bother to specify a colorspace
at all, it is invariably sRGB. In some versions of the Frontier software
sold outside of the USA, it is possible to bypass this conversion, but the
difference seems to be trivial. The USA consumer market versions don't
offer this option. It is possible to profile the printer, and there are
professional and third-party software packages that enable a fully
color-managed workflow. The procedures are by no means standardized, so
what you will find in actual lab sites will nearly always be unique. With
film, you could put a roll on the counter and the lab would know what to do
with it without anybody having to say anything. Such standardization has
yet to evolve in digital photography. As a lab, we never know what to
expect in a file.
You may also run into the effects of image enhancing
routines. When printing files from the majority of the digital cameras in
the field today, a straight, unenhanced print suffers in comparison to a
print from film on the same system. The usual complaint is dark, flat,
dull. Most minilab manufacturers are now using scene content analysis along
with the EXIF data to do all kinds of local and global
"enhancement". Kodak Perfect Touch and Fuji Image Intelligence
are examples of this. These should be repeatable for a given image, but you
can find different results between seemingly similar images. I am starting
to see evidence of similar enhancement strategies within original files
coming from newer digital cameras, which may cause some overenhancement
since the printer software won't be anticipating this. The minilab
manufacturers usually offer the ability to turn the enhancement on or off,
but it is not unusal for mangement to lock the settings in order to avoid
having a skilled operator around. If the settings are not locked, it is not
unusal for them to be left at whatever the keeps the current operator out
of trouble the most.
Some posts have questioned the relevance of this
project. Speaking for my industry, many inkjet printer users fail to
consider the costs of their time in buying paper and ink, and making the
prints, and any prints that they may throw away because they aren't right.
Some folks just aren't interested in dealing with printer hardware. Retail
printing offers a good quality product for a fair price. Well, should
offer, but that is up to the individual store. Many actually do a very good
job. The size capabilities of retail minilab equipment is increasing, and
for very short run printing offers an attractive and convenient value
proposition for even the most advanced Photoshop user.
Randy Wright
Specialty Color Services
Santa Barbara, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 12:48:56 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Randy,
I think you get it right. Minilabs, film and now
digital do fine. And I agree with you, "Retail printing offers a good
quality product for a fair price". I wish I could say the same about
the non-retail offset printing industry.
My test would be to send the same file to a number of
offset printers using the same press and paper then see what the results
are.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 17:55:53 -0500
From: todie
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
The Costco store in LIC (possibly the closest to Dan's
playground) has a downloadable profile for their Noritsu.
I used it a couple of times and the prints came out
fine (a bit darker than it looked on my monitor, and somewhat flatter) but
I didn't expect Dugall quality, and for $3 a 12x18" satin Fuji Crystal
Archive it's a big bargain (what's up with that paper? looks cheap : ).
I printed 2 images up on a sheet and cut them in half
for 2 9x12" model headshots. (the models are happy, I'm not
sad…)
A lot of wedding photographers use Costco or Sam's Club
even if they don't admit it, and they are a big segment of Dan's books
fans.
Laurentiu Todie
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:19:00 -0800
From: "Darren & Leanne
Bernaerdt"
Subject: RE: Has Anyone Tried This?
Marco,
Let me clarify - in terms of input (IOW - receiving
files from customers), we recognize embedded profiles. This applies to our
workflow whether it comes in via our website or via media handed to our
photo counter staff or if a customer uploads the images from their media
via a kiosk in-store. From there, the embedded profile is maintained
whether it is being directed to our RA4 based printers or our inkjet
printers. With our wide format inkjet printers, ICC profiles are utilized
for the output. With our RA4 printers, custom printer profiles are not
currently in use by the staff in the lab. If the customer's files are not
in sRGB, they are converted to that profile. Apologies if my earlier
ambiguity made my post unclear.
In my personal opinion, if the majority of the amateur
digital "point-and-shoot" camera users understood the concept of
white balance, the color in their images would be far more accurate than
anything ICC profiles currently bring to the table.
Darren Bernaerdt
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 01:42:28 -0800
(PST)
From: John O
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
I find this discussion on this list, this subject
interesting. This is the first time I have seen this about photo labs. I
use the drugstore/mom and pop labs for family/emergency pictures
(1-hour). Three or four, I tried. I always go with the unlucky expert
attitude. One will always get some variation from lab to lab, even at
different times. Wither they use custom profiles for the machine(s) or not.
But not like the cmyk press variation. And their pretty good
considering (price, turnaround) they are a drugstore/mom and pop type lab.
The problem I run into is not so much with blue skies,
but with high-key (97L, 0a, 0b) backgrounds with people (fleshtones) in the
foreground. And that tells you something right there. The color of the
background will go to the negative "a" side, another lab will go
to the positive "a" side. Enough that my mother-in-law can tell
the difference. She has no photography or printing background. She did not
look like a "silver fox "in the photos. Hey. Its ST. Paddys' Day.
What I have to do, what I'm told from the lab manager
is when I bring my files in for printing, note, if sending them
electronically or on the bag where you put the cd in, that they are
"professional photos". Yes, I did not know when you shoot on a 97
L, 0a, 0b BG. you have to list it as "professional photos". I
have to remind my mother-in-law about this as well, when she sends in her
pictures with 97 L, 0a, 0b BG's. Or I should have had my forehead tattooed
in 50 L, 127a, 127b with "professional photographer"
across it (out of gamut for my head) when submitting the cd. Which I take
is that some are going to have to be printed optically or I should say
"with corrections", even though I did this in P.S.(checked
neutral balance in several areas w/ eyedropper) and put "no
corrections" when printed.
Also, they do not need an embedded profile, either way
they assume sRGB. Which some labs will recommend sRGB as the workspace or
convert to sRGB, if there in another profile. This information is given,
even to consumers' who somewhat understand color management. I have sent
the same photo, one in sRGB and one Argb and the Argb look different
printed than sRGB. But not enough to get bent out of shape about it.
Also, they can not be in folders (when using P.S.,
anyway), as the software they use does not open folders. One thing I
forgot. They have to be in jpeg format (compression size optional). And
this is how I prepare them for these labs. Its not like I fight them on
this stuff. As I know their set up for the average customer in mind. Now,
their was a mom and pop type lab that I used, catered to more the
professional level, as well for consumers', where they can print for other
color spaces (either Argb or sRGB, must be tagged if other than sRGB),
except L*A*B, because they want to know how to handle the conversion. They
were not too hip and savvy on the L*A*B thing.
Files can be in either jpeg, or tiff (recommended, no
lzw, IBM-pc format only, as one knows the Mac can read either). and have to
say as for neutrals (other colors as well), as Tony the tiger would say:
"They're Grrrreat !" This even goes for running second prints at
different times.
I find that the cosumerlabs that use custom profiles
are somewhat better for neutral balance. The skin is printed more neutral,
more like Veri-color III was to film. Where another lab that did not use
custom profiles, skintones printed more like the pro line films...pro 100,
more vivid colors. Overall....These labs do a very good job of printing for
the price their asking for the prints. Most have good customer service.
Where, your not happy with the printed result, they will correct it. Even
if you state "no corrections", the first time. Which is
good for people, lets say, my mother-in-law, where she has a digital camera
and does not use a software program for pre-flight and is not hip to
ink-jets and/or don't want to mess with em'. Just pull the card from the
camera, pick the pictures to be printed. They will even size them for you
for 4x5,.5x7, 8x10 format. At no extra cost.
As one of the lab manager's told me....We're not
competing or ever competed with the professional labs. Its the "press
and print" (popular with the consumer market for good results and the
price factor for em') ink-jets that we're competing against. And some labs,
drugstore type, will accommodate printing for professionals, with a
discount. With pretty good results.
John Opitz
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 08:42:47 -0500
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
What people have to understand is that getting
acceptable results by simply sending sRGB to one of these printers is
simply an accident, and not by design. Such minilabs generally don't
recognize profiles and they have no internal profile of their own. LUTS for
gray scale calibration and gamma are not profiles. Owners of these machines
who care enough to make their own profiles or have them made by a
professional have to purchase additional software to do the conversion from
the original file's source profile to the printer's profile. Some labs
provide their custom output profiles to their customers and ask the
customer to do the conversion before sending the fiels in to print. This
will yield the most accurate colors, but it costs more than what most
people are willing to pay, so the usual workflow is to let the operator or
the machine correct the files on the fly. I've had professional
photographers complain that we altered their files, and other pros complain
that we didn't. You have to ask and be flexible.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:04:32 -0500
From: Tom Judd
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
I think this is exactly why sRGB was designed. It
gives everyone a "baseline" standard, and one that tries to be
reasonably close for mass-market devices that are not calibrated.
So when Joe Snapshooter sends a JPEG straight from his
point and shoot, or after some messing around on his laptop, he has a
reasonable chance of getting an acceptable print.
But when I manipulate a file on my color-managed
workstation, processing a file from a high-end DSLR in a managed workflow,
the prints I get are hardly an accident. When I find a vendor who
keeps his machines reasonably well calibrated to factory standards based on
sRGB, I can expect to get prints that are more than just acceptable.
This has been my experience. I'm getting better
and more consistent prints from Walmart and Costco than I ever did in the
old analog days from mass-market photofinishing. I only wish that
routine CMYK jobs from offset printing were so accurate and consistent.
Tom Judd
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:52:42 -0600
From: "Howard Smith"
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
On 3/30/06 Lee Clawson included the following
suggestion in a post referring
to Dan's suggestion about sending files to retail
outlets for digital file
printing:
My test would be to send the same file to a number of
offset printers using
the same press and paper then see what the results are.
Now that's a great idea! Maybe Dan would be
interested in trying that one out for demonstration purposes. It
would certainly give his readers a clear idea of just how much variation
they can expect in a commercial litho job. It's one thing to read about the
kinds of problems one is likely to encounter, and quite another to see
examples of the actual output. Granted he has done this in a limited
fashion in Professional Photoshop, but it would be helpful to see what
happens with a variety of images--all printed from the same files.
One bad result is interesting, but maybe the printer was just having
a bad day, or equipment problems. Would the quality be consistent for
several images printed by the same printer? That would give us a much
better idea of how much variation we can expect from printer to printer.
Howard Smith
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:44:07 -0700
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
I am inclined to think that the results of such a
(print shop) test wouldn't surprise anyone on this list. A downside of
testing numerous offset printers is the obvious one of expense. Testing
photographic output at say, 29 cents a pop, is a relatively low cost
experiment. Although with that said, I don't think those results will
surprise anyone either.... I'd expect a "wide variety of
variability".
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 12:30:33 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Tom,
I apologize for continuing to kick a dead horse (yes,
I'll stop, but one last kick please...) this is my point too.
Why aren't we discussing a test like this for offset
printing ???
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:28:37 -0500
From: Tom Judd
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Why aren't we discussing a test like this for offset
printing ???
Lee Clawson
It would make sense to do so.
I've only been hanging around this list for a couple of
years, but I would bet that it originally served only CMYK printing. Given
the explosion of inkjet printers, I'm sure that there are now many times
the number of people printing via inkjet than producing conventional print
jobs. So it's quite reasonable to expand the list audience to include
everybody who's interested in controlling color from computer screen to
paper.
Tom Judd
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:02:34 -0500
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
A list member sent me the following off-line. Because
it contains comments bearing on topics touched on by John Castronovo and
others, I pass it on.
Dan Margulis
*********************
To: Dan Margulis
Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:24:35 -0000
Hi Dan,
I would be glad to test your CD's for you. Sounds like
a good idea.
I've been using the same color lab for twenty years
plus. The
quality of the work is excellent. The lab does
everything right.
Daily color checks; good quality control.
But even then you get variation because each individual
doing the
printing sees different and has different levels of
skill. Recently
a new clerk was printing too dark. There was a photo
journalism
student working there that did super excellent
printing.
Even with digital prints going from my MAC to the
Noritsu I've had
fairly good results. But then they haven't been too
willing to work
with me on the differences.
I dread the day this lab will close because it will be
almost
impossible to find this quality. And the pressure on
this lab from
Wal Mart, Walgreens, Target, etc. is taking it's toll.
The test Cd's are a good idea. If I'm trying a new lab
I test first.
I get something printed and don't tell them I'm a
professional. I
tested a digital print several weeks back (It has been
published in
Kansas City magazine and Eventing magazine with
excellent results)
to see how this lab handled a persons work. When I got
the print
back there was an obvious green cast. And the 12 X 18
print was
rolled into a small tube. Lots of creases.
If you would like me to test the cds I would be glad.
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:31:48 -0500
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Mark Segal writes (and Lee Clawson and Paco similarly)
Frankly I don't understand the point of doing this
altogether. What
exactly are you trying to achieve? You're writing a
book on
PROFESSIONAL Photoshop.
Thank you for informing me of the book's title, but I
wonder how you can speculate at this point as to what use I may intend to
put this information to. There is a *great* deal that professionals can
learn from discussing the problems and practices of nonprofessionals.
My writings often feature extremely poor originals, not
characteristic of what professionals work with, because the same moves that
make such images obviously better also make excellent images subtly better.
I have written extensively on how Auto Levels and similar commands work,
even though I strongly recommend against their use, because if you don't
understand why they're effective on certain kinds of images and not others
you will have trouble understanding when to make more sophisticated moves.
The idea that Costco or Shoppers Drug Mart could even
begin to handle
such images is simply beyond the pale.
The idea that you SHOULD be able to take your images to
Costco was forcefully advocated in the early to mid-1990s in the paper
"Color Management Systems for Pushbutton Color", in which
it was argued that "color is rapidly becoming a commodity" and
that skill in operating such systems would be unnecessary in the world to
come. I took a good deal of heat at the time for suggesting that color
management systems do not work in the absence of effective process control,
which I stated might or might not be found at Costco. This was a distinctly
minority view then although ten years later it seems obvious.
That said, the statement quoted above represents the
type of attitude that I would like to combat. It smacks of the same type of
thinking as "the idea that you can color-correct in sRGB is beyond the
pale", or "the idea that you can get good results without a
calibrated monitor is beyond the pale" or "the idea that you can
get predictable results without profiling your camera is beyond the
pale." Or, earlier, "the idea that you can even begin to
get film-like quality from a digital camera is beyond the pale", and
even earlier, "the idea that you can even begin to get high-end
quality on a Macintosh using Photoshop is simply beyond the pale."
It's *not* beyond the pale. Assuming similar quality
paper and similar colorants, the quality of the input images is vastly more
important than the difference in predictability between Costco's system and
a better-managed one. A person skilled in color correction will have
no problem producing better work at Costco than a less-skilled one with a
better machine. The Costco work will look better almost all the time if the
colorants are equal, and it will still look better most of the time
even if the better system uses higher-quality colorants. Similarly, if the
paper Costco uses is better than the stock in use on the more reliable
system, the advantage of the better stock will outweigh the disadvantage in
predictability more often than not.
What I hope to get from the next edition of your book
is fresh
insight on how I can deploy my battery of Photoshop,
Epson 4800 and all
the colour management science behind them, and in which
I have invested
so much time and money, to handle such images that have
problems
printing properly. Experiments with a variety of local
drop-off
processors won't do it for me.
If you want to know how to use all these weapons
without the headaches so frequently associated with them, you need to stop
thinking of specific products or some propellerhead's nostrums and start
thinking of what you are trying to achieve practically. To my mind this
means looking at every aspect of the workflow with a critical eye, without
preconceptions. If you believe you should work with a calibrated monitor it
should not be because you think that working with an uncalibrated monitor
is beyond the pale. It should be because you have carefully considered the
consequences of working with an uncalibrated monitor. What bad things do
you expect will happen, specifically, and to what categories of image? What
types of images will improve if you have better calibration? How do you
know when your calibration is good enough? What types of problems can never
be solved no matter how much time and effort you put into them?
If you have actually thought about these things and are
comfortable with your answers, then you'll find the rest of process control
easy, just as I do. That's the philosophy I'll attempt to teach in the
appropriate chapters of the new book. If not, you shouldn't be surprised if
somebody else shows up with better results from Costco than you do from
your high-priced gear.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 17:20:50 -0700
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
In the 29 years I have operated a professional color
lab, many discussions have taken place regarding the validity of blind
tests. It seems straight forward enough; run something -film, proofs, an
enlargement- and see what you get.
The reasoning goes like this: without first announcing
who you are, what you do, or what you expect, the work received will be
produced according to a given lab's 'baseline'... without any special
handling, attention or concern for the preferences of a particular client.
I think that line of thinking is mostly correct.
I believe the exercise *can* separate labs into broad
categories of unacceptable or acceptable, for *overall* quality of the
product, price, turnaround, packaging, etc.
Beyond that, experience tells me that neither a lab or
a photographer operates independently of the other, and that true success
depends on a close partnership between the two. This is true because of the
very issues we discuss on this list concerning countless pitfalls in our
perception of color, density, and contrast and how best to achieve output
that matches up with our own subjective tastes and requirements.
"Good" professional labs, as judged by their
clientele, manage to hit that mark either by chance (i.e.: a great blind
test that happens to suit a particular client's tastes), or because they
have taken a particular client's preferences into account and incorporated
them into the production of their work.
This is not to say that top professional labs do not
follow controls, procedures and standards in how they go about producing
their work, they do. But subjectivity is an unavoidable fact of life in the
color industry, and the best labs will put their baseline standards aside
in favor of their client's... when they know what that is.
If we know that a client prefers 'very saturated,
over-sharpened' images... that's what we strive to produce. If we don't
know that, and provide him with images of more conservative proportions, he
may reason that we're not a 'good' lab. And for him, that would be true.
For both he and us, the lack of communication would be unfortunate.
I am not in any way arguing against running blind tests
in order to choose a lab. But there is more to consider if you are looking
for the best lab to suit your imaging needs.
I am suggesting that once an 'acceptable' lab is
selected from such a test, obtaining the very best quality means taking the
next step of forming a relationship with those who will be producing the
work, because in the end it is nearly impossible to achieve 'quality'
without first knowing how that is defined, and in our industry it is
defined in a thousand different ways...
Les De Moss
DigiGrahics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:25:54 -0500
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Man! I've seen the same sep printed in different places
in the same magazine or brochure where they don't match each other by a
country mile.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:44:42 -0500
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marco Ugolini"
I don't understand: if your chain is implementing
ICC-based color management
"across the board," how can it be that there
are no custom profiles for the
printers? Shouldn't that be considered a crucial step?
Of course there are custom profiles for these machines.
We make our own and they profile very well, just so long as any front end
processing is turned off. Many machines will correct for image biases if
you don't take steps to prevent it. Manufacturers don't supply profiles and
it would be of little use because they have no control over the choice of
paper, chemistry and gray scale aims that each lab may independently
employ.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:27:24 -0500
From: Terry Wyse
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Dan, et al,
As a suggestion and in the spirit of being "fair
and balanced", why not use the ISO 12640-2 XYZ/RGB (sRGB color space)
natural images as the standard to be sent to all these labs? If you're
familiar with these images, they are a good cross section of the types of
images that one might experience. They are not designed to fail in any way
but at the same time they do represent some challenges such as flesh tones,
neutrals, saturated colors, one image that's predominately
"warm" that might fool a machine analyzer,
etc.
If folks aren't familiar with this image set, I could
upload lo-rez versions for viewing only (they're copyrighted). I just
received my set the other day (along with the 12640-1 CMYK set). I started
with the XYZ versions, converted to LAB and did a slight a/b color contrast
enhancement and slight L* tone move (the images as supplied are exceedingly
dead and flat). I'd be happy to provide mine as long as whoever is sending
the CD to the LAB can show proof of ownership if the ISO cops come after
us. :-)
Just a thought.
Terry Wyse
_____________________________
WyseConsul
Color Management Consulting
G7 Certified Expert
704.843.0858
http://www.wyseconsul.com
http://www.colormanagementgroup.com
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:01:53 -0800
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Thank you, Darren.
Of course, ICC profiles are not meant to create much
more than a match between a verifiable expectation (for example, an image
as it appears on a calibrated and profiled display) and a result (as viewed
on an print made with a profiled inkjet printer, for example).
If the image has a cast, or a poor white balance, the
print will have them too. ICC profiles are not meant to fix a
poorly-executed image.
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:52:59 -0600
From: "Howard Smith"
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Thanks, John. That's not surprising, but it's
nice to receive this information from someone who has actually seen the
variations. It makes me wonder how so many jobs are printed well--or
maybe they're not and we just don't realize it because we didn't see the
original images. With that in mind, maybe our real objective is to
get prints produced that get the job done instead of trying to get prints
that are close to 100% accurate. If a flower arrangement, a Playboy
model, or a street scene looks good in print, should we really worry about
how well the printed output matches the original? It's a nice goal, but
maybe impractical to aim for accuracy instead of for acceptability.
Yet another thing to consider is that viewers are not scientific in
their evaluations of printed images, and probably don't really care all
that much anyway. How many of us have spent hours or even minutes studying
an advertisement for Campbell's soup or a glossy ad for a new Ferrari?
We glance at the picture, maybe tear it out of a magazine and put it
on a bulletin board, or just toss it once we've gone through the material.
Where the fine arts are concerned, it's another matter.
But again it's really more a matter of producing work that our
clients like rather than trying to get exact color matches. If we
take a photo of some red roses, that red can vary considerably and probably
will still be pleasing to most viewers who see it.
Just random thoughts.
Howard Smith
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 05:31:22 -0500
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Without a doubt Les. A blind test without communication
is meaningless. What we need to do is to send the files along with complete
instructions on how they're supposed to be printed.
There are three possible general instructions:
a) print so that it looks best according to the
technician's skillful eye
b) print so that the embedded profile is honored and
converted to the output profile of the printer for the best visual match
c) just drop it in the chute and see what comes out
All of these are valid workflows in certain
circumstances and there are variations for each of them. The paper must
also be standardized. Don't expect Fuji Crystal Archive luster and Kodak
gloss to look the same.
What it all means is that the very thing you want to
know by this test is impossible to learn without a good deal of
communication when the order is placed. The irony is that the best labs
will offer the most variability. Take away the communication and the best
lab may appear like the worst.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 21:59:55 -0500
From: "Mark Segal"
Subject: Fw: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
OK Dan, Fair Ball - challenging posts get challenging
answers!
Of course it is true - in an objective and literal
sense nothing is necessarily and for all time "beyond the pale"
in this world - only certain things get there in one's mind by virtue of
one's own experience and objectives, which needless to say are not
necessarily eveyone else's experience and objectives - witness numerous
contributions to this thread alone. Re your last paragraph, on the whole
and to a considerable extent, "I have", and "Yes". But
notwithstanding all that, for many purposes of photography "process
control" is a combination of art, science and intent, hence
considerably broader than what the corner mini-lab brings to the table even
if all of them were perfectly synchronized. It is in that sense I truly
wonder about the role of this topic in the context of "Professional
Photoshop" as we know it - "ah, but therein perhaps lies the
rub" - are we being treated to a new and different Professional
Photoshop, not as we know it? Looking forward..............
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:35:32 -0800
From: "Paul D. DeRocco"
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
From: Les De Moss
This is not to say that top professional labs do not
follow controls,
procedures and standards in how they go about producing
their
work, they do.But subjectivity is an unavoidable fact
of life in the color industry, and
the best labs will put their baseline standards aside
in favor of their
client's... when they know what that is.
Subjectivity _should_ play a very small part, and then
only when one is pushing the gamut limits of the printer.
If we know that a client prefers 'very saturated,
over-sharpened'
images...that's what we strive to produce. If we don't
know that, and provide him
with images of more conservative proportions, he may
reason that
we're not a 'good' lab. And for him, that would be
true. For both he and us,
the lack of communication would be unfortunate.
You're suggesting that it's up to the lab to do part of
the customer's editing for him. If I want very saturated, oversharpened
images, it's my job to create those effects in Photoshop, before given them
to the printer. What I think photographers want from the lab is the same
thing they want from they're own printer: prints that look like the screen.
I've been able to achieve that with my own printer--if I can't with a lab's
printer, then there's something wrong with the lab.
Ciao,
Paul D. DeRocco
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 10:56:38 -0500
From: "Mark Segal"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Hello Dan,
Because it may give you some additional insight from an
avid consumer of your educational materials, further to last night's post I
would like to explain a few things relating to your last two paragraphs
which I've extracted below for ease of reference. I suspect I am probably
one of many people with similar experience and objectives amongst your
readership, so I thought it perhaps useful to you that dwell on this a bit.
(1) When I buy a specific product, it is only after
careful research and consultation with people I trust who know it better
than I do. Once I buy it, I need to think in terms of that product's
capabilities and limitations. I'm not married to Epson - in fact if the new
generation of wide-format Canon pigment printers turn out to be several
steps ahead of my Epson 4800 in respects that matter to me I'll replace it.
Turning to propellerheads - it is the same issue. Regardless of who writes
what, I evaluate the content based on what else I know, find out elsewhere
or for some tangible reason makes sense to me, not the writer.
(2) Thinking of what I am trying to achieve practically:
of course. To work through only the "for instances" you raise
below: I started working with a calibrated monitor after having the usual
issue of mismatch between the soft-proof and the printer. So I read
alot about colour management and all the "gurus" I consulted kept
emphasizing the importance of a properly profiled and calibrated monitor.
So I invested a few hundred bucks in ColorEyes Display and a Monaco Optix
XR and wow - did that ever improve things. So yes, I had the "before
and after" experience with monitor calibration and therefore I believe
in it - not to say that by accident an uncalibrated monitor couldn't give
fairly decent results, but that isn't the point. In my case I know monitor
calibration helps with colour casts and luminosity rendition - the latter
especially for images with alot of three-quartertone information I wish to
reproduce. And I know whether my monitor calibration is good enough when I
view the prints under D-50 Solux illumination compared with the soft-proof
I see on the monitor - recognizing of course there are inherent differences
between reflected and direct illumination that with current technology
can't be completely arbitraged, and recognizing that artistic judgment
intervenes about what looks right or most effective on paper. And speaking
of awareness about limitations, I do know, for example, that with current
technology there are gamut compression issues that cannot be solved to my
total satisfaction, but that situation is a moving target and it gets
better every year.
(3) So as you see, I have thought about many of these
things - there's more than the foregoing to think about of course, and one
needs to know what to think about before thinking about it, so to the
extent I don't know everything there is to think about in this business I'm
99% likely to be missing some beats. But I'd rank myself some way up the
learning curve and yet process control, while easy alot of the time, can
still be challenging for certain kinds of images - and I know them when I
see them. It is for handling problem images, improving dexterity with all
imaging issues and sweating the last drop of quality out of images that are
straightforward to start with that I turn to books such as your's,
Eismann's, Kelby's, Willmore's, etc. So when I say that Costco is
irrelevant to my objectives for reading a book like Professional Photoshop
- it isn't that I'm snobby about commercial mini-labs - in fact I've
seen myself they produce alot of work that is perfectly adequate for a
great many people and purposes - that's fine, but so what? My underlying
point about relevance is that like many people I'm using Photoshop as a
personal experience in artistic and technical achievement that is augmented
with learning materials like yours. Of course the subject of quality and
consistency from mini-labs is most likely a topic of interest in its own
right to people directly concerned with that issue. But unless the
excursion into mini-lab syncopathy bears some kind of direct relevance to
one's usual reasons for using Photoshop in photography, it just leaves me
wondering why get into it. As I concluded yesterday, perhaps in the fulness
of time you will make the light dawn......................
Best regards,
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 09:59:10 -0600
From: "jimbean"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
paul writes
I've been able to achieve that with my own printer--if
I can't
with a lab's printer, then
there's something wrong with the lab.
hello paul, That is a rather ambitious comment... have
you printed many files/scans from other absentee image providers. Profiles
or no profiles, would you not consider that your setup is a rather 'closed
loop' arrangement?
I believe that there are too many variables to expect
any lab/pro or discount pharmacies to deliver consistent work unless that
photographer spent the time necessary to match his/her images to the labs
average output...no suprise there.
My guess would be that if you submitted a soft/flat
'bluish snow scene with evergreens barely exposed on the distant mountain
side that four out of five different labs would create a similar 'better'
image.. more tone range, nice clean neutrals, deeper blacks... basically a
nice bw version with no green or blue haze. nice/better? but not what
the customer wanted or expected.
jim bean
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 11:06:14 -0500
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Terry Wyse writes,
Dan, et al,
As a suggestion and in the spirit of being "fair
and balanced", why
not use the ISO 12640-2 XYZ/RGB (sRGB color space)
natural images as
the standard to be sent to all these labs? If you're
familiar with
these images, they are a good cross section of the
types of images
that one might experience. They are not designed to
fail in any way
but at the same time they do represent some challenges
such as flesh
tones, neutrals, saturated colors, one image that's
predominately
"warm" that might fool a machine analyzer,
etc.
This thread is branching out into areas never
contemplated. I am not interested in testing individual labs or printers.
If I were, I would never recommend a single run of images--the test would
have to be repeated at least three times on different days of the week and
preferably different shifts. Any lab can have a bad day, and the fact that
one batch comes back inadequate means very little.
If you want to test a lab's capabilities the way to do
so is by sending them live work. If it comes back unacceptable then you
throw it out and you haven't spent any more money than by sending them a
test and throwing that out.
My initial question was more about what result a user
might expect if he chooses one of these low-cost outlets at random. I note
the suggestions from Lee Clawson and Howard that I should be doing the same
sort of test with commercial printers. Everybody knows what the result of
*that* test would be--I've shown lots of examples of real-world variation,
including one graphic in Professional Photoshop of the same file reproduced
by six different printers who all claimed to be SWOP-compliant, and another
showing how much variation SWOP itself considers acceptable.
In the initial post I suggested that probably there's
more variation between work done at Walgreen's vs. Costco than there is
between commercial printer A and commercial printer B. The reason I asked
for opinions is that I don't know for a fact that my suggestion is true,
whereas I am quite confident I understand what sorts of variations can be
expected if you send CMYK to an unknown commercial print shop. And, at
least one list member has said that he disagrees with my suggestion.
The following items *do* seem to me clear, however,
*If you go to one of these vendors the chances of
getting a visually pleasing, if somewhat unpredictable, result are pretty
good.
*A lot of professionals in fact use these sources even
if some of them are too ashamed to admit it.
*The Costcos of the world do not care if they match the
output of the Walgreens or London Drugs of the world; however they do care
that they can match their *own* output if you bring the job back for a
repeat.
*The chances of finding somebody who knows what they're
doing to help you at one of these vendors is pretty slim.
*Anybody who thinks that these low-cost vendors are not
a serious threat to quality-oriented photo labs probably also does not
believe that DVD is a serious threat to VHS or that consumer-level digital
cameras can produce professional-level images.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:08:00 -0800
From: "Paul D. DeRocco"
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
From: jimbean
hello paul, That is a rather ambitious comment... have
you printed many
files/scans from other absentee image providers.
Profiles or no profiles,
would you not consider that your setup is a rather
'closed loop'
arrangement?
No. I don't run a test print, then tweak the file
according to how it looks wrong, and then print again. I calibrate and
profile my monitor to 5000K, have halogen lighting adjusted to 5000K, and
use profiles on my printer. (I built my own printer profiles, but found
they were virtually identical to the stock Epson ones.) And my prints look
as close to the monitor as I could possibly expect, given the intrinisic
differences between the media. So I'm running completely open loop.
I should be able to get the same results from a lab if
they give me an accurate printer profile that I can use to soft proof. And
if I don't soft proof, I should still be able to get as good a result from
a lab as I do with my own printer without soft proofing, which is fine for
most narrow gamut images.
I have only one experience with an outside lab (getting
an oversized print) and it was horrible, but that _was_ seven years ago. On
the other hand, I know serious amateur photographers who routinely use
Costco to do their printing, and are very happy with the results. I don't
expect perfection, but these experiences lead me to believe that running
open loop with a lab is feasible, and that when people get lousy results,
it's a quality control issue, not artistic differences or intrinsic limits
in the process.
Ciao,
Paul D. DeRocco
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 10:45:40 -0700
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
From Paul D DeRocco
You're suggesting that it's up to the lab to do part of
the customer's
editing for him.
In the traditional film-based, analog workflow that
preceded digital imaging, this was *always* the case. An image could not be
reproduced without lab technicians making decisions as to *how* the image
*should* be reproduced. In the analog world those decisions were confined
largely to color and density. Contrast was controllable only through paper
selection, more involved film masking techniques, flashing and so on.
Of course, that is not what we are talking about here
in the digital age, because the digital photographer has these correction
and editing tools at hand on their own workstation. Evidently you know how
to use those tools to achieve the results you are looking for.
In your situation then, achieving photographic output
that best matches your screen does not require the lab to edit your images.
It does however, require you and your lab to determine how your work will
be produced, that is, on what equipment (Chromira, Lightjet, Pictro, Film
Recorder) and what materials will be used (Kodak Endura, Fuji Crystal,
Agfa... gloss, matte, lustre) the appropriate resolution of the file, and
in what color space your images should be submitted. All of these decisions
have an impact, for better or worse, on the perceived quality of the final
output.
Within the context of this thread on testing labs, the
simple and valid point I am making is that without communication, the
results of printed output are a crap-shoot, because variables exist in the
lab environment that are simply out of your control unless they are
determined discussed, and selected in advance. To blindly test a lab
without understanding and participating in these decisions would be to
leave critical decisions on these matters to someone else.
I'll also add that many professional photographers have
yet to fully make the transition (in their expectations) from analog to
digital in terms of what they expect from their lab. Quite often images are
submitted for a particular service as *print-ready*, meaning that the lab
is to output the image as-is without intermediate editing or corrective
work. If the output then fails to satisfy the client, too often we are
asked why we didn't "take a look" or "make a phone
call" or take some other action to prevent the image from actually
being printed as-is.
In other words, the lab is held to a level of
responsibility that is a hold-over from the days of analog printing... if
it doesn't look right, the lab failed in their judgment. Nowadays, if the
photographer is to create, edit and correct his own work (in essence, be
his own lab technician), then the responsibility for the quality of the
output he receives rests solely on his shoulders. They just can't have it
both ways. Obviously this is true only for labs that practice consistent
process control and calibration to known standards such as sRGB or A98.
What I think photographers want from the lab is the
same thing they want from
they're own printer: prints that look like the screen.
I've been able to
achieve that with my own printer--if I can't with a
lab's printer, then
there's something wrong with the lab.
Agreed. We all want to see on print what we see on
screen. Just as we want a slide or transparency to print exactly the way it
appears on a light table. Both are laudable goals, both are entirely
impossible based on physics alone. Comparing an image that is rendered on
different materials and illuminated under two vastly different methods
(transmissive and reflective) and expecting them to provide a visual match
is utter, uneducated nonsense.
But I am splitting hairs here. With the right
equipment, materials and workflow, the results can and should be visually
pleasing if not visually outstanding... as you have indicated in your
statement regarding your own printing.
Is something wrong with a lab if they can't do what you
say can do using your own equipment and materials? Only if they are using
the exact same equipment, materials and procedures. If not, then each
individual imaging process must be considered and analyzed on its own
merits. There is not necessarily something wrong with a lab if, say, their
Chromira output fails to 'match' the output from a 7 or 8 color inkjet
printer. They are simply different animals in the kingdom of color. If you
like your output best, then use it.
My whole point is that communication is part and parcel
of the reproduction process. Without it, as I have seen over the years, an
adversarial relationship can ensue that rarely serves any of the parties
very well. If you know what you want... communicate it, and listen with an
open mind and open ear when another professional in this industry tells you
what is and isn't possible, what can and cannot be achieved, what you need
to know about their equipment and materials, and what they need to know
from you before a productive attempt can be made at imaging your work, well
then... I'd take you as a welcome client and imaging partner any day of the
week!
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:58:46 -0800
From: David Cardinal
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Anybody who thinks that these low-cost vendors are not
a
serious threat to quality-oriented photo labs probably
also
does not believe that DVD is a serious threat to VHS or
that
consumer-level digital cameras can produce
professional-level images.
Amen. As I think I've mentioned on this list before, a
substantial number of the event pros who frequent our forums use CostCo
combined with either the Dry Creek profiles or their own custom profiles
for inexpensive, high-quality, repeatable prints. The only practical issue
seems to be making sure that the CostCo operator really does turn _off_ any
adjustments. The problem you'd think would happen (poorly calibrated
machines) does not seem to be that much of an issue with many of the
CostCos, as they appear to have pretty good operations practices in place.
I've even noticed some of the local "art
show" photographers using CostCo to save money on production costs.
Personally I don't think the high-end labs have really done much to fend
off the threat. At least locally (with a couple exceptions) they have been
foot-draggers when it comes to online ordering, virtual lightboxes, color
management, discounted pricing and nearly everything a "leading
edge" photographer might have wanted. They still get a lot of business
from the film shooters who need them to do drum scans and loyal customers
who haven't figured out alternatives, but the encroachment of reasonably
priced wide-format printers for home/studio use and discount online
printing solutions has certainly made a huge dent.
--David Cardinal
http://www.cardinalphoto.com
http://www.nikondigital.org
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 16:58:31 -0500
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul D. DeRocco"
You're suggesting that it's up to the lab to do part of
the customer's
editing for him. If I want very saturated,
oversharpened images, it's my job
to create those effects in Photoshop, before given them
to the printer. What
I think photographers want from the lab is the same
thing they want from
they're own printer: prints that look like the screen.
I've been able to
achieve that with my own printer--if I can't with a
lab's printer, then
there's something wrong with the lab.
There's nothing wrong with the lab if you don't tell
them to print your work without correction. Far more than half of
professional photographers WANT the lab to intervene and
"improve" their images, so communicating your expectations is
very important.
I'll grant you that if you say to print your files
exactly as you've prepared them on your calibrated monitor and using your
embedded working profiles, there should be no problem giving you perfect
results every time. As easy as this seems, however, many labs don't, won't
or can't do it. Offering all options is the mark of a custom lab, but you
can't simply expect things to be done only the way you think they should be
done when there are so many others expecting just the opposite.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:36:42 -0000
From: "Randy Wright"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Unlike say, an offset press, all digital minilabs come
with all the tools and capabilities needed for self calibration, which
require only modest effort and no technical competence on the part of the
operator. If the calibration is being done routinely you will find
excellent consistency, and surprisingly equivalent results, even among
different operators and equipment and consumable manufacturers. If the
calibration procedures are ignored, the results are unpredictable, as would
be expected. There should be much greater consistency than offset, since
there are only a handful of printer manufacturers, even fewer paper
vendors, and no ink vendors.
Randy Wright
Specialty Color Services
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 04:16:10 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Randy,
And all this is not too different than the model used
to make color prints from film. Like you, I think its easier to apply with
today's equipment than previous color film processors and printers. Add to
that the client reduces many bad pictures by deleting in-camera or
correcting with a computer. Which leads me to say that what we can learn by
this test will be interesting but won't achieve as much as the queries
about variation in commercial printing that we seem to attend to constantly
on this list.
I agree with Dan's listing of what "seems to be
clear" and I agree where he says, "whereas I am quite confident I
understand what sorts of variations can be expected if you send CMYK to an
unknown commercial print shop."
And I like taking his question to conclusion. I simply
want more.
Where I differ is understanding these understood CMYK
variations hasn't given me the progress I'd expect in reducing them. And
reducing them in concept has given the corner stores using either
technology a way to output more consistent prints, at least same store
prints, than I ever see from commercial presses. Dan Remaley will probably
(I hope) respond to this by pointing out how often he asks us (the whole
graphic arts industry) to be more rigorous in applying process control.
The thought devoted to this current thread has really
surprised me. Why not apply it towards reducing one or 2 of these CMYK
variations. There's a bunch of photographers and designers who get the same
results Dan see's and wonder why they can't have digital-mini-lab like
results on CMYK press. I'm one.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 14:36:01 -0400
From: Henry Davis
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Lee,
Randy is correct that the variables are greatly reduced
for mini-labs. The effect of the variables found with presswork shouldn't
be underestimated. Ink-trapping performance, as one example, is not
an issue with photographic output, but it can have a great bearing on
presswork - and this is only one variable.
Mini-labs and pressrooms have some similarities, and
the distinctions are blurring somewhat, but they are still two different
worlds. An increased number of photographers who are doing they're
own file prep are applying their lab experience and expectations to the
pressroom without understanding their roll in the process.
Photographers who are willing to learn the differences, will have a
greater advantage with their press output, and will then have another
viable option under their service "umbrella".
You understand this Lee, but seriously, there are folks
who want to bring their camera card in for offset printing, via a kiosk,
and they don't understand why it isn't gonna happen. The press sheet
is cheaper - that's what they care about, and who knows, it may happen one
day.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 13:21:17 -0400
From: Henry Davis
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
On Apr 1, 2006, at 12:58 PM, David Cardinal wrote:
I've even noticed some of the local "art
show" photographers using CostCo to
save money on production costs. Personally I
don't think the high-end labs
have really done much to fend off the threat. At
least locally (with a
couple exceptions) they have been foot-draggers
when it comes to online
ordering, virtual lightboxes, color management,
discounted pricing and
nearly everything a "leading edge"
photographer might have wanted. They
still get a lot of business from the film
shooters who need them to do drum
scans and loyal customers who haven't figured out
alternatives, but the
encroachment of reasonably priced wide-format
printers for home/studio use
and discount online printing solutions has
certainly made a huge dent.
Maybe the Pro Labs have also been foot-dragging when it
come to reducing their cost to consumers for soft drinks, tires, drugs,
diapers, etc.
Photographers have faced cheap competition for years
from amateurs, and from the attitude that one need only press a button to
make a good picture. It seems to me that the professional
photographer would want to encourage the survival of their pro lab as a
matter of self interest, even, if not out of loyalty. Paying a few
more cents per print doesn't seem like a lot to ask to keep a relationship
- especially if you are a professional.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 17:46:12 -0600
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Amen Henry. As many have pointed out on this thread,
the Box Store service is great... so long as you have no need for technical
input and support, and your output requirements happen to exactly match the
services they provide. Woe be it to those having requirements that go
beyond that, or those who are unsatisfied with the output and would like to
work with the big box to custom-tailor their output. Isn't going to happen,
because high volume and low price prohibit them from doing so.
As a custom lab, nearly thirty years running, I can
state unequivocally that those who use our services do so because of two
reasons... they have used a big box and found the relationship (I use the
term very loosely) limited, or their requirements are such that a trained
professional is required to meet the specifications of a particular job. A
good deal of our referrals come from those at BB stores that find
themselves in a technical quagmire with solutions that are simply out of
their reach.
I would never expect loyalty to be worth a few cents
-or dollars- more if there wasn't added value for the expense. So long as a
pro lab can provide added value through custom-tailored solutions or
advanced technical guidance, the expense will be worth it to those running
businesses that depend on state of the art processing.
That said, we answer many technical questions for some
of our clientele, only to have that information applied to their work taken
to a BB store in the end. So far as that goes, I find that approach
disconcerting at the least... and a behavior that will ultimately put an
end to such advice and support... when the lab no longer exists. If
professionals want to have readily available advice from their imaging
peers, there is a reason to support those providing such information that
goes beyond loyalty and right to the issue of quality and survival of the
professional photographer.
Regards,
Les De Moss
DigiGraphics LLC
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2006 23:02:14 -0400
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Since when has such logic stood in the way of pinching
a penny in the 21st century? Like yourself Les, I've been running a
custom/professional lab service for thirty years and handing out free
lessons daily, only to see the fruits of our effort taken to the big box
stores. I recently did a beautiful drum scan for a guy who brought the file
to Costco to have cheap 12x18's made. They changed the resolution and
totally ignored the embedded profile and so botched the job. When the guy
came back yelling at me, I had to take time away from more profitable
endeavors to defend myself, essentially teaching him what he needed to know
to get his money's worth from the place that got what should've been mine
in the first place. Did I win his respect and his future business? No. I
taught him how to squeeze more out of his relationship with Costco. What's
next? I think we should force offset printers hold free classes to teach
their customers how to buy better printing in the Orient.
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 04:34:18 -0000
From:Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Onno writes,
I do notice that the gamut of these printers appear to
be larger
than standard CMYK printers, especially the more recent
models,
which, I know, opens up a major challenge in what color
space to use.
I would guess that a lot of us could benefit from your
wisdom in this
area.
If we want more precise suggestions on what RGB to use,
it is more up to the group to provide the evidence than it is me. My
suggestions have been the same for some time, namely,
1) The first question is whether to accept either sRGB
or Adobe RGB in spite of their well-known flaws on the theory that there is
a lot to be gained by avoiding RGBs that the rest of the world is not
familiar with. Personally, I accept this argument, but if somebody wants to
use a more sensible RGB and is willing to shoulder the burden of using
something non-standard I have no problem with it.
2) The mistake that most "experts" make is in
assuming that the RGB working space has to be larger in every respect than
the output space. In fact, for a skilled user, excessive gamut is often
worse than inadequate gamut. Of course, we try to avoid both, but insisting
that your RGB be capable of producing every color that your output
condition can handle is a serious mistake. It's better to reduce some of
the wildly out of gamut colors even at the price of losing the capability
of reproducing certain colors.
We have recently had a discussion about RGB working
spaces for people who prepare only for conventional CMYK output, therefore
limited gamut. As I pointed out, assuming that sRGB and Adobe RGB are the
only choices, sRGB is what a skilled user should adopt for most CMYK-bound
images. There are certain colors that it *theoretically* can't handle, but
in practice none of those colors ever occur in photographs. I haven't been
able to locate a single example. Granting for the sake of argument that a
few examples may exist somewhere, they certainly aren't worth buying into a
wide-gamut space like Adobe RGB with all its attendant disadvantages.
When we start to discuss wider-gamut output devices, I
get a lot less comfortable with sRGB, because the number of real colors
that it can't hit starts to become worrisome. I do not, however, have any
way of drawing the line, because I've never seen a real example of how
working with sRGB would be harmful, and if there is no such example, then
Adobe RGB is a bad choice.
What I would really like to see from somebody is the
following demonstration.
1) I have a high-quality output device with brilliant
white paper.
2) I have a file in Adobe RGB that prints to my
satisfaction.
3) If I go Convert to Profile>sRGB and print that,
with all profiles being
honored correctly, the result is clearly worse.
If anybody is looking to try this, I would recommend
pictures of emeralds or similar green jewelry, or light pink flowers. These
don't represent any problem for sRGB if press CMYK is the output, but it
could well be on many inkjet printers.
I expect that such examples actually exist, but I
haven't seen any of them.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 00:17:05 -0400
From: todie
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
I used to teach Photoshop to interns and young
retouchers for years (at the request of my bosses and in addition to
production work) in some of the most reputable custom shops of NYC. I got
fired last Christmas by my penny pinching last boss. I lost my previous job
at a pre press place Dan knows well, one week after 9/11.
Such is life!
… and I plan to start an Internet retouching
service using Costco's output.
What I'm trying to say is that not only customer
loyalty and fairness went out the window
but employer/employee good relations as well.
Laurentiu Todie
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:36:47 -0500
From: "Howard Smith"
Subject: RE: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Since when has such logic stood in the way of pinching
a penny in the 21st
century? Like yourself Les, I've been running a
custom/professional lab
service for thirty years and handing out free lessons
daily, only to see the
fruits of our effort taken to the big box stores. I
recently did a beautiful
drum scan for a guy who brought the file to Costco to
have cheap 12x18's
made. They changed the resolution and totally ignored
the embedded profile
and so botched the job. When the guy came back yelling
at me, I had to take
time away from more profitable endeavors to defend
myself, essentially
teaching him what he needed to know to get his money's
worth from the place
that got what should've been mine in the first place.
Did I win his respect
and his future business? No. I taught him how to
squeeze more out of his
relationship with Costco. What's next? I think we
should force offset
printers hold free classes to teach their customers how
to buy better
printing in the Orient.
John,
There are no doubt a number of us who have had similar
experiences, so there's no question that we understand. The example
of being blamed for the shortcomings of an outside mini-lab is something
that most of us have probably encountered in one form or another. The
basic problem is that technology goes roaring along, leaving many
casualties in its wake. How do we cope with such rapid change in a
world that once seemed far more secure? You could always set up a competing
mini-lab operation in addition to your professional operation, but is that
really an answer or just a way of prolonging the inevitable? What
happens when the technology advances to a point that both proconsumers and
professionals can buy affordable equipment that enables them to "point
and shoot" their digital card processing? Then they won't need
Costco either. Right now there is equipment and technology that enables
professionals to calibrate everything in the hopes of getting a
satisfactory output. Eventually we're going to have automatic,
"intelligent" equipment that will handle 90% or more of
everything. Sounds unlikely, but look at the advances in Photoshop
alone. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems that color correction, for
all but the most difficult images, is getting easier and easier with the
continued advances in Photoshop, equipment, and in books.
So, what's the answer? Merchants who are being
done in by Wal-Mart are no doubt asking the same question. How do we
compete with businesses who compete on price alone?
It's unlikely that anyone here can answer this, but I
sure hope someone can.
Howard Smith
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 10:31:57 -0400
From: "Mark Segal"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Dan,
You say:
(in the context of CMYK devices' output space)
It's better to reduce some of the wildly out of gamut
colors even at the price of losing the capability of reproducing certain
colors.
(then in the context of other output devices)
When we start to discuss wider-gamut output devices, I
get a lot less comfortable with sRGB, because the number of real colors
that it can't hit starts to become worrisome. I do not, however, have any
way of drawing the line, because I've never seen a real example of how
working with sRGB would be harmful, and if there is no such example, then
Adobe RGB is a bad choice.
Then you invite us to submit evidence in respect of an
sRGB image printing worse than an RGB image. Well, not quite what you are
asking for and I don't have them on-hand, but I've produced prints where
RGB(98) worked better for me than ProPhoto RGB, and vice-versa.
This experience got me to start thinking that perhaps
there is no rule and no line to draw. Hence, when dealing with inkjet
prints, say off an Epson 4800 using the K3 inkset, perhaps the issue could
be looked at in a slightly different way, based on the following
hypoetheses - you can tell me whether I have it right or wrong. The shape
of the in-gamut colour space for an Epson 4800/paper combination is
different from the working spaces known as say sRGB, RGB(98), ProPhoto RGB.
Problems only arise for colours in the image file that are out of the
Epson's gamut. Photoshop will handle gamut compression differently
depending on choice of rendering intent and the working space embedded in
the file relative to the output working space. Whether the result is
satisfactory or not depends on which colours are being compressed in which
way and how the result looks to the viewer - a determination which must be
image-specific, because the relative importance and appearance of various
colours changes from image to image. If so, this would suggest that there
may not be a universally valid proposition about which colour space and
which rendering intent is "best" for inkjet printers - that like
so many other things in Photoshop these are simply options from which to
chose in the process of optimizing image quality one photo at a time.
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 10:25:08 -0400
From: Ric Cohn
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
On Apr 4, 2006, at 12:34 AM, dmargulisnj wrote:
What I would really like to see from somebody is the
following
demonstration.
1) I have a high-quality output device with brilliant
white paper.
2) I have a file in Adobe RGB that prints to my
satisfaction.
3) If I go Convert to Profile>sRGB and print that,
with all
profiles being honored correctly, the result is clearly
worse.
I have an image that might fit the bill.
Coincidentally, 2 weeks ago I needed to create an image that is virtually a
"poster child" for CMYK cyan vs RGB. I needed to shift a Blue
watercolor brush stroke to Cyan. I did this in lab, trying to bring the
color close to the edge of the CMYK gamut, before converting it to AdobeRGB
for final tweaks before converting to CMYK.
I just printed it in it's original AdobeRGB then did a
Convert to sRGB. I can see the color get duller on screen. IMHO the
AdobeRGB file definitely prints better on my printer- both more colorful
and with more detail in the brightest areas.
A few caviotes: 1. The colors all preview as being
within the US Web Coated Swop V2 gamut. However, they do not preview as
fitting within my Inkjet printer's gamut. The file definitely prints better
as AdobeRGB, however the most intense cyan still blocks up more than I'd
expect in CMYK. I will be seeing a press printed piece from this file in a
few weeks and then I'll know for sure. However, this does print
"to my satisfaction" on my inkjet using AdobeRGB and not
with sRGB.
2. This image previews on screen better using Relative.
I tested this with the AdobeRGB file when I first did the adjustments and
it prints better from Relative as well. I used this setting.
3. I don't know if the limitations are created by my
printer profile or by the actual ink jet inks. I don't think this matters
for this test.
4. I use custom profiles where AdobeRGB is recommended
as the source space. It's possible that the profile doesn't handle sRGB as
well, although I've never noticed a difference before. I do know that
these profiles do not handle Lab files well.
If Dan is interested I could send him the file and
prints.
Ric Cohn
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:03:00 -0400
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
The following interesting post came to me this morning
from a list member who requested that his name be deleted for reasons to
which I am sympathetic (see below).
******FORWARDED MESSAGE*******
Subj: RE: [colortheory -- offlist] Re: Has Anyone Tried
This
4/4/2006 10:40:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time
To: "'dmargulisnj'" <Dan Margulis
Dan,
I rarely (ok, never) post to the list, but I skim
it, and I've read all your
books (which have of course proved hugely
beneficial to me).
Anyway, I have a small drum scanning business,
and the colorspace gamut
issue rears its head from time to time; from
personal experience I can
definitely say that the most problematic area is
having colors in-gamut in
the image colorspace pulled into the restricted
gamut of the output device,
in a slightly (or not so slightly) different way
versus the monitor image.
Unfortunately, there have been a lot of
articles/advice floating around
lately that have encouraged people to demand very
large gamut colorspaces
for digital files, with a corresponding increase
in the problems,
particularly with less fully sophisticated users
(which are, of course, the
dominant breed). I have actually found that
I sleep better (with much less
interruption) if, when a naïve client
demands a large-gamut colorspace
(naiveté identified as someone who places
much emphasis on the colorspace
demand, or someone who demands ProPhoto RGB, or
somesuch), I convert the
scan first to sRGB, then convert to their
requested colorspace. Voila! The
image is in their colorspace of choice, but with
no surprises as it gets
further constrained on their output device.
Some may scream that this is somehow dishonest
(please don't post this with
my name attached!), but I have yet to have a
single client complaint. And,
try as I might, I have yet to find an image where
this causes any
significant issues. I do pay particular
attention to logos and the like,
looking for areas where there may be a
substantial problem, but it seems to
me that most logos and such are designed to
reproduce accurately on a wide
variety of output devices, so are not a problem
in practice. In short, this
practice throws the theory to the wind, but has
greatly reduced my
problems.....
As a side note, I really wish that those
so-called experts who unduly
promote gamut size as the most important aspect
of a colorspace would sit
down and really try some real-world tests: they
would quickly find that
gamut size is actually more often the opponent of
Quality rather than an
ally.
(As a parenthetical note, if you ever really want
to see banding, simply
create a maximally large colorspace definition
and convert images to that
workspace. Sure, this may be cheating in
some sense, but extremism in
banishment of vises needs no moderation. Or
something like that....)
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 09:55:32 -0600
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
From: John Castronovo
Since when has such logic stood in the way of pinching
a penny in the 21st
century?
Hi John... I don't think it does or will stand in the
way of pinching pennies for a fair portion of our clientele. I think the
competitive challenge for the pro lab is: Providing services, sizes and
materials that will likely remain outside the scope of BB stores, actively
marketing those attributes that set the pro lab apart, including value
added by technical expertise, and embracing what we've learned from those
leading and shaping the market.
A comment was made on this thread concerning 'foot
dragging' by <some> pro labs in response to things such as online
ordering and discounted work provided by the BB stores. I had to chew on
this for a while, as my initial thought was defensive in nature... not a
productive way to answer the challenge.
The BB stores have the resources to quickly design and
implement such value-added services as online ordering, and the staying
power to offer deep discounts while developing their market. The vast
majority of labs do not possess these resources.
Most labs are not in a position to *lead* the market
through the often costly implementation of innovative services and pricing.
We have this nasty and annoying need to run profitably each month, because
when we don't... we lack the luxury of potato chip and underwear sales to
make up the difference.
There is an opportunity there though, to piggyback on
the momentum created by the marketing resources and savvy of others. Were
it not for the investments made by big business to promote digital imaging
equipment and print services to the mass market, we would all be years
behind capitalizing on its potential in our small businesses. They have, in
fact, helped us to educate an entire market about the possibilities of
digital imaging... and created an opportunity for us to do something with
it in our businesses.
The BB stores taught the nation that quality
photographic prints could be made from digital files - just like the old
days of film, and got a lot of people to mothball their clunky, slow,
expensive-to-run inkjet printers in favor of affordable and convenient
digital photographic printing services. Not so many years ago, it was
feared that inkjet printing spelled doom for minilabs and pro labs alike.
At least for the time being, that fear has practically disappeared.
We benefited from this, and can further benefit by
paying attention to emerging trends that are continuing to unfold. Online
ordering is now an affordable addition to most any labs service because of
software/service vendors like Life Pics.
Life Pics made a huge investment to develop the
software and supporting infrastructure for online ordering, and made it
available for labs to implement on their own websites for a nominal cut of
the sales it generates. Thanks to the BB player's efforts behind this
trend, half of our customers (if not more) are ready and comfortable to use
online ordering with very little effort on our part other than putting it
on our site.
Will we be nothing more than a service bureau in a few
years? I don't know, I see something like that coming but I feel also that
there will continue to be a need for cutting edge, professional, custom
services to support the consumer, prosumer and professional markets.
I believe there is a window of opportunity created when
a market-leader sets a trend into motion. A period of time when one with
fewer resources can choose to follow the market using what they have
learned and taking advantage of the momentum created by others. And too,
one can wait too long and find their potential share of the pie has been
consumed by the competition.
I once thought that looking into, and planning for the
future about 10 years out was reasonable. I'd say it's about a third of
that now. Whatever we choose to do now, had better be up and running, pay
for itself, make a profit and be ready to change to something new within
three years. Knowing this keeps me on my toes, keeps me awake at night, and
hopefully keeps me in a position to stay in business for myself for a few
more years at a time.
Regards,
Les De Moss
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 16:34:26 -0000
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
But notwithstanding all
that, for many purposes of photography "process
control" is a combination of
art, science and intent, hence considerably broader
than what the corner
mini-lab brings to the table even if all of them were
perfectly synchronized. It
is in that sense I truly wonder about the role of this
topic in the context of
"Professional Photoshop" as we know it -
"ah, but therein perhaps lies the rub"
- are we being treated to a new and different
Professional Photoshop, not as
we know it? Looking forward..............
Every version of Professional Photoshop is new and
different--there's never been one that wasn't at least 50% different from
the predecessor edition. The forthcoming one will be at least 80% different
from the current version.
If the query above is whether I hope to make some of
the theory more accessible, definitely yes. If it's whether I intend to do
step-by-step killer tips or discuss specific makes of printer, no. The idea
of the book is that without understanding the basic concepts the reader's
future is limited.
As for the general topic of calibration, it should be
pointed out that every edition of Professional Photoshop has made
suggestions that were controversial at the time but became the conventional
wisdom three to five years later. I don't know whether that will be the
case this time, because the Conventional Color Management Wisdom in the
last four years has evolved to the point that it's no longer really
distinguishable from mine. However, there is still room for discussion of
basic principles, such as, how would you accomplish all this calibration if
you did not have access to third-party tools or specialized hardware.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 12:59:17 -0400
From: "Mark Segal"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
I've done the extremism thing and I'm sitting in front
of the results as I type. I created a series of 8 colour bands that the
Color Picker says are 100% of each: R, G, B C, Y, M,K and level 128 gray. I
printed the files respectively starting from ARGB(98) and ProPhotoRGB
colour spaces using Photoshop CS2 on photocopy paper using an HP business
inkjet printer. I did it this way to maximize the compression problem
between the file data and the output space. Green, grey and black printed
pretty much the same for both. For the other colours, the results look like
this:
Red: a bit more orange in RGB(98); a bit more cyan in
ProPhoto, differences visible but not shocking.
Blue: jet-black in ProPhoto, purplish in RGB(98); I
would say a failure in both, but RGB(98) is at least in the right
ball-park.
Cyan: reasonably cyan in ProPhoto; sky-blue in RGB(98).
ProPhoto wins here.
Magenta: good magenta in ProPhoto; cyannish magenta in
RGB(98); ProPhoto wins here.
Yellow: Good yellow in ProPhoto; lime-yellow in
RGB(98); ProPhoto wins here.
Now of course this little exercise isn't conclusive.
For one thing, the printer was managing the colours because it is not
profiled. Perhaps I should try the same thing on my colour-managed Epson
4800 using Enhanced Matte (I expect the results gaps between these colour
spaces may close considerably), and perhaps I should include sRGB in the
mix, to provide a three-way comparison. But the quickie I've done does give
one pause to consider that perhaps not one shoe fits all.
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:23:51 -0400
From: Henry
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
I'll go ahead and make this comparison and take the
replies in stride. A number of years ago, a lab hoped that creating a
proprietary process would gain it market share, or at least allow it to
compete and survive. You had to use their film and their processing.
Processing their film at other labs led to ruined exposures.
Processing other "standard" film at their lab produced the
same ruined exposures. But, if you use their stuff, it works.
Now, Dan has related this to us from anonymous:
I have actually found that I sleep better (with much
less
interruption) if, when a naïve client
demands a large-gamut colorspace
(naiveté identified as someone who places much
emphasis on the colorspace
demand, or someone who demands ProPhoto RGB, or
somesuch), I convert the
scan first to sRGB, then convert to their requested
colorspace. Voila! The
image is in their colorspace of choice, but with
no surprises as it gets
further constrained on their output device.
This sounds to me to be somewhat the same ploy, only
different. Are proponents of "Super Gamuts" innocently
expanding gamuts for the good of all, or is their another motive?
This is not an accusation, it is just a question.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 13:32:23 -0400
From: "Mark Segal"
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
If the query above is whether I hope to make some of
the theory more accessible,
definitely yes. If it's whether I intend to do
step-by-step killer tips or
discuss specific makes of printer, no. The idea of the
book is that without
understanding the basic concepts the reader's future is
limited.
For clarity, the former - making the theory more
accessible. Agreed - printers and killer tips are here today, gone
tomorrow; whereas basic concepts are basic concepts, they have staying
power and need to be understood.
And now that I know the new book will be 80% different
from the old one, I'm counting on keeping both. Still looking forward to
seeing how you will relate the discussion of mini-labs to basic concepts -
I imagine it will be somehow related to general calibration issues, but of
course I'm just imagining in a very general way what you already know in
detail , so still looking forward........................
Mark Segal
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:58:20 -0400
From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This?
Mark Segal writes,
Then you invite us to submit evidence in respect of an
sRGB image printing worse than an RGB image. Well, not quite what you are
asking for and I don't have them on-hand, but I've produced prints where
RGB(98) worked better for me than ProPhoto RGB, and vice-versa. This
experience got me to start thinking that perhaps there is no rule and no
line to draw. Hence, when dealing with inkjet prints, say off an Epson 4800
using the K3 inkset, perhaps the issue could be looked at in a slightly
different way, based on the following hypoetheses - you can tell me whether
I have it right or wrong. The shape of the in-gamut colour space for an
Epson 4800/paper combination is different from the working spaces known as
say sRGB, RGB(98), ProPhoto RGB. Problems only arise for colours in the
image file that are out of the Epson's gamut. Photoshop will handle gamut
compression differently depending on choice of rendering intent and the
working space embedded in the file relative to the output working space.
Whether the result is satisfactory or not depends on which colours are
being compressed in which way and how the result looks to the viewer - a
determination which must be image-specific, because the relative importance
and appearance of various colours changes from image to image.
Correct. Another way of stating it is that when you
attempt to convert a color that is radically out of gamut you're likely to
get a random-generator result. I showed examples of this in Canyon
Conundrum, where a seriously colorful LAB file that went LAB>CMYK got an
entirely different result from when it went LAB>RGB>CMYK.
When the results are random-generator, sometimes you'll
like them and sometimes not, as you state above. It seems, though, that one
could take control of the process in a variety of ways in order to avoid
such randomness on output.
If so, this would suggest that there may not be a
universally valid proposition about which colour space and which rendering
intent is "best" for inkjet printers - that like so many other
things in Photoshop these are simply options from which to chose in the
process of optimizing image quality one photo at a time.
That is exactly right. It's why people assign false
profiles to documents, among other things. Calibrationists think that all
images are alike, and that the conversion method that works for one must
work for another. In real life, we get plenty of images that obviously
don't have any colors that are out of the output device's gamut. In that
case, working with anything other than a narrow-gamut RGB and relative
colorimetric rendering has no benefit and possibly may cause problems. On
the other side are images like the one described by Ric in another post,
where he has to produce a very pure pastel cyan yet hold detail. This type
of image screams out that sRGB may not be adequate.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 02:32:53 -0000
From: "dmargulisnj"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This
Ric Cohn writes,
I have an image that might fit the bill.
Coincidentally, 2 weeks ago
I needed to create an image that is virtually a
"poster child" for
CMYK cyan vs RGB. I needed to shift a Blue watercolor
brush stroke to
Cyan. I did this in lab, trying to bring the color
close to the edge
of the CMYK gamut, before converting it to AdobeRGB for
final tweaks
before converting to CMYK.
This is exactly the sort of challenging picture that
ought to provoke the problem, if it is indeed possible to do so.
If Dan is interested I could send him the file and
prints.
Certainly I would like to see them. You have my
address; please send by snail mail, though, since I will be leaving for
Russia/London early next week.
Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 07:05:07 -0400
From: todie
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
This sounds to me to be somewhat the same ploy, only
different. Are
proponents of "Super Gamuts" innocently
expanding gamuts for the good
of all, or is their another motive? This is not
an accusation, it is
just a question.
I've been doing the same thing at ColorEdge, working
files in Lambda's space and converting to Adobe RGB for the clients.
(resizing by one pixel too, to smooth the histogram : )
Laurentiu Todie
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:23:20 -0700
From: Marco Ugolini
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
In a message dated 4/4/06 10:23 AM, Henry wrote:
This sounds to me to be somewhat the same ploy, only
different. Are
proponents of "Super Gamuts" innocently
expanding gamuts for the good
of all, or is there another motive? This is not
an accusation, it is
just a question.
Hi Henry.
"Another motive", such as what, possibly, for
example?
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 12:24:01 -0400
From: Henry
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
Marco,
I was alluding to the example in the beginning of my
post. My assumption was that the company was making a different film
and process in order to separate them from their competitors. Here is
what I wrote:
"A number of years ago, a lab hoped that creating
a proprietary process would gain it market share, or at least allow it to
compete and survive. You had to use their film and their processing.
Processing their film at other labs led to ruined exposures.
Processing other "standard" film at their lab produced the
same ruined exposures. But, if you use their stuff, it
works."
It might be tempting for a lab or service bureau to
advertise the use of some "Super Gamut" that would set them apart
from their competition. Business "A" uses sRGB,
"B" uses AdobeRGB, "C" uses ProRGB, "D" uses
Super Colossal Deluxe RGB etc.
Henry Davis
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 13:26:32 -0300
From: "Antonio Garcia"
Subject: RE: Has anyone tried this?
"It's why people assign false profiles to
documents, among other things.
Calibrationists think that all images are alike, and
that the conversion
method that works for one must work for another. In
real life, we get
plenty of images that obviously don't have any colors
that are out of the
output device's gamut. In that case, working with
anything other than a
narrow-gamut RGB and relative colorimetric rendering
has no benefit and
possibly may cause problems.
Ok.
But, in that case, how can you know that
an image "obviously don't have any colors that are out of the output
device's gamut" before you made the profile ?
or how can you know the right size
of your gamut without a measurement and an ICC profile?
Im my specific case, an Epson
9800...
Antonio Garcia
--
...........................................
Antonio Garcia Fotografia
[21] 8111-4149
http://www.antoniogarcia.com.br
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 10:43:30 -0600
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
From: "Henry"
... Business "A" uses sRGB,
"B" uses AdobeRGB, "C" uses ProRGB, "D" uses
Super Colossal Deluxe RGB etc.
Oh, you mean scdRGB? We've been promoting that for
years!!
Les De Moss
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 10:14:07 -0700
From: "J Walton"
Subject: Re: RE: Has anyone tried this?
On 4/5/06, Antonio Garcia wrote:
But, in that case, how can you know
that an image "obviously don't have
any colors that are out of the output device's
gamut" before you made the
profile ?
When it's obvious, you should know. A sepia-tone image
obviously doesn't have colors outside the gamut of any professional device.
A photo taken of downtown San Francisco on this gloomy
day would obviously not challenge the gamut of your inkjet printer.
I don't know of anyone who is suggesting that you not
make a profile of your printer, or that you not choose carefully the
working space for your image. Dan's take seems to be that a person avoid
using a wide-gamut RGB (or even AdobeRGB) as a default without considering
the image and output.
-----
J Walton
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 11:53:12 -0600
From: "Les De Moss"
Subject: Re: RE: Has anyone tried this?
From: "J Walton"
Dan's take seems to be that a person avoid using a
wide-gamut RGB (or even AdobeRGB) as a default without
considering the
image and output.
While this comment would not hold true for any of the
professionals on this list... The understanding of color gamut by those of
less experience is much like that of resolution.... Bigger Must Be Better.
The idea that either of these two attributes ought to be determined by the
intended usage is foreign to some and incomprehensible to still others.
I'm forced to hold back a snicker when the unsuspecting
requests the 'highest resolution' scan we can make from their slide, and
when told that will be an 80MB file, they scratch their head wondering how
long that will take to email to Aunt Mary.
Intended usage is everything. If for some reason that
is unknown at the time of the scan, such as archiving for (re)purposing at
some future date, then that is the only time I can imagine a very wide
color space and resolution being justified.
Les De Moss
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:01:18 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
on 4/4/06 11:03 AM, Dan Margulis at Dan Margulis wrote:
As a side note, I really wish that those so-called
experts who unduly
promote gamut size as the most important aspect of a
colorspace would sit
down and really try some real-world tests: they would
quickly find that
gamut size is actually more often the opponent of
Quality rather than an
ally.
Dan, Reading this I'm reminded that I too slept
easily through my RGB sins. Though I'm using the word "sin" for a
cheap laugh.
With a Crosfield drum scanner we'd scan customers
transparencies direct to CMYK. The conversion was on-the-fly, no option to
scan in RGB. The scanner was 8-bit color and with it's superb optics
capable of delivering amazing tonal definition, sharpness and color.
When asked, we'd deliver RGB files (AdobeRGB mode via
Photoshop, sRGB wasn't in use). At times, after compositing and retouching,
we'd deliver a new 4x5 or 8x10 transparency. This was output at a digital
photo lab from the RGB files.
All the photographers we worked with at that time knew
we scanned direct to CMYK and none complained about the resultant color
gamut. Today I'm sure I'd have a different reaction. One thing they did ask
was why we didn't buy a 12, 14 or 16-bit desktop scanner.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 22:46:17 -0400
From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
Lee,
With due respect, I have to report that as one who was
running scans such as your to film recorders to make new transparencies, we
always knew that an RGB scan would've been preferable. Reds are an obvious
problem from scans that were set up to favor press conditions. Blotchy
shadows and over-sharpening are another. Besides, complaining did no good
because there was no way to get an RGB scan from the Crossfiled owners
anyway, although it is possible. They'd only take the CMYK and convert it
to RGB anyway which was worse than getting the original file. It's hard to
appreciate the difference unless you've seen better.
-best
john castronovo
___________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 11:12:02 -0400
From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: Has Anyone Tried This (gamuts)
John,
The scanner was re-set (no batch scans) for film
emulsions with our custom calibration. Even with an output CAL set-ups to
match Fuij/Ekta/Kodachrome film I knew more than anyone in the studio what
was there and not, no getting around that it was a CMYK color. In addition
at the time I understood less about color gamut then I do today. And
regardless of what I'll say below I agree with you (expect for blotchy
shadows and over sharpening, I hated that too).
We had a mix of design work from these clients and the
RGB work included output to transparency for display graphics and retouched
portraits. At the time none of our clients could take the scans and load
them on a computer to do real design, color edit and retouching work. When
needed we'd tweak color on the computer. I agree with the original
(unsigned post) that there are qualities other than color that work
together to make a great photographic image.
We did our best then to insure we had all as good as we
could even with color gamut that was lacking. Five years ago digital images
coming off our photographers Phase-One digital back on a 4x5 reminded me of
the overall quality we get from the Crosfield. Today's cameras do better.
Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
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