Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory

A Few Statements to Validate

   Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 12:29:57 -0500
   From: Martin Benoit
Subject: A few statements to validate

Hello,

My name is Martin Benoit and I teach in a 3-year photography program in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

I would like to check with you that these concepts are not too off-track before I pass them on to my students. Keep in mind that the students are photographers.

Here are the statements :

1-As photographers, if your clients insist on receiving CMYK files instead of RGB, give them CMYK files separated according to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 unless they specify the separation parameters.

2-If you have to shoot .jpg 8 bits/channel, use sRGB color space instead of Adobe 98. Since the space is smaller and your depth is shallower, the increments between each color step will be smaller, and you will diminish banding throughout the process even if you feel that you are sacrificing color gamut. Anyway, most printing situations cannot exploit the wide gamut of Adobe 98.

3-Try to work in RGB as much as possible. Give RGB files to your client instead of CMYK. It is the prepress people who really know how to convert to CMYK because it is their field, and they are the one who really know how the files will be used.

4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still use the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your file. (lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

5-Do not over-sharpen your files. Leave that job to the prepress people, who know how much sharpening will do a good job for their setup and the final magnification and lpi.

6-Ask your client for the final output (press) icc profile to be able to preview the final appearance of your image in Photoshop . If the client cannot provide you with the profile or doesnxt know what you're talking about,preview in CMYK U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

7-In North America the norm is still D55 in the viewing booth, but may shift soon to D65.

8-On the other hand, people tend to set their monitor to 6500K, gamma 2.2.

9-Adobe98 is the preferred color space as a general-purpose color space When you donxt know the requirements of your client, but use it only if you Shoot in Adobe98. Do not shoot in sRGB and then convert to Adobe98 to please Your client, because in that conversion you will lose more than if you keep SRGB as the final space.

10-Try to shoot in 16 bits/channel. Keep your files in 16 bits for as long as you can, and do the conversion to 8 bits as late as possible, or even let your client do it.

Thank you for your concern

Martin Benoit
Dep't of photography
CEGEP du Vieux-Montreal
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   Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 12:56:55 -0600
   From: Jim Bean
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

hello martin, if you were to provide the cmyk files and you deferred the sharpening to the prepress people.. very likely it would never get done.. correctly.  Depending on the image (and how many) there are basic strategies that target the areas that demand sharpening.
.
never would I have believed that hammering the k plate (as aggressively as dan m demonstrates) would greatly improve those printed images..   It works, strategic sharpening is a requirment, not an option.  you might consider spending a few lessons on those techniques.  Quality sharpening techniques separates the good from the better.    all the best, jim bean
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   Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 11:46:26 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

On 3/1/05 10:29 AM, "Martin Benoit" wrote:

1-As photographers, if your clients insist on receiving CMYK files
instead of RGB, give them CMYK files separated according to U.S. Web Coated
(SWOP) v2 unless they specify the separation parameters.

ONLY if that is how the press behaves (as U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 which is based on TR001 definition of SWOP). If not, all bets are off.

2-If you have to shoot .jpg 8 bits/channel, use sRGB color space instead of
Adobe 98. Since the space is smaller and your depth is shallower, the
increments between each color step will be smaller, and you will diminish
banding throughout the process even if you feel that you are sacrificing
color gamut. Anyway, most printing situations cannot exploit the wide gamut
of Adobe 98.

Well sure, all youxve said is true expect the part about most printing situations cannot exploit Adobe RGB (1998). SWOP (specifically U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) is wider then sRGB but fully contained in Adobe RGB (1998). If saturated greens and cyans are important to you, youxd be able to output those colors in Adobe RGB (1998) to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 and not using sRGB to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP).

3-Try to work in RGB as much as possible. Give RGB files to your client
instead of CMYK. It is the prepress people who really know how to
convert to CMYK because it is their field, and they are the one who really
know how the files will be used.

Big IF. Ixd ask your clients to sign off on some paper work that the RGB data youxre providing is good and that anything that happens after that (like a really poor CMYK conversion) isnxt your problem nor will you be held responsible if something goes wrong. Itxs real easy to hose data after providing an RGB file and I donxt see why you should be held responsible.

4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still use
the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your file.
(lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

I personally use 1.5 over 133lpi.

5-Do not over-sharpen your files. Leave that job to the prepress people, who
know how much sharpening will do a good job for their setup and the final
magnification and lpi.

Again, it depends on the skill of the person doing the sharpening which should be done at output rez, based on output device and image content. I would say itxs better to under sharpen then over sharpen. You might want to read this:

http://www.pixelgenius.com/sharpener/why.html

6-Ask your client for the final output (press) icc profile to be able to
preview the final appearance of your image in Photoshop . If the client
cannot provide you with the profile or doesnxt know what you're talking
about,preview in CMYK U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

Same issues as #1 above.

7-In North America the norm is still D55 in the viewing booth, but may
shift soon to D65.

D50 although no light box produces this.

9-Adobe98 is the preferred color space as a general-purpose color space
When you don't know the requirements of your client, but use it only if you
Shoot in Adobe98. Do not shoot in sRGB and then convert to Adobe98 to please
Your client, because in that conversion you will lose more than if you keep
SRGB as the final space.

Shooting in sRGB and converting to Adobe buys you nothing unless youxre pasting that data into another document that is in Adobe RGB (1998).

Ixd say shoot RAW, decide how you want to render and then encode the data into a color working space. These are two separate processes. The rendering from RAW to say sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998) done in camera is totally a process based on how the manufacturer of the camera feels they are producing pleasing color. Itxs totally ambiguous, much like the Perceptual rendering intent in output profiles (the encoding into the color space after rendering is standard and non ambiguous).

10-Try to shoot in 16 bits/channel. Keep your files in 16 bits for as
long as you can, and do the conversion to 8 bits as late as possible,
or even let your client do it.

Sure if the file size/workflow doesnxt become a factor. IF you ask the camera to do the internal rendering and encoding, you get 8-bit color! If you ask for RAW, youxll usually have control over the rendering, what working space you want to encode that into AND end up with more then 8-bit per color data.

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
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   Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 12:26:55 -0700
   From: Ron Kelly
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Martin:

As you would expect, there are some I would agree with, and some not.

 1-As photographers, if your clients insist on receiving CMYK files
 instead of RGB, give them CMYK files separated according to U.S. Web Coated
 (SWOP) v2 unless they specify the separation parameters.

FIne.

 2-If you have to shoot .jpg 8 bits/channel, use sRGB color space  instead of
 Adobe 98. Since the space is smaller and your depth is shallower, the
 increments between each color step will be smaller, and you will diminish
 banding throughout the process even if you feel that you are sacrificing
 color gamut. Anyway, most printing situations cannot exploit the wide gamut
 of Adobe 98.

Sure.

 3-Try to work in RGB as much as possible. Give RGB files to your client
 instead of CMYK. It is the prepress people who really know how to
 convert to CMYK because it is their field, and they are the one who really
 know how the files will be used.

Depends; don't assume that you are handing things off to an expert.

 4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still use
 the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your file.
 (lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

Also depends; but nothing is so common as excessive resolution.

 5-Do not over-sharpen your files. Leave that job to the prepress people, who
 know how much sharpening will do a good job for their setup and the final
 magnification and lpi.

Yes, if you ask them to do it and they are good. As before, don't assume that you are handing things to an expert.

 6-Ask your client for the final output (press) icc profile to be able to
 preview the final appearance of your image in Photoshop . If the client
 cannot provide you with the profile or doesnxt know what you're talking
 about,preview in CMYK U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

Yes.

 7-In North America the norm is still D55 in the viewing booth, but may
 shift soon to D65.

Can't say.

 8-On the other hand, people tend to set their monitor to 6500K, gamma
 2.2.

Don't know.

 9-Adobe98 is the preferred color space as a general-purpose color space
 When you donxt know the requirements of your client, but use it only if you
 Shoot in Adobe98. Do not shoot in sRGB and then convert to Adobe98 to please
 Your client, because in that conversion you will lose more than if you keep
 SRGB as the final space.

Probably.

 10-Try to shoot in 16 bits/channel. Keep your files in 16 bits for as
 long as you can, and do the conversion to 8 bits as late as possible,
 or even let your client do it.

Nope. 16bits/channel is likely to be a complete waste of bandwidth and time. There *MAY* be circumstances where it is worth it, but they are very few and/or unproven to exist.

Ron Kelly
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   Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 22:32:44 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

The students need to be aware that this is a dynamic field that requires thinking for themselves. By all means present the concepts, but you need to point out that there is no consensus on most of them.

It's surprising, in a way, that such simple-sounding things would be controversial, but I think that there would be differing expert opinions on eight of these ten questions. (The only ones that I would expect consensus on are #6, with which I think everyone would agree, and #7, which, unless there is some trend in lighting booths that I'm unaware of, everyone would disagree with.)

Personally, I agree with three of your ten statements, I agree with two others with reservations, I disagree with four and disagree with one with reservations. Other people would reach different conclusions.

However, we are speaking only in broad generalities, about people of whom we know no more than that they are beginning photographers. As we know more about the individual, the recommendations might change

So, while it's OK to present your recommendations (provided that you stress that they are *your* recommendations, which may not agree with those of other people) you need to stress that unless the students are able to recognize situations in which those recommendations become questionable, they will find themselves joining the ranks of the many photographers who hung their hats on various nostrums without knowing what they really meant, and got left behind by the advance of understanding in the field.

Dan Margulis
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   Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 22:10:35 -0800
   From: "Darren & Leanne Bernaerdt"
Subject: RE: A few statements to validate

Martin,

I'd like to add my two cents to this as I get the opportunity to teach photography & Photoshop at one of our local colleges, shoot professionally and also do a lot color correction for images destined for print.

1-As photographers, if your clients insist on receiving CMYK files
instead of RGB, give them CMYK files separated according to U.S. Web Coated
(SWOP) v2 unless they specify the separation parameters.

I believe it's better to hand off a CMYK file that has been converted to a common flavor of CMYK that every version of Photoshop ships with, than to throw up your hands in despair if you can't obtain a custom ICC profile from your printer. Here on the Westcoast of Canada I have run across very, very few printers that can supply a CMYK profile to be used for RGB to CMYK conversions. Given the variability that's possible on press, I'd rather make educated decisions about the printing conditions after a discussion with whomever can supply as much relevant information as possible about how the job will be printed. I will then use the (admitted ancient) Custom CMYK option in the Color Settings dialogue box in Photoshop.

2-If you have to shoot .jpg 8 bits/channel, use sRGB color space instead of
Adobe 98. Since the space is smaller and your depth is shallower, the
increments between each color step will be smaller, and you will diminish
banding throughout the process even if you feel that you are sacrificing
color gamut. Anyway, most printing situations cannot exploit the wide gamut
of Adobe 98.

I believe that there are not a lot of naturally occurring colors outside the sRGB gamut, however this really depends on what you're shooting. Coming from a decade of medium format digital back experience, I'm a firm believer in shooting raw.

3-Try to work in RGB as much as possible. Give RGB files to your client
instead of CMYK. It is the prepress people who really know how to
convert to CMYK because it is their field, and they are the one who really
know how the files will be used.

Sure, if your files are going to be posted on the Web. My experience has been that I (especially as the photographer) am in a much better position to make the conversion to CMYK and manage those colors that are out of gamut, shape that needs to be re-built, etc. Give your students the education on working in CMYK and they will turn out better files, plus be able to bill for an additional service. For those service bureaus/printers/EPP depts. that take great care in the conversions - thank you. I wish there were more of you in the world.

4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still
use the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your
file. (lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

Depends on the subject matter and screening (conventional versus stochastic). This could work fine, however what do you do with those folk who demand 300ppi images no matter how the job is being printed?
 
5-Do not over-sharpen your files. Leave that job to the prepress people,
who know how much sharpening will do a good job for their setup and the
final magnification and lpi.

You're setting yourself up for a big fall if you are not able to guarantee that they will actually look at your file. Who pays the bill for the proofs that are run straight out from your files when the client doesn't like the soft images?

6-Ask your client for the final output (press) icc profile to be able to
preview the final appearance of your image in Photoshop . If the client
cannot provide you with the profile or doesnxt know what you're talking
about,preview in CMYK U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

See ques 1. If your job isn't SWOP conditions (ie, on newsprint or sheetfed), then this is not appropriate.

7-In North America the norm is still D55 in the viewing booth, but may
shift soon to D65.

Don't know what the trends are in this area. I believe you are more likely to find a 5000K light source than true D50 conditions.

8-On the other hand, people tend to set their monitor to 6500K, gamma
2.2.

Sure, except if you're dealing with a traditional Mac user that still uses a 1.8 gamma.

9-Adobe98 is the preferred color space as a general-purpose color space
when you donxt know the requirements of your client, but use it only if you
shoot in Adobe98. Do not shoot in sRGB and then convert to Adobe98 to
please your client, because in that conversion you will lose more than if
you keep SRGB as the final space.

I think I understand your question correctly - yes, shooting in sRGB and converting to AdobeRGB gains you nothing. As to the flavor of RGB that you choose to work in and what you supply, there are a great many sources of opinion out there. This topic has been debated on this list ad nauseum. My personal workflow is based upon ColorMatch RGB, FWIW.

10-Try to shoot in 16 bits/channel. Keep your files in 16 bits for as
long as you can, and do the conversion to 8 bits as late as possible,
or even let your client do it.

Without igniting the whole 16 bit versus 8 bit argument again, I'll just say that shooting in high bit (ie, a raw file) is a great way to go. How long you want to carry that 16 bit down the pipe is your choice. It looks like doing the 16 bit to 8 bit conversion in Photoshop often outperforms the conversion in the camera manufacturer's software. Leaving the conversion to your client is just one more thing that can get forgotten in production. Supply 8 bit.

Darren Bernaerdt
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   Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 07:09:58 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

On 3/1/05 11:10 PM, "Darren & Leanne Bernaerdt"  wrote:

I believe that there are not a lot of naturally occurring colors outside the
sRGB gamut, however this really depends on what you're shooting. Coming from
a decade of medium format digital back experience, I'm a firm believer in
shooting raw.

Actually there are LOTS of naturally occurring colors outside of sRGB. If you shoot RAW and have a good converter like Adobe Camera RAW, just shoot something like a Macbeth DC or SG color checker and look at the histogram in sRGB versus other working space. I routinely find images that I need to convert into ProPhoto RGB because the scene contains colors outside of even Adobe RGB (1998). This is nicely illustrated with each color that clips in the ACR histogram. Toggle the working space and you1ll see this. Keep in mind what sRGB really is. It1s an encoding space and a working space based on the specific behaviors of a CRT display down to the phosphors, gamma, chromaticity and even ambient light in which this display is producing color. The sRGB color space IS a specific description of a specific display. There are lots of output devices (print and now display) that produce some ranges of hue that fall outside sRGB in a big way!

Don't know what the trends are in this area. I believe you are more likely
to find a 5000K light source than true D50 conditions.

The light box has a correlated color temperature of 5000K. Then there1s the spiky spectral response of Fluorescent tubes (low Color Rendering Index if you put faith in the CIE1s measure of color quality).

Sure, except if you're dealing with a traditional Mac user that still uses a
1.8 gamma.

Actually not. There1s no reason to set a display to a 1.8 TRC gamma. The native gamma of the CRT is very close to 2.2. There1s no difference between a CRT for a Mac or a CRT for a PC. The Operating system is assuming a 1.8 TRC Gamma on the Mac (which is dumb and was placed there for legacy reasons dating back to the LaswerWriter). The best TRC gamma is the native gamma. If you have say a Sony Artisan, you can actually measure and hit that exact value. Otherwise guessing 2.2 is far closer to the native gamma of the display. Why use native? Because any adjustments past the native behavior of the display has to be conducted at the video card on 8bit data and you introduce banding (display banding, not image banding). Mac users should calibrate to a TRC gamma of 2.2. Outside smart ICC aware applications like Photoshop, things will appear a bit dark. In ICC aware applications, they will not only appear fine but provide a smoother display of images due to the lack of adjustment at the video card level. Apple should have killed this 1.8 legacy with OS X but were under pressure to keep things 3backward compatible".

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 10:45:06 -0700
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

1-As photographers, if your clients insist on receiving CMYK files
instead of RGB, give them CMYK files separated according to U.S. Web Coated
(SWOP) v2 unless they specify the separation parameters.

For first and possibly second year students, sure why not. But I think it's useful to introduce 3rd year students to more sophisticated techniques in order to make them more competitive in a hostile market. At least offer a more advanced course as an option.

2-If you have to shoot .jpg 8 bits/channel, use sRGB color space instead of
Adobe 98. Since the space is smaller and your depth is shallower, the
increments between each color step will be smaller, and you will diminish
banding throughout the process even if you feel that you are sacrificing
color gamut. Anyway, most printing situations cannot exploit the wide gamut
of Adobe 98.

The recommendation of space has more to do with the kind of photography, due to the implied final destination. Adobe RGB (1998) vs. sRGB isn't going to add up to noticeable banding except perhaps in extreme situations. A better reason for using sRGB for the uninitiated, is that there is less propensity for sRGB blues to head toward purplish blue than Adobe RGB (1998) blues.

Wedding and portrait photographers will be best served from a simple point of view to use sRGB because there are so many labs they will be sending their images to that always assume sRGB. Fine art photographers will likely be better served with a class spending some time on Camera RAW, and the pros and cons of RAW capture, processing and archiving. You've got three years, and this is important enough to go into a three year program at some point.

3-Try to work in RGB as much as possible. Give RGB files to your client
instead of CMYK. It is the prepress people who really know how to
convert to CMYK because it is their field, and they are the one who really
know how the files will be used.

Don't forget to embed RGB profiles, and have explicit conversations with the hand off person what the expectation is: that the embedded profile be honored as source when converting to CMYK.

All photographers need to be aware of CMYK conversions, and what happens to their images both in terms of color shift, saturation loss, detail loss, and smoothing (lack of content and destination specific sharpening). They will have to make their own choices as to how much they care about the appearance of their images once they are transferred to the client. Some photographers will rightly choose to preserve the "look" of their work, and have a right to prevent crappy reproduction of their work. Others won't care, but they need the information so they can see all sides of the issue.

4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still use
the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your file.
(lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

I've never heard of the 1.3 rule. It's generally 1.5 to 2 x lpi, except with images that have a lot of fine, intricate detail and sharp edges - you might need far higher of a factor than this.

5-Do not over-sharpen your files. Leave that job to the prepress people, who
know how much sharpening will do a good job for their setup and the final
magnification and lpi.

That's passing the buck. Photographers need to know good sharpening technique for various kinds of output. Right or wrong, they are a lab, and they need to provide their imagery with a conservative amount of sharpening at a minimum. Better, is to have a conversation with the customer in advance and find out what sharpening technique they use. If it sounds adequate, leave it to them. Otherwise the photographer should do it. It's his work, and how it reproduces will reflect infinitely more on him than on some obscure prepress guy in a basement in Jersey.
 
6-Ask your client for the final output (press) icc profile to be able to
preview the final appearance of your image in Photoshop . If the client
cannot provide you with the profile or doesn’t know what you're talking
about,preview in CMYK U.S Web Coated (SWOP) v2.

I'll buy that.

7-In North America the norm is still D55 in the viewing booth, but may
shift soon to D65.

It's D50 and there's no reason to believe it will be going to D65.

8-On the other hand, people tend to set their monitor to 6500K, gamma
2.2.

Sure, but you should tell them why.

9-Adobe98 is the preferred color space as a general-purpose color space
When you don’t know the requirements of your client, but use it only if you
Shoot in Adobe98. Do not shoot in sRGB and then convert to Adobe98 to please
Your client, because in that conversion you will lose more than if you keep
SRGB as the final space.

The loss is minimal in converting from sRGB to Adobe RGB. But if a client is going to insist on that, it's a red flag because there is no advantage to doing this. And I'd disagree that it's preferred as a general purpose color space. I don't think you'd find a consensus on this. It's going to depend on the recipient of the work.

Come to think of it, a GREAT class would be called "Red Flag." And it would be an entire semester on how to defend yourself, as a photograph, against a world out to sabotage your work. Color management is only one aspect that can be included.

10-Try to shoot in 16 bits/channel. Keep your files in 16 bits for as
long as you can, and do the conversion to 8 bits as late as possible,
or even let your client do it.

I'd hand over a 16bpc file only slightly more eagerly as I'd hand over a RAW file. Capturing JPEG usually implies capturing 8bpc and capturing RAW implies high-bit (necessitating 16bpc). Again it depends on the situation. There are legitimate reasons for capturing 8bpc JPEG, and likewise for RAW or TIFF.
 
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:54:36 -0500
   From: Brian Pylant
Subject: RE: A few statements to validate

4-When computing the resolution needed for a specific job, you can still use
the 1.3 factor instead of the 2.0 factor to determine the ppi of your file.
(lpi x 1.3 = ppi of your file for lpi >133).

Actually, isn't 1.414~ (the square root of 2) the actual mathematical minimum for calculating resolution for a given linescreen? The common misconception of cource is that it *must* be twice the lpi, and others just use 300ppi blindly for all output scenarios, but I've personally never heard anyone say 1.3 before.

BRIAN PYLANT
Manager, Electronic Prepress

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::

Disc Makers
7905 North Route 130 * Pennsauken NJ * 08110-1402
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:56:29 -0800
   From: Richard Chang
Subject: statements to validate

Darren Bernaerdt wrote:

I believe it's better to hand off a CMYK file that has been converted to a
common flavor of CMYK that every version of Photoshop ships with, than to
throw up your hands in despair if you can't obtain a custom ICC profile from
your printer

Not to mention that a school environment that teaches craftsmanship is of considerable value.  Craftsmanship isn't clicking a button and saving a file.  It's choosing the best CMYK build for the target, then verifying that highlight and shadow are correct, that neutrals are neutral, and that skintone ratios are reasonable.  There is both art and science in the making of CMYK, very much like in the making of an expressive photograph.

I'd like to think that a photo student would learn the value of a sketal black plate in addition to the value of a stronger medium GCR for neutrality.  If we don't teach our students these principles, who will?

Richard Chang
www.transitionoftone.com
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 12:55:13 -0800
   From: Dennis Dunbar
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Dan makes a very good point here. There is a growing momentum towards building some semblance of a consensus on many of these points, but it's still in the beginning stages. Until there is a greater consensus education on the critical issues is more important than ever. (And perhaps even AFTER there is a consensus, if that ever comes to be.)

Dennis Dunbar
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   Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:57:29 -0800
   From: J Walton
Subject: Twice the linescreen

Any of these automatic linescreen equations fall flat on their face if you look at enough images.  2x, 1.414x, 1.5x, 1.3x...it1s still trying to put a mathematical equation on some that is inherently subjective.

I1ve seen plenty of images that needed WAY more than 2x the linescreen (small images with important fine detail), and plenty of images that needed WAY less (clouds).

I wouldn1t teach your students that a linescreen equation is a replacement for experience - it1s just not an exact science.

J
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   Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:51:33 -0500
   From: Dolores Kaufman
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Hi Andrew,

Would this also be true for an Apple Studio Display? Mine is about 5 years
old.

Thanks,
Dolores
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 11:20:00 -0600
   From: "R. Lutz"
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Hi Martin,

You might like to explore with your students, the benefits of working with RAW captures. Bruce Fraser wrote a very useful book on this subject --Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS. The book is about 200 pages and I would credit it with doubling my effectiveness when using Adobe's Camera Raw features in Photoshop CS.

R. Lutz
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   Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:38:46 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

On 3/2/05 10:51 AM, "Dolores Kaufman"  wrote:

Would this also be true for an Apple Studio Display? Mine is about 5 years
old.

Absolutely!

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
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   Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 21:29:20 -0800
   From: "Darren & Leanne Bernaerdt"
Subject: RE: A few statements to validate

From: Andrew Rodney

Actually there are LOTS of naturally occurring colors outside of sRGB. If
you shoot RAW and have a good converter like Adobe Camera RAW, just shoot
something like a Macbeth DC or SG color checker and look at the histogram in
sRGB versus other working space. I routinely find images that I need to
convert into ProPhoto RGB because the scene contains colors outside of even
Adobe RGB (1998). This is nicely illustrated with each color that clips in
the ACR histogram.

Andrew - OK, so we have a couple of monitors that approach the AdobeRGB gamut. 99.99% of users are not using such a device. While I'll buy the argument that there is clipping on the histogram in a smaller space, how do we edit (visualize on screen) a color that can not be displayed? I've yet to encounter a printer profile that even begins to approach the gamut of ProPhoto RGB. I would dearly like to vastly expand the range of color that I can reproduce - can you recommend some printers that approach the gamut of ProPhoto RGB?

Actually not. There1s no reason to set a display to a 1.8 TRC gamma. The
native gamma of the CRT is very close to 2.2. There1s no difference between
a CRT for a Mac or a CRT for a PC. The Operating system is assuming a 1.8
TRC Gamma on the Mac (which is dumb and was placed there for legacy reasons
dating back to the LaswerWriter). The best TRC gamma is the native gamma. If
you have say a Sony Artisan, you can actually measure and hit that exact
value. Otherwise guessing 2.2 is far closer to the native gamma of the
display. Why use native? Because any adjustments past the native behavior of
the display has to be conducted at the video card on 8bit data and you
introduce banding (display banding, not image banding). Mac users should
calibrate to a TRC gamma of 2.2. Outside smart ICC aware applications like
Photoshop, things will appear a bit dark. In ICC aware applications, they
will not only appear fine but provide a smoother display of images due to
the lack of adjustment at the video card level. Apple should have killed
this 1.8 legacy with OS X but were under pressure to keep things 3backward
compatible".

Andrew - I think you missed my point. I'm not advocating setting a gamma of 1.8. I'm simply stating that in the past, it has been drilled into Mac users heads that 1.8 was the appropriate choice. Yes, it’s a holdover from the old days.

Since this is offered in the monitor profiling packages that I've looked at, don't you think that it's likely these users are still choosing 1.8 because of historical advice? Sure, 2.2 or native is better, but what do you do in the real world when your client has set 1.8 and complains your images are dark?

I'd like to inform my students what is best, but also help them understand the realities that they may be confronted with. Hopefully they leave the college setting able to deliver a better product and armed with the knowledge to troubleshoot those situations that go sideways. (Like the client that has set a 1.8 gamma.)

Darren Bernaerdt
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:40:45 +0000
   From: Martin Bailey
Subject: RE: A few statements to validate

I've seen a lot of different theoretical mathematical discussions of minimum useful resolution compared to line screen, and finally concluded that nobody really knows why and how all this stuff works, especially when you build in the differences between various kinds of screening. Much of the theory assumes conventional AM screening, and even assumes that every halftone cell is uniform. Many RIPs produce "contoured" dots, where you'll see variation of dot size within a single halftone cell if there are different tone values from the image data, which tends to cause the theory to break down.

I'd much prefer to go with pragmatic experience in determining minimum image resolution. I'm not working day-to-day in production, but what I've seen indicates that 2x lpi is good at low screen frequencies, but that as the lpi rises the ratio can drop. If you're running extreme lpi line screens (over 300 lpi, for instance) then just over 1:1 is fine (remember that Faust managed to print a job at over 1000 lpi (sic)!)

But the resolution you need is also image-dependent. A sharp image with fine detail, especially fine diagonal rules (including resolvable hair strands) requires a much higher resolution than a soft-focus image.

And finally, it's also media-dependent. Print on toilet paper (or newsprint) and you can get away with a lower ratio than for coated stock, for instance.

I guess that didn't give a nice, simple rule of thumb to tell people, did it? Sorry!

Thanks

Martin Bailey

-------------------------------------------------------------
  Senior Technical Consultant                +44 1223 873800
  Global Graphics Software        http://www.globalgraphics.com
  Developers of Harlequin & Jaws RIPs and Jaws PDF Technology
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 07:01:14 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

On 3/2/05 10:29 PM, "Darren Bernaerdt"  wrote:

OK, so we have a couple of monitors that approach the AdobeRGB
gamut.

As do I.

 99.99% of users are not using such a device.

Today, no but that1s going to change in a big way. And just because you have a display with a tiny gamut isn1t a reason to funnel your color into such a small space.

While I'll buy the
argument that there is clipping on the histogram in a smaller space, how do
we edit (visualize on screen) a color that can not be displayed?

I load an output profile for my device as a start. There are still colors that fall outside that gamut.

I've yet to
encounter a printer profile that even begins to approach the gamut of
ProPhoto RGB.

None exist. Just like there are no printers that have the sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998) gamut. But the container of the larger space allows me to contain the colors that do fall into device gamut but outside of sRGB gamut. And there are a lot of such devices.

I would dearly like to vastly expand the range of color that I
can reproduce - can you recommend some printers that approach the gamut of
ProPhoto RGB?

No such printer exists and we don1t want to work with working space that are based on specific output devices. That1s why we have these synthetic spaces in the first place.

Since this is offered in the monitor profiling packages that I've looked at,
don't you think that it's likely these users are still choosing 1.8 because
of historical advice?

The packages have to allow for legacy use like the OS vendor (in this case Apple). But some packages let you aim for all kinds of odd TRC gamma settings, that1s not a reason to use such a setting.

Sure, 2.2 or native is better, but what do you do in
the real world when your client has set 1.8 and complains your images are
dark?

All my clients use 2.2 as do I. In an ICC aware application, the previews are prefect (and in fact better than if one had used 1.8; less/no banding). Outside ICC aware applications, everything appears a tad dark which is quite easy to get used to and not at all an issue.

I'd like to inform my students what is best, but also help them understand
the realities that they may be confronted with.

A true native TRC gamma is best. 2.2 is next best.

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:35:57 -0500
   From: Dolores Kaufman
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Ok guys, I'm one of those legacy Mac users who has had 1.8 drilled into my head. I admit it. But one of the things that was drilled into my head was that 2.2 shows images DARKER than 1.8 and, indeed, that has been my experience as I have calibrated my monitor both ways. An image always appears darker when I have calibrated to 2.2, so I am having a hard time understanding the above statement. If an image appears darker in 2.2 coesn't that cause you to lighten it and wouldn't that image then look lighter handed off to a monitor set to 1.8? Further, when my monitor is calibrated to 1.8 and the color space of an RGB file is Colormatch RGB, when previewed in Photoshop as it would appear on a Windows machine the image gets considerably darker. How then would an image prepared on a Windows machine at 2.2 appear darker on a Mac at 1.8? Is there something I'm missing here? Is the client looking at the images on his monitor (1.8) or your monitor (2.2) when he complains that they are too dark?

Thanks,
Dolores
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 09:32:28 -0800
   From: Paul D. DeRocco
Subject: RE: A few statements to validate

In Photoshop, or any other color-managed application, the images won't look darker or lighter depending upon the gamma, because it will convert the image using the embedded profile.

The advantage of 2.2 is that it puts midscale numeric values closer to what people would consider medium gray.

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 09:58:01 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

On 3/3/05 8:35 AM, "Dolores Kaufman"  wrote:

But one of the things that was drilled into my head was
that 2.2 shows images DARKER than 1.8 and, indeed, that has been my
experience as I have calibrated my monitor both ways.

Outside a smart ICC aware application like Photoshop, yes. But inside something like Photoshop, no. The ICC profile that describes how you calibrated the display will be used in displaying your images. This is how the same image on a PC (using 2.2) and a Mac (1.8) can appear the same. But the 2.2 TRC is going to produce better behavior (less banding in darks) since this is much closer to the native gamma of the display.
 
Further, when my monitor is calibrated
to 1.8 and the color space of an RGB file is Colormatch RGB, when previewed
in Photoshop as it would appear on a Windows machine the image gets
considerably darker.

The TRC gamma of a working space has NOTHING to do with the TRC gamma of your display. They only share the word Gamma. They do not need to match. The gamma of the working space is the affecting how edits are applied to the image.

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:34:04 -0700
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

In the old days yes. That was before "display compensation." Today there is a distinction between the tone reproduction curve used in an image, versus the display. The difference between the tone response of 1.8 in an image, and 2.2 on a display is handled through display compensation. The key part of making this work correctly is that applications need to know both the tone response of the image and the tone response of the display. This is defined with a profile for the image: the color space assigned and hopefully embedded into your images; and one for your display.

Only non-color managed items, like your desktop pattern, menus, some palettes and borders, would be affected by calibrating your display to 2.2 rather than 1.8.

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 03:13:43 -0000
   From: "ray_maxwell2000"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Sorry Richard, I have to disagree.

Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how to separate to CMYK?

A Photographer should be able to hand off a file with an ICC profile in a standard color space and the prepress house or printer should know how to separate it.  The file should be made to DISC standards. If they don't want to do this they should give a profile of there proofing color space so that the photographer can do the separation for them.

How can a photographer do a good separation without knowing all of the details of the press, paper, inks and screening used to make the plates?  He cannot.

What schools should teach is DISC standards.  Photographers should know how to deliver a calibrated RGB file to DISC standards and prepress houses and printer should know how to separate these files to their printing color space.

See this URL:
http://www.disc-info.org/

Standards allow us to communicate accurately.  Of course if you like to turn each job into a big trial and error process with many times around the loop you can ignore standards and waste a lot of time.

We can practice printing as art and craft or we can treat it as a manufacturing process that uses statistical process control.  Both ways work.  One costs less than the other.

Thanks for your attention,

Ray Maxwell
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 08:24:48 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Martin Bailey writes,

But the resolution you need is also image-dependent. A sharp image with
fine detail, especially fine diagonal rules (including resolvable hair
strands) requires a much higher resolution than a soft-focus image

Martin's entire message is the best brief summary of the issues impacting desired resolution that we've seen in a long time. I'd like to add one more variable.

Few people have taken the time to seriously test how the relation between resolution and screen ruling really affects output. Those who have generally have supported the conventional wisdom that resolution should be between 1.5x and 2x the screen ruling. Those who have gone deeper agree with Martin, that the needed resolution is image-dependent, and also that the higher the screen ruling the smaller the ratio needed.

All of this conventional wisdom, however, dates from film-to-scanner images. Digital captures are smoother. They don't require quite as much resolution. I am not aware of anybody who's run serious tests, but my feeling is that 1.3x screen ruling for a digital capture isn't all that unreasonable in principle.

I'm not sure it's wise to suggest to students that 1.3x should be a rule of thumb, though. You always want a little resolution in reserve, just in case the picture gets resized down the line.

Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________
 
   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 09:09:08 -0600
   From: Jim Bean
Subject: quick comments ref: statements to validate

ray wrote:

Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how to
separate to CMYK?

It would have been nice, but certainly not required or expected..  Times have changed.

Fewer people in the loop/process.. Many times if a problem arose.. guess who caught the heat.. the person at the bottom of the heap, the photographer..many times simply by default..  Today many photographers have the opportunity to step up to the plate and deliver those services.. several advantages: such as accepting the responsibility and being paid accordingly.. also when you are creating the original images you have the background/experience to exposes/create/manipulate on the front end knowing that downstream you will rectify the issue and improve the final output..  I don't agree or disagree with your comments.. I would simply state that the more education/experience/skill set the better for all concerned..

Two candidates are applying for a  project.. identical skill sets except one has cmyk bgrnd the other says, " we didn't do that.. we deferred to the prepress-printing team they know what is best for their printing conditions" which person would you select for your project?  enjoy the weekend, jim bean
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 08:58:29 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

On 3/4/05 8:13 PM, "ray_maxwell2000"  wrote:

Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how to
separate to CMYK?

In the old days (19801s) when I was in photo school and later shooting, I sure didn1t. We had one class on the subject and most of us ditched to print in the darkroom (boy in hindsight was that dumb).

A Photographer should be able to hand off a file with an ICC profile
in a standard color space and the prepress house or printer should
know how to separate it.

In an ideal world, yes I totally agree. But I1ve been handing off tagged RGB files to printers and service bureaus and have seen some pretty butt ugly conversions from the files. You do realize that many in the field, when given an RGB file (tagged or not) end up with their heads exploding all over the place.

How can a photographer do a good separation without knowing all of the
details of the press, paper, inks and screening used to make the
plates?  He cannot.

He can separate to the contract proof which is a lot more doable.

What schools should teach is DISC standards.  Photographers should
know how to deliver a calibrated RGB file to DISC standards and
prepress houses and printer should know how to separate these files to
their printing color space.

And printers by and large need to understand that standards are to be met, not  3exceeded2. If everyone who said they printed to SWOP actually printed to TR001 (or DTR004 for sheetfed), we1d all be in a much better place.

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 13:05:12 -0500
   From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

Ray,
 
Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how to
separate to CMYK?

No. But they did better knowing what happens to images when printed. Students seeing prints from a darkroom, conversion of trans to neg to print, was an eye opening experience to those who had only seen their work on the light table. And those that did understand how we thought and looked at the density range and color gamut of film on a scanner were able to provide better work from the onset.

How can a photographer do a good separation without knowing all of the
details of the press, paper, inks and screening ......

I agree, it's a problem. Many times we start design and photography before the printer (and press/paper) has been decided on and just as often it changes later.

Asking photographer students to simply follow DISC doesn't strike me as a solution. I hope they've have a good foundation in tone, contrast, color, sharpness and holding detail in desired areas. Often I get files in which someone has or has tried to follow all the rules with the software but misses basics; highlight details are blown out, white balance is off and sharpness is too low.

With regard to resolution I also agree with Martin Bailey. We've been able to use lower resolution digital captures in many end products. I'd like Dan to run a story like one he did years ago about resolution and sharpness using digital capture.

Lee
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 13:27:19 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

Ray Maxwell writes,

Sorry Richard,

This list has been in existence since early 1999. AFAIK in that time there has never been an occasion when I so thoroughly disagreed with every thought expressed in a post as I do with this one.

Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how toseparate to CMYK?

Absolutely--but unfortunately, it wasn't feasible. Without the ability to control the separation, he was at the mercy of the supplier. But to be able to compete would have required an outlay of around a million dollars.

That system was a great leveller. Mediocre photographers had a safety net in the scanner operator who was unlikely to overlook gross quality issues. Great photographers were stifled by the same system, unable to get what they wanted to because important aesthetic decisions were made by scanner operators who weren't really up to the challenge.  Plus, many careers of promising photographers were made more difficult (if not ruined) by service providers who blamed all bad prepress and bad printing on poor photography.

Today, understanding the separation process is no more or less desirable than it was then--but it doesn't cost a million dollars now. And now, the mediocre photographer is completely exposed--nobody is going to save him if he submits a lousy RGB file, they way they would if he submitted film. The photographer who can go straight to high-quality CMYK has an enormous quality advantage that never existed in the days of film. More than ever, merit is rewarded and incompetence is punished.

A Photographer should be able to hand off a file with an ICC profile
in a standard color space and the prepress house or printer should
know how to separate it.

When this happy state of knowledge develops among printers, do let us know. Meanwhile, those photographers who are interested in getting quality results will have to take matters into their own hands. The idea of guaranteeing quality by embedding Eficolor or some other type of profile is totally last-century. We are in a different age now.

How can a photographer do a good separation without knowing all of the
details of the press, paper, inks and screening used to make the
plates?  He cannot.

The large majority of separations--including those made for the highest-end advertising--are now and always have been made without such knowledge. It's nice to have it, but what if you don't? Those who get bad results generally get them because they ignore basic principles, not because they don't have a full description of the printing conditions.

What schools should teach is DISC standards.  Photographers should
know how to deliver a calibrated RGB file to DISC standards and
prepress houses and printer should know how to separate these files to
their printing color space.

In view of the fact that DISC advocates Adobe RGB, and the fact that an increasing number of service providers treat *all* incoming files as sRGB, the above recommendation amounts to advocating that the students commit professional suicide.

Standards allow us to communicate accurately.  Of course if you like
to turn each job into a big trial and error process with many times
around the loop you can ignore standards and waste a lot of time.

Standards are unquestionably desirable. Many of today's problems are caused by everyone advocating their own way of doing something, declaring that it's a "standard" and then cursing out everybody who doesn't "comply" with it.

Assuming that the world uses DISC "standards" and just handing off an Adobe RGB file to a stranger definitely turns the process into one of trial and error. And, handing it off responsibly does waste a lot of time--in today's sRGB world, anybody who wants to give an Adobe RGB file to someone they don't know needs to get WRITTEN, not verbal, confirmation that that someone understands what to do with it.

We can practice printing as art and craft or we can treat it as a
manufacturing process that uses statistical process control.  Both
ways work.  One costs less than the other.

Neither way works without the other. Both are prohibitively costly, in comparison to providing craftsmanship *with* reliable process control.

The incredible statement that the choice is between craftsmanship and process control is to say that we must choose between the spaghetti and the sauce, the engine and the tires, the words and the music.

Dan Margulis
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 10:49:32 -0800
   From: Richard Chang
Subject: statements to validate

In response to Ray Maxwell's comments:

Sorry Richard, I have to disagree.
Did a photographer who used to shoot transparencys need to know how to
separate to CMYK?

Most did not and as such, were at the mercy of the client's budget to obtain renderings on press, that were faithful to the 'chrome's emotional content.

A Photographer should be able to hand off a file with an ICC profile
in a standard color space and the prepress house or printer should
know how to separate it.  The file should be made to DISC standards.
If they don't want to do this they should give a profile of there
proofing color space so that the photographer can do the separation
for them.

You use the term "should" far too often.  The realities of the process haven't changed all that much since the days of transparencies 'till now, with the execption of those shooters (I'll use Lee Varis as an example) who do understand the craftsmanship of the new millenium.  In the old days of transparency, probably 5% of a shooter's annual work went into a portfolio, not because only 5% of the work was sound, the low percentage is more related to the poor press rendering of an otherwise good looking chrome.  Why a poor rendering?  There are plenty of reasons why, but the solution for most of them is a larger budget, whose lack factored into the poorly rendering job (assuming of course that the chrome was acceptable). Take the same skillset that scaled tonality onto the chrome and use it to scale tonality onto the press; Photoshop and a digital workflow allow this.

How can a photographer do a good separation without knowing all of the
details of the press, paper, inks and screening used to make the
plates?  He cannot.

Of course he can.  He does this by asking the same questions that the separator asks.  Please bear in mind that the separator's don't always know the answers to these questions either but it doesn't stop them from making appropriately educated decisions on a job.

I make my own CMYK as do many of my customers (I'm the training and education guy for MegaVision, Inc.; we make digital camera backs for professional shooters)  We've taken Dan's class and we know what to ask, what constitutes an approprate ink load and black plate for what we're shooting; with respect to the paper quality we're rendering on. If you haven't taken Dan's class I highly recommend that you do.  I'm guessing that you haven't taken the class or you wouldn't be making the comments you're making!

This list is attempting to educate you naysayers who believe that us shooters can't learn this stuff.  I ponied up and attended Dan's class in Toronto.  If I can learn, then others can too.  This list is clogged with "shoulds" and "don't's and exceptions to the rule, mostly with regard to setting this or that dialog box with such and such a rendering intent, in this or that program, via thus and such a RIP, for who knows what output device proofed with I don't know what the display profile means.  I wonder if the list members in general would agree that color is getting easier, or more convoluted.  For now, craftsmanship is a necessary component for those who are interested in imaging of the highest order (and it's not just output, it includes camera craft, lighting, pre and post production; the entire skillset of our most accomplished list members).

Let me suggest that if you took the pile of cash needed to take Dan's Color Theory I class and compared it to the pile of cash needed to purchase every color management application and measuring widget you'd been advised to purchase in the last 5 years, you'd be surprised at the discrepancy.  Especially when you look at the printed results of each path.  Properly done, each result is good. How much do you want to spend?, how much do you want to save?  A Colortron spectrophotometer was $1500 5 or 6 years ago, as was Dan's class.  The Colortron is close to worthless today and the education of Dan's class is now more valuable with each new piece of hardware
because it allows me to see if the new stuff really works.

What schools should teach is DISC standards.  Photographers should
know how to deliver a calibrated RGB file to DISC standards and
prepress houses and printer should know how to separate these files to
their printing color space.

The information on the DISC site presents nothing new.  It is of course common sense information but submitting DISC standard files doesn't guarentee a good job downstream of handing off a file.  Viewing the site's Metadata fields makes me believe that this information will be ignored by the separation folks.  After one look at what's contained therein, I'd ignore it too; it contains nothing of value in output information.

Standards allow us to communicate accurately.  Of course if you like
to turn each job into a big trial and error process with many times
around the loop you can ignore standards and waste a lot of time.

Of course if you know what you're doing and you can make a SWOP standard proof that meets your rendering goals, you can avoid wasting a lot of time, and skip the errors of the folks downstream who routinely ignore your standards.  This list has been rife with examples of shooters gripped in the "gotcha" of ignoring embedded profiles.  I will predict the same fate for the metadata embedded intent your "standard"; it will be ignored often enough to be problematic.

We can practice printing as art and craft or we can treat it as a
manufacturing process that uses statistical process control.  Both
ways work.  One costs less than the other.

We can actually do both, print artistically while monitoring our processes.  Now that we have digital control of our workflow, we have an ability to measure each step of the process.  Scientific process suggests that we test, observe, adjust, test and observe again; to satisfactory conclusion.  Using this process to affect an artistic rendering on the output of choice, is the goal.  Every worker can learn this if he or she desires.  A photo school is one of the places where our young people should get this experience.  If you're in the LA area, you can come an audit my Digital Zone System class (no charge!) Tuesday and Thursday nights at East LA Community College.

Richard Chang
www.TransitionOfTone.com
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 21:33:02 -0000
   From: "ray_maxwell2000"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Dan Margulis writes:

This list has been in existence since early 1999. AFAIK in that time
there has never been an occasion when I so thoroughly disagreed with every
thought expressed in a post as I do with this one.

Well Dan you did not disappoint me.  Your response lived up to my expectations.

First, let me say I don't disagree with everything you said.  I have no problem with any photographer doing their own separations and taking your class or reading your books.  I have read your book cover to cover.  I just wish that you could get more prepress people and printers to take your course so they know what to do with a well made DISC file when it is sent to them.  I am disappointed in how slowly the printing industry has been to embrace new technology and learn to do their part in producing quality printing.

I am sure that if you want to get the highest quality reproduction, you could find one person who could take the photos, do the separations, do the page layout. do the imposition, make the plates, load the plates on press, and run the press.  This would mean that the entire process was under the control of that one person.  This is possible, but today most people prefer to do one of these specialties and work on a team.  We are only quibbling about how to breakdown the tasks.

I believe that the best separations can be made by a person who knows the plate making process and the press the best.  I believe that person should be working for a prepress house of printer.  More and more printers are moving the prepress work in-house.  If this is the case they should know how to handle DISC files.  Many good printers can do this.

I think that BOTH photographers and printers should take your course and read books by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and all of the people trying to advance the art of photography and printing.

BTW here is a list of the people who sponsor the DISC information site.

BusinessWeek
CMP
United Business Media
Conde Nast Publications
G+J USA Publishing
Hachette Filipacchi Media
The Hearst Corporation
Newsweek
Primedia
Time Inc.
Eastman Kodak Company
FujiFilm
Kodak Polychrome Graphics
Creo
NEC
RR Donnelley
Quebecor World
Quad/Photo
Integrity Graphics Inc.

Are you suggesting that all of these people are wrong or that they don't understand the printing business???
 
Thanks for your attention,

Ray Maxwell
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2005 23:33:02 -0000
   From: Jim Bean
Subject: Re: statements to validate

ray wrote:

Are you suggesting that all of these people are wrong or that they
don't understand the printing business???  

and

I believe that the best
separations can be made by a person who knows  the plate making process and
the press the best.  I believe that
 person should be working for a prepress house of printer

hello ray, I am familiar with one of the DISC sponsors.. that same company ran their imagesetters uncalibrated for over a year . . . and only when an ad agency inquired as to "what was going on!" with the display ads did anyone realize or acknowledge that the source of the inconsistencies were inherent in their workflows..Their people created the majority of the seps, the plates, and setup and ran those (2color as 4color) presses...even the larger, 'bigger-better' companies that that support DISC and describe their process as manufacturing fail to utilize the statistical controls you mentioned earlier... Would you say this company (DISC sponsor) is right and that they do understand the printing business.?

regards, jim bean
___________________________________________________________________________
 
   Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 13:02:05 -0000
   From: "Scott Larsen"
Subject: Re: A few statements to validate

Dan Margulis wrote:

Digital captures are smoother. They don't require quite as much resolution. I
am not aware of anybody who's run serious tests, but my feeling is that 1.3x
screen ruling for a digital capture isn't all that unreasonable in principle.

I am occasionally forced to run photos at resolutions approaching 1.1x and so far, the bosses think they're just great. Note that I work for a hunting magazine and their standards are quite low, but as always, consider your audience before ruling anything out! My own assessment is that since they're jpegs from consumer-grade cameras printing at 100%, I see the digital/jpeg artifacts long before I notice any low-res screening issues.  

Other myths I'd like you to address:

For 15 years now, I've tried to set photos to a resolution that's a multiple of 16. The logic (I believe it originally came to me from a scanner tech/installer) is that a 150-line screen on a 2400-dpi imagesetter would not force an interpolation of an individual pixel at the RIP. Of course I now run a 133-line screen, which doesn't divide well at all into 2400 (18.045112781955). Not being able to resample to a nice clean resolution of 288 or 240 just makes me feel dirty. Is there anything to this or can I just forget it?

I see people devote a lot of time and energy to resampling digital photos that are too small for the desired use. In my CMYK-to-133 line screen world, is there any benefit to this? Say if it's at 1.1x the line screen now, would resampling to 1.4x have any effect at all? What if it were VERY low resolution (.5x)? My feeling is that the halftone screening covers up a few low-res sins as well as resampling would.

Thanks,
Scott Larsen
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   Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 07:21:00 -0000
   From: "ray_maxwell2000"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Jim Bean wrote:  

Would you say this company (DISC sponsor) is right and that they do understand the printing business.?

There are bad printers and prepress houses in the world.

I thought the discussion was about where the CMYK separations should be made.  Are you saying that if you make the separations, then the image setter does not need to be calibrated?  I don't see how making the separations yourself can fix this kind of problem.

BTW if they are still making film and not CTP they aren't very up to date.

What I am suggesting is that everyone in the printing workflow team should be current and on top of the latest technology.  If this is the case than you should get good results if the photographer OR the printer does the separations.  They should both be up to speed and be able to communicate clearly and understand all of the current standards.  This includes SWOP, ANSI CGATS, DISC, and all current measurement standards.

If your printer does not understand this you should find one that does.  There are printers that know how to separate an RGB file.  They do it every day.

In the final analysis the print buyer (the person who pays the bills) is going to call the tune.

I know of several large companies who do millions of dollars in printing each year.  Some of them have studied the new technologies and have decided that they would like to make all of the photographs and artwork in one color space and then "repurpose" that to offset, flexo, gravure, digital press and even video.  They want to use the same artwork in ads and packaging.  In the future they are only going to give their business to printers who know how to "repurpose" their "digital assets".

Get ready to work with them or don't expect to get their business.

Ray Maxwell
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 08:45:51 -0500
   From: Rick McCleary
Subject: The 2x resolution factor (was: a few statements to validate)

One factor in possibly lowering the requirement for resolution is the smoothness of digital capture.  Another is the current move away form conventional screening towards stochastic screening.  Has anyone done comprehensive testing of the relationship between file resolution and stochastic screening output?
______________________
Rick McCleary Photography
201 Orchard Drive
Purcellville, VA  20132
v  540-338-4895
c  540-454-7180
www.rickmccleary.com
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:35:21 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: The 2x resolution factor (was: a few statements to validate)

I'm not aware of any comprehensive tests, but it's well understood that stochastic screens reduce the needed resolution for a file in comparison to printing with, say, a 150-line screen. I'd be very comfortable with a resolution of 200 pixels per inch if printed at same size. As for newspapers, which commonly use lower resolutions than that, people would have to experiment.

Dan Margulis
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:24:18 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

Ray writes,

First, let me say I don't disagree with everything you said.  I have no
problem with any photographer doing their own separations and taking your class
or reading your books.  I have read your book cover to cover.  I just wish that
you could get more prepress people and printers to take your course so they
know what to do with a well made DISC file when it is sent to them.

Photographers, who have to view my course as a long-term investment and for whom the price is a big factor, make up much of my audience. Meanwhile, service providers, who often report that they make up the course fee the first week they get back (one ruined job costs more than the course), rarely send anyone.

This is not just my course but almost any kind of educational activity. Printing firms have a limited budget for training. All the more reason not to expect too much from their prepress folk, with certain happy exceptions.

I am disappointed in how slowly the printing industry has been to embrace
new technology and learn to do their part in producing quality printing.

This is an amazing statement coming from a representative of a company that is the leading name in a printing technology that was basically nonexistent ten years ago but has taken over the industry.

I am sure that if you want to get the highest quality reproduction,
you could find one person who could take the photos, do the
separations, do the page layout. do the imposition, make the plates,
load the plates on press, and run the press.

I know of exactly one individual on this planet who knows how to do all seven of these things.

today most people prefer to do one of these specialties and work on a team.
 We are only quibbling about how to breakdown the tasks.

It seems obvious that each task should be done by the person best suited to do it. If the photographer knows how to run the press better than the pressman does, by all means the photographer should run the press if the printing company will permit it.

I think there are very few photographers who fall into that category. By contrast, I think it is quite likely that a properly trained photographer will be able to produce better CMYK than a printer can--and he doesn't need the printer's permission to do it.

I believe that the best separations can be made by a person who knows the
plate making process and the press the best.

Such knowledge or lack thereof is inconsequential next to the skill of the person making the sep. This has come up before here. More than a years ago, I gave my top-ten list of the things that make for a quality separation, and knowledge of the printing conditions was ninth.

http: //www.ledet.com/margulis/ACT_postings/DailyLife/ACT-Whos-at-Fault.htm

I believe that person should be working for a prepress house of printer.

It would be nice if that were so, but unfortunately it's asking too much. Service providers aren't able to come up with much in the way of pay or benefits. They lose most of the best people to in-house operations today. Some service providers have highly competent prepress staff, but you shouldn't bet on it.

BTW here is a list of the people who sponsor the DISC information site. Are
you suggesting that all of these people are wrong or that they don't
understand the printing business???

No more than DISC is suggesting the same about all the members of the International Color Consortium, whose ideas DISC renounces by refusing to accept files unless they are in one specific RGB flavor. The whole point of embedding a profile is that people should be able to work in whatever RGB they like.

Also, times and trends change. I don't think that Adobe RGB is a wise choice for CMYK-oriented work, but granted that DISC decided to require a single RGB, at the time it made its decision things were chaotic and Adobe RGB was not an unreasonable choice. Since then, however, it has become painfully apparent that sRGB has taken over, making the DISC choice considerably riskier.

I'm off to Photoshop World now, followed by a few days in Death Valley.

Dan Margulis
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 11:11:47 -0700
   From: Ron Kelly
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

On 6-Mar-05, at 10:24 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:

 I know of exactly one individual on this planet who knows how to do all seven
 of these things.

Who is this person?

Ron Kelly
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   Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 18:35:49 -0000
   From: "ray_maxwell2000"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Dan Margulis wrote:

This is an amazing statement coming from a representative of a
company that is the leading name in a printing technology that was basically
nonexistent ten years ago but has taken over the industry.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to make it clear that I left Creo about one year ago.

The opinions I am expressing are solely my own and are not a refelection of the opinions of Creo.

It is also public knowledge that Kodak has made an offer to buy Creo and the Creo share holders will vote this month on that proposal.

Thanks for your attention,

Ray Maxwell
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:49:10 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

Ray Maxwell writes:

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to make it clear that I left
Creo about one year ago.

Thanks for the correction. I apologize for the error.

Dan Margulis
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 12:03:22 -0700
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Re: statements to validate

On Mar 6, 2005, at 10:24 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:

No more than DISC is suggesting the same about all the members of the
International Color Consortium, whose ideas DISC renounces by refusing to accept
files unless they are in one specific RGB flavor. The whole point of embedding a
profile is that people should be able to work in whatever RGB they like.

Actually the DISC position is recommending Adobe RGB (1998), but still honor embedded profiles regardless. I'm not sure if this has been made clear in their online information. Last time I checked it did imply Adobe RGB (1998) to the exclusion of anything else which I would never agree with.

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 22:47:48 -0800
   From: Dennis Dunbar
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1359

Ray said it well, standards allow us to communicate accurately. This is really just the beginning of the conversation. Fortunately we are at a time and place where the interest in taking that conversation further and further is building.

I'm glad to see the DISC Guidelines seem to be helping. When the current version was created the group was thinking primarily of images being submitted for editorial uses in the magazines. Since then the DISC Committee is working on expanding those guidelines to include images being submitted for high end magazines as well as for advertising in addition to the daily and weekly publications covered in the first set of guidelines.

The issue of delivering RGB or CMYK seems to rely on who can do the better job of separating the RGB images into the CMYK space.

Knowledgeable and skilled photographers find that very often they do a better job. Perhaps this is because they have more riding on the reproduction of the image, or just because they can take more time processing their images than the prepress guy who has hundreds of images to deal each day.

And just as often the prepress folks, (and printers), can do a better job than photographers who don't have the background or knowledge to do it well.

As anyone who reads this list knows, RGB-CMYK conversions require skill, good information and a good deal of caring about the appearance to get right. In the current environment it's impossible to make any blanket judgments about who does a better job, photographers or prepress folks.

Dennis Dunbar
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   Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 09:26:14 -0700
   From: Alain Briot
Subject: Voltaire

Dan,

To follow in the footsteps of the litterary comments in your articles, I suggest that Ray reads (or re-reads) Voltaire, in particular Candide.  Voltaire's point (I simplify for the sake of clarity and conciseness) is that we seek to live the best *possible* world we can create for ourselves.  Kant, by comparison (and again I simplify), said we seek to live in the best world.  The difference between Voltaire and Kant is the word possible, a word used by Voltaire but not by Kant.

My guess is that Ray is Kantian by nature.  I, on the other hand, tend to be more Voltairian since I find it leads to a more enjoyable life and to far less suffering.

I also cultivate my garden a great deal, another Voltarian recommendation, and the conclusion to Candide, instead of seeking the El Dorado . . .of printing in Ray's instance.

A worthy read while waiting for this scan to be done, that print run to be completed, or photographers to learn how to do it all from shooting to binding ...

Best regards,
--
Alain Briot
Beaux Arts Photography
http://www.beautiful-landscape.com
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   Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 23:39:45 -0800
   From: Richard Chang
Subject: Re: Digest Number 1359

Dennis Dunbar wrote:

Knowledgeable and skilled photographers find that very often they do a
better job. Perhaps this is because they have more riding on the
reproduction of the image, or just because they can take more time
processing their images than the prepress guy who has hundreds of
images to deal each day.

And just as often the prepress folks, (and printers), can do a better
job than photographers who don't have the background or knowledge to do
it well.

The start of this thread was based on a photo instructor asking what they should cover in their cirriculum.  I had the temerity to suggest that learning the craft of CMYK was of value (which was challenged).

In your first paragraph you suggest that photographers who know how to do a better job, should make CMYK.  In your second paragraph you suggest that photographers who don't have the knowledge, shouldn't make CMYK.

Is there any reason why the photographers in the second paragraph can't become the photographers in the first paragraph?  If this making of craft and CMYK was covered in a cirriculum, would that not be of value to the students and to the industry?

Richard Chang
www.TransitionOfTone.com
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   Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:23:00 -0500
   From: Lee Clawson
Subject: Re: statements to validate

on 3/5/05 1:49 PM, Richard Chang wrote:

I wonder if the list members in general would agree that color is getting
easier, or more convoluted.

More...

Lee
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   Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:05:42 -0500
   From: Rafe Bustin
Subject: Re: statements to validate

It's been, oh I don't know... five or six years since Photoshop 5 and the era of "ICC based color management" -- and yet in all the lists I frequent, the same questions, issues, and problems are discussed again and again and again, to this day.

In my not-so-humble opinion, the general "theory" is sound but the implementation is utterly inconsistent from one application to the next, and from one driver to the next.  I also believe that a lot of folks are looking to color management for solutions that really should be coming from color correction.

Ie., your "typical" (ie., amateur or home-based) user needs the latter, but may not need the former.

There's so much hype about profiles (as the solution for everything) that the unwary are easily misled.

rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com
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   Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 23:04:37 -0600
   From: Howard Smith
Subject: Re: sRGB vs. Adobe RGB (1998)

Thank you for your response, Ron.  Information like this is hard to find in books.  Unfortunately this gives rise to yet another question that may also  have a reasonably simple answer that nevertheless eludes me.   My impression  until now was that what we see is what we get when the monitor is calibrated, the CMYK conversion profile is correct for the pringing conditions, and a reasonably competent printing crew will be doing the job.  If we cannot depend  on the image appearance on a calibrated monitor to give us a close estimate  of the appearance of the printed image (presuming that the CMYK profile is right for the job), what is our recourse?  Or am I misinterpreting your meaning?

Sorry to be such a bother about this.

Howard Smith
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   Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 22:05:12 -0800
   From: Richard Chang
Subject: statements to validate

Rafe B. wrote:

It's been, oh I don't know... five or six
years since Photoshop 5 and the era of "ICC
based color management" -- and yet in all the
lists I frequent, the same questions, issues,
and problems are discussed again and again and
again, to this day.

Could it be that these concepts aren't all that intuitive?  And could it be that parts of color management have changed since the release of Photoshop 5?  For instance, the bashing of sRGB and the subsequent turning around that it's now somewhat OK?  Or the early recommendation of Perceptual rendering that has now changed into RelCol?  One need only peruse the archives of this list to see the obfuscations.

In my not-so-humble opinion, the general
"theory" is sound but the implementation
is utterly inconsistent from one application
to the next, and from one driver to the next.

Could this be because the purveyors of this technology don't agree within themselves of how to do it?  In the old days, no two profile reading applications would come up with the same numbers when reading a common target (unlike a garden variety light meter).  Taking a reading today, of a G/M digital camera target or an inkjet output target, can a G/M spectrophotometer and ProfileMaker come up with the same values as an X-Rite spectrophotometer and whatever associated app it uses?  Do spectrophotometer makers agree on the illuminant they produce to illuminate readings?

I also believe that a lot of folks are looking
to color management for solutions that really
should be coming from color correction.

This color correction is the craft that has made or verified, great looking images.  The color management pundits will begrudgingly tell us that color management is a starting point; that you must verify after the file emerges from the machinations, that you indeed have a good looking file, by checking that the numbers are appropriate (or, that it proofs properly in a known proofing condition).  We don't hear this often enough however; what we mostly hear is how wonderful things are, or how thus and such a condition, or exception, or change in the software or hardware, has caused things to be not so wonderful.  Unless I'm missing something it would seem that the color management pundits spend half their time telling us how wonderful this stuff is and half their time explaining why things are goofed up (or how we've got it all wrong).

I'm actually not anti-color management, it's a lot better than it was (and, it's not finished being invented yet).  Perhaps I'm pro-taking-responsibility-for-my-pictures until this stuff is finished being invented.  As it is, it's getting closer.  A lot of us have only a few targets, so what could possibly be wrong in learning to craft for those few targets?  What's so onerous in being able to make a non-v.2 CMYK transform look good on press?

There's so much hype about profiles (as the
solution for everything) that the unwary are
easily misled.

That's because there's money in the sales of this stuff.  Ford and Chevy tell us how wonderful their cars are, Post and Kellogs tell us how healthful and vitamin packed their kid cereals are, and, well; you get the idea.  Why is it, we resist the marketing of products that are mature, but we swallow; hook, line, and sinker; stuff we don't understand?

Richard Chang
www.TransitionOfTone.com
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   Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 03:38:22 -0500
   From: John Castronovo
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Certainly there are parts of color management that work better than others. Most of us have learned that we can rely on calibrated monitors to preview our images and having an embedded source profile can help to communicate color from one place to the next. There are those who can adjust color on a grayscale monitor by using only the numbers, and while the numbers are good to know for many reasons, why anyone would want to do it this way is beyond me, so I think we can agree that monitor profiles and soft proofing work fairly well.

Scanner and output device profiles are more controversial, but I can assure you that it works quite well in places where it's been implemented and maintained. The concern appears to be the overhead in maintenance and training. Some of the biggest and most profitable printing concerns in my area depend on profiling to cut costs, and it works very well in my shop. We go from scanner or digital capture to monitor to print on a wide variety of devices and materials with excellent first shot results. The biggest problems come from two things: colors that are out of gamut for our monitor where we need to rely on the numbers and hard proofs, and files that come from the outside that have questionable or no profiles attached.

In my opinion, color management is like tuning a musical instrument. Until everyone agreed that "A" should be 440 cycles per second and that the octave should be equally divided into 12 tones we didn't have orchestras, or even music that was portable to more than one kind of instrument. While creating beautiful music was always possible before these conventions were established, standardization allowed for musical efficiencies on a grand scale. The price that's paid for this is that everyone has to learn how to keep his instrument in tune and agree on certain things. Sometimes there's a high cost involved. It can take weeks to tune a pipe organ. Many early instruments that couldn't conform to the standards became marginalized or eliminated. To this day, those musicians who don't want to "tune up" for whatever reason (and there are many excellent reasons) are best advised to play solo.

IMHO
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   Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:39:35 -0500
   From: "Dan Remaley"
Subject: RE: statements to validate

Ahh. . . Yes . .. the good old days. when color seps. were handled by a trade house and Matchprints were King!

The whole concept of color management is flawed, the idea that we are to match an original by simply placing it on the scanner bed, proof it and print it is a bit limited. We are to believe color is 'better' now?  I think color today is worse than ever! Consider this,  when taking an original to a drum scanner, was the original within a 1/2 stop of being 'correctly exposed'?  Short answer - NO!  Were these originals color balanced - again NO!  As scanner operators we 'automaticly' opened up the 3/4 tone, made the sky- bluer, grass -greener, warmed the flesh tones, etc.

As for proofing, I could make a Matchprint in Pittsburgh, New York, or Los Angeles and they would look the same - try that with your new ink jet !!!  I love our GATF proof comparator, it is a common file that exists on our sheetfed test form and can be visually, or measured, to match the proof.

Process Control is at the heart of color matching, the actual measurement of the plates, proofs,  and press sheets takes the guess work out of "subjective" color matching. Visit us at <www.gain.net

Dan Remaley PIA/GATF
Process Control Manager
412.2591814
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   Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 08:59:22 -0700
   From: Andrew Rodney
Subject: Re: statements to validate

On 3/7/05 11:05 PM, "Richard Chang"  wrote:

Could it be that these concepts aren't all that intuitive?

They are not. But then neither is understanding image resolution. We just have to take the time for the light bulb to go off.

And could
it be that parts of color management have changed since the release
of Photoshop 5?  

Color management in Photoshop has been refined in PS since 5.0 but the underlying concepts haven1t (much).

For instance, the bashing of sRGB and the subsequent
turning around that it's now somewhat OK?

Some of the basing was deserved, some not. There are still some 3urban legends2 associated with sRGB that are untrue.

Or the early recommendation of Perceptual rendering that has now changed into
RelCol?  One need only peruse the archives of this list to see the
obfuscations.

Early on, some products used the term (incorrectly) to call Perceptual 3Photographic2 in an attempt to make it easier for the user to think that this is the intent to use for images. After Photoshop was able to produce good soft proofing, it became a simple matter to view Perceptual versus RelCol, an image at a time and have the artist decide what they preferred. This is due to the fact that profiles know nothing about images (only about devices) and users are the opposite (they should make these decisions based on their preferences).

Could this be because the purveyors of this technology don't agree
within themselves of how to do it?

As far as color management in Adobe products, this is very consistent.

In the old days, no two profile
reading applications would come up with the same numbers when reading
a common target (unlike a garden variety light meter).

You need to define what you1re asking for here. Multiple Spectrophotometer1s from multiple companies should provide the same LAB values from the same sample within a fairly narrow fudge factor (below a deltaE of one). If you1re saying you can use the same (or different) Spectrophotometer1s to read a bunch of patches to build a profile and the results from that profile are different, then yes, that1s the case. And it1s a good thing when using say a Perceptual intent because there1s no spec in how this should be conducted. Just like it1s up to the film manufacturer to decide how they think you will like the color of the scene. Fujichrome and Ektachrome don1t produce the same color from the same scene. I suspect we don1t want that. With even an Absolute Colorimetric intent, differing packages will produce different results but they should be much closer. Remember that in order to really measure this with absolute accurate, we1d have to measure 16.7 million patches. We1d end up with a profile larger than most images! So we measure a far fewer number of patches and each product has to do a great deal of extrapolation to produce a profile of the device. Even if we were able to Colorimetrically produce a match, in many cases we would not like the results of the output. This is a much bigger issue with input profiles from digital cameras. This part of ICC color management is filled with guesses, extrapolations and vendor assumed preferences in what color you wish to produce.

Do spectrophotometer makers agree on the illuminant
they produce to illuminate readings?

They should yes. An illuminant is a very specific definition, there is no
ambiguity.

Unless I'm missing something it would seem that the color
management pundits spend half their time telling us how wonderful
this stuff is and half their time explaining why things are goofed up
(or how we've got it all wrong).

No argument there.

I'm actually not anti-color management, it's a lot better than it was
(and, it's not finished being invented yet).

No indeed. The foundation of color management today is based on work done in the 19301s based upon viewing two solid color samples. That1s a far cry from a continuous tone (continuous tone appearing) image. It works surprisingly well considering it1s basis. There1s a lot more that needs to be done with respect to color appearance models that could really help but that will take time. Again, looking at the issues of profiling a camera (something near to both our hearts), you can see how taking a target with a limited gamut, placed in a limited dynamic scene range and attempting to 3profile2 how a camera supposedly captures the world we photograph is a HUGE stretch. The ICC is aware of this and hopefully the goal of properly handling such a difficult capture device will ultimately produce better tools for other areas of what we call color management.

Andrew Rodney
http://digitaldog.net/
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   Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:24:23 +0000
   From: Martin Bailey
Subject: RE: statements to validate

At 13:39 08/03/2005, Dan Remaley wrote:

As for proofing, I could make a Matchprint in Pittsburgh, New York, or Los
Angeles and they would look the same

Good grief, I wish I'd been working with your suppliers! At that stage I was working in a small production shop and the MatchPrints and Cromalins that we bought in were all over the place.

A couple of years later, when Global Graphics was working on our in-RIP color management, we sent the same set of films to a handful of local analog proof suppliers to get an idea of real-world color and variability. Even though they knew what we would be using the proofs for, and we told them to run their equipment exactly by the book, you could drive a large semi through the differences between them. We were heartened by the fact that we could consistently print ink-jet proofs with far lower delta-E variation from the "official, canonically correct" proof than any of the real world proofs were (visually closer, too, before somebody jumps on that!).

Now how close those ink-jet proofs were to anything a day later is another question ...

Thanks

Martin Bailey

-------------------------------------------------------------
  Senior Technical Consultant                +44 1223 873800
  Global Graphics Software        http://www.globalgraphics.com
  Developers of Harlequin & Jaws RIPs and Jaws PDF Technology
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   Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 16:55:23 -0500
   From: "Dan Remaley"
Subject: Why all the fuss . . . who cares . . .

This proces  control is a HARD sell  !!!!!!!!

Here's a survey forwarded to me about industry standards. . . .

Results of Last Week's Quick Poll
Here's how PBO members voted in last week's Quick Poll:

Print Buyer Quick Poll Question:
"How relevant are industry print standards such as SWOP, GRACoL, SNAP and Bridges to you as a print buyer?"

*16% of print buyers said: "Very relevant. I find them useful guides when working with my print suppliers"
*36% of print buyers said: "Somewhat relevant. I find them somewhat helpful, but I don't rely on them often."
*22% of print buyers said: "Not relevant at all. I really don't think they are very practical or useful for what my company produces."

*26% of print buyers said: "I don't really know what these industry print standards are."

73 print buyers participated in last week's Quick Poll!

Dan Remaley PIA/GATF
Process Control Manager
412.2591814
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   Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 14:05:17 -0500
   From: "Dan Remaley"
Subject: RE: statements to validate

Gee Martin, sorry you had so much trouble, I've had my share of bad proofs as well except I placed a GATF Proof Comparator on EVERY proof and taught the proofing person how to measure them.  I have been in many pre-press trade shops and notice little or no measurements.  Can only control what you can measure - every proof should have a target.

Matchprints had a wide lattitude for exposure and were much more stable than DuPonts Chromalin.  

Dan Remaley PIA/GATF
Process Control Manager
412.2591814
___________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 08:32:23 -0500
   From: Terry Wyse
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Are we talking about "Matchprints" in the literal sense (3M/Imation Matchprint) or in the generic sense (Matchprint, Fuji ColorArt, Dupont Waterproof, etc. are all "Matchprints")? If in the generic sense, there can be significant differences between them even when correctly exposed. For example, Fuji ColorArt gives you options in terms of the receiver material (lo-gain/hi-gain) and even in the choice of colorants so even if you ask for a "ColorArt" proof it isn't necessarily the same.

But of course the variation you'll see in analog/laminate proofs is NOTHING like the variation you'll see in digital dot proofers and inkjet proofs.

Make the proof match the press? Hogwash. Make the press match the proof? (what proof?).

Answer: bring the press to a standard print condition (SNAP, GRACoL or SWOP - get it?), profile the press once it's hitting that standard and then bring the proofer to the press.

Terry
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   Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 11:11:37 EST
   From: Dan Margulis
Subject: Re: Voltaire

Alain writes,

To follow in the footsteps of the litterary comments in your
articles, I suggest that Ray reads (or re-reads) Voltaire, in
particular Candide.Ê Voltaire's point (I simplify for the sake of
clarity and conciseness) is that we seek to live the best *possible*
world we can create for ourselves.Ê

I take time out from Photoshop World (where, contrary to speculation, no new product has been announced) to correct the above. In Candide, the philosopher Dr. Pangloss did not say we should *seek* to live in the best of all possible worlds, but rather that we *already* live in the best of all possible worlds, and if it seems otherwise to us it's because we don't understand the grand design.

As Ray indicates that he does not believe that we currently live in the best of all possible worlds, the allusion to Voltaire is inaccurate. The only truly Panglossian figures I can think of in recent graphic arts history were the apologists for Photoshop 5 in 1998, who, as the hamhanded release was creating chaos as well permanently ending any chance that a rational method of embedding profiles would ever get anywhere, kept insisting that all was for the best. To which the following line was quite applicable: "Candide--terrified, dumbstruck, bewildered, all bleeding, all a-quiver--said to himself: 'If *this* is the best of all possible worlds, what must the *others* be like?'"

If you must categorize Ray as a literary figure, it should be someone like Prince Myshkin who expected too much of his fellow man. With respect to the way printers behave, I am probably more like Epictetus ("Do not ask for things to happen as you wish: wish that things should happen as they do, and you will find peace.").

But, as far as the relations between photographers and printers go, I endorse the following from Voltaire:

     "Do you think," said Candide, "that men have always slaughtered one
another as they are doing today? That they have always been liars, thieves,
traitors, ingrates, villains, weaklings, unreliables, cowards, enviers, gluttons,
drunkards, skinflints, social climbers, bloodsuckers, perverts, debauchers,
hypocrites and fools?"
      "Do you think," said Martin, "that sparrow hawks have always eaten
pigeons?"

Dan Margulis
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:09:54 -0800
   From: Lee Varis
Subject: Re: Voltaire

lol...good one Dan! As a former unlucky expert I try to stay out of the sky when the sparrow hawks are out !

regards,

Lee Varis
http://www.varis.com
888-964-0024
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:59:57 -0700
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Why all the fuss . . . who cares . . .

On Mar 8, 2005, at 2:55 PM, Dan Remaley wrote:

*22% of print buyers said: "Not relevant at all. I really don't
think they are very practical or useful for what my company produces."

*26% of print buyers said: "I don't really know what these
industry print standards are."

Yeah but what's the breakdown of these print buyers? I'll bet the percent over time, from say 2 years ago even, there are more "print buyers" who are getting stuff from places that have high volume color copiers and digital presses and their quality concerns are like a buyer of fast food. I think because of how many more people are buying color, the sophistication of print buyers as a whole probably is going down just because of the shear volume of people who haven't been able to afford color printing until recently.

And we do know there's an increase in various kinds of digital printing that is not lithography, and all of these standards are lithographic, at least in origin. SWOP is attempting to be more agnostic as to how the job is actually reproduced, but it is still clearly oriented toward lithography.

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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   Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 21:47:21 -0700
   From: Chris Murphy
Subject: Re: Voltaire

On Mar 9, 2005, at 9:11 AM, Dan Margulis wrote:

The only truly
Panglossian figures I can think of in recent graphic arts history were the
apologists for Photoshop 5 in 1998, who, as the hamhanded release was creating
chaos as well permanently ending any chance that a rational method of embedding
profiles would ever get anywhere, kept insisting that all was for the best.

Ridiculous! Humans are mortal. Eventually the ones who got burned will die, and even the ones they told horror stories to will die. There will one day be an opportunity for embedded profiles to take over the world!   Hurray for mortality!! (And retirement.)

Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
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 Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 11:56:22 -0700
   From: Alain Briot
Subject: Re: Voltaire

Dan,

I was referring to Voltaire's message as reflected in Candide's quest for the El Dorado, not to Pangloss' statement since he, as you very well point out, already knows that we live in the best possible world. Unfortunately, few of us have Pangloss' insight hence the sufferings we have to go through to discover what he already knows.

Regards,

Alain
--
Alain Briot
Beaux Arts Photography
http://www.beautiful-landscape.com

800-949-7983 or 623-561-1641
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 14:13:14 -0500
   From: Martin Benoit
Subject: statements to validate

Thank you all for contributing to this thread which is helping us (teachers) to prepare better future photographers. My colleagues really appreciate this momentum.

Maybe I proceeded backward. I should have asked you, How can we (photographers) become better partners and prepare our files to suit your needs better, when we don1t know exactly what their final destination will be?

I think part of the problem is that in most cases, there is a middleman between the photographers and the prepress people. That middleman is often the cause of some ambiguity in the requirements, and may prevent clear communication between those who know the answers and those who can prepare the work properly at an early stage. I am not accusing the design shops or ad agencies. I am just saying that maybe there are too many links in the communication chain.

Should we be handing over RAW or DNG (Digital Negative) files, and trusting that subsequent steps will do the rest? Not so long ago we were handing our negatives over to the lab, who then did the prints more or less out of our control. Or we were handing over our uncropped, often uncorrected, set of bracketed transparencies, and that was it. Was it a good workflow? Did we do our job right or did we just move the problem along? Where does our job start and end, according to you? I am assuming here that most people on this list are in the prepress field. Maybe I am off topic here?

We have more control than ever over our product, i.e. the image file. That implies a responsibility toward the others involved. Sharpness, color space, resolution, to name a few. Should we get involved at the level of all these decisions?

Over the years, I1ve asked these questions to scanner operators as well as to people who train scanner operators. Most of the time I receive sad answers, along the lines that 3photographers don1t have the tools and knowledge to prepare their material properly, so we have to fix it most of the time2 and that1s it. I've always been upset by that answer, but I have to live with it.

I have been teaching photography for 16 years now and I see that the switch to digital capture could be just creating more anxieties. Or is it an opportunity to finally do things right? We need your help.

I read the DISC recommendations at
http://www.disc-info.org
and I have to admit that I was expecting more.

Thank you Martin Benoit
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   Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:38:03 -0000
   From: "dbernaerdt"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Martin,

I completely agree that improving communication will go a long way to improving the quality of the images - both from a technical and creative standpoint. This is no different that when a photographer was working with a lab. For many photographers now, their technical partner is no longer the photolab, but the printer. Their creative partner is still the client.

IMHO, handing off the raw files would lead to even more problems than handing off RGB files when CMYK is the final output. I liken it to giving the client unprocessed film. I don't think any photographer would advocate doing that. The raw files are open to far too much interpretation. It seems like the photographer would be abdicating all responsibility by taking this route.

Many photographers DO have (or have access to) the tools necessary to do the work that was traditionally done by a scanner operator - the knowledge is the more difficult part to acquire, although it is much easier than 10 years ago.

I believe the photography students are in a good position today to learn about the "new" tools. More so than a photographer that has been in the industry for 20 years. They need to upgrade and augment their skills. This requires a commitment of time and money while maintaining their existing business with all the facets that entails.

The students have a relatively clean slate from which to start. They are taking this course to acquire and hone their skills to embark on a new career. As an instructor, I think that my students should be learning the tools to craft the best possible images today within a collaborative environment that includes the client and their suppliers. The tools shouldn't be limited to what photographers have been using in the past. Let's look beyond traditional boundaries.

Darren Bernaerdt
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:38:56 -0000
   From: "tracy_jane_sc"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

Martin,

I manage a graphics department for a company. I have been fortunate to have developed relationships with 2 local photographers in the past 6 years whose RGB files I could trust to convert beautifully. Having the photographer hand us the RGB files allows us to covert to the standards provided by our print vendors. We often don't know who will be printing a job until late in the project--in the case of our catalog, over half the products had been shot. I work to make sure the photographer knows as much as I know about any given project, and that my staff artists learn as much as possible about how to evaluate an image and how to *tone* it to get the best reproduction of that image.

By all means your photography students should have a full grasp of 4-color process and crafting the best CMYK files possible, but they should also know that there will be some clients who want to receive the RGB files. Again, relationship and communication are the keys to success.

Best Regards,
Tracy Willams
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   Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:28:23 -0000
   From: "douglasrhiner"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

I've been following this tread with great interest because "we" are the middleman and printer, but have not found a solid rational way to communicate our needs to the pgotographers we deal with in the DSLR days.

It used to be no problem, before the advent of DSLR's, since we did all the scanning for our clients.
Now everyone who picks up a DSLR is an "expert". Giving us "mystery meat" files half of the time.

Thanks again for covering a very important topic.

-Doug
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 16:48:34 -0900
   From: KmKm/Crystal Images
Subject: Re: sparrow hawks

Thank you Dan.  For this list.  For this laugh.  And for all your contributions.

Kathleen

  "Do you think," said Martin, "that sparrow hawks have always eaten pigeons?"
--
Kathleen M.K. Menke/Crystal Images
http://www.akmk.com
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 20:30:38 -0600
   From: Howard Smith
Subject: Re: statements to validate

In my own limited experience, if you want quality results then you're better off doing as much of the work yourself as you can do.  It's not easy, but it's less expensive than relying on others and it certainly gives you more uniform quality.  Every service bureau and printer with whom I've worked has offered the world's most ouitstanding quality and reliabillity.  I know this is true because they told me so when they showed me the purple water lily leaves they called "premium photo prints", the washed-out scans, the fluorescent green lithos of a fine art print "What green?  Those colors are correct!  It's the proof that was the wrong color!." (the entire staff at the printing firm was angrily adamant in insisting that I didn't know quality when I saw it), the suite of lithos in which every image was out of register and looked like they were printed on blotter paper.  And so it went for years until I determined to learn how to do my own photography, my own scans, my own corrections, and even my own printing (large format inkjet prlints).

There are excellent photographers, scanners, color correctors, and printers participating in this forum.  I know that from the depth of their advice which can only come from a solid background of doing quality work. Unfortunately I never had the good fortune to encounter one of them until joining the forum.  A word of caution here, lest I be misunderstood. This paragraph should not be taken as cynicism.  These are the people who helped me learn what must be the world's most difficult subject, and to them I owe my success in a most difficult profession.

Howard Smith
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 07:08:43 -0000
   From: "ray_maxwell2000"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

THANK YOU TRACY...

This was a very reasonable and rational reply and suggested solution to this thread.

The bottom line...

It does not matter if the photographer hands off a tagged or untagged RGB or CMYK file.  If the photographer knows what he is doing and the printer knows what he is doing and they communicate with each other, the result will be excellent.  You can make either method work. However, it would be nice if we could standardize some of these methods with objective measurements.

If either party does not know what they are doing and does not know how to communicate with the other then it seems that the standard procedure is to complain about the other guy.

Re: Voltaire

One of my problems with wanting the "best of all possible worlds" is that before I did electronic prepress for 10 years for a commercial photographer with national accounts, I worked in other industries that have been using standard manufacturing methods and measurements for more than 100 years.  I am referring to designing military and commercial aircraft systems, airborne remote sensing systems, satellite ground stations, and prepress proofing systems.  Since I have a passion for the photographic arts, I decided to spend the last part of my career working in the area of color science.

Ray
________________________________________________________________________

   Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 18:35:06 -0500
   From: Henry
Subject: Re: statements to validate

It had been my belief, maybe a mistaken one, that photography as a profession was a full-time job. Because photography was a full-time job, scanning and prep work was accomplished by others.  The assumption that expensive equipment and know-how were the *only* things standing in the way of photographers doing their own prep work needs to saute a bit in my thinking before I can accept it totally.  The pro photographers I have encountered have usually been very busy at their trade.

With the exception of Dan's course, there seems to be a notion that image prep is *only* a subset of skills that are to be listed under the heading of "Photographer".  Photoshop courses in universities are offered as a part of the photography program. RIT and GATF training are a couple of other exceptions, but the point is that the subject of image prep is talked about as it it were extremely important, yet it is not important enough to be treated as a profession.

There is a solution that is being overlooked or even avoided - there are people who already have these skills. Photographers are in a position to practice their profession full-time, albeit with an additional optional step of reviewing the prepared scans/captures for approval.  But, to do this, they will need a partner.

It would interest me if there are any others on the list who see this situation in a similar light. Understanding the desire for control that seems to drive this subject, it seems reasonable that it would come at some cost.  If the cost of control were a reduction in the time allowed to my profession, my choice would be to hire this out or form a partnership with a person experienced in this field.

While it is my understanding that there are a number of professional photographers who have taken exactly this approach as their solution, I would like to hear their views about how this has worked for them. A couple of local photographers have related to me that they have partners doing prep work, and that this has allowed them to apply more time to the already demanding job of shooting.  I make this request partly because there seems to be an eerie absence of such discussions on the list, and partly because of the frustration that can be sensed from some of the photographers on the list who are being pressured to juggle too many balls.

It is also my suspicion that the desire for "control over the image" is sometimes being used as a
diversionary tactic by some who are actually seeking to gain two professional incomes.

Sorry about the last part - no offense is intended.

Henry Davis
________________________________________________________________________
 
   Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:29:12 -0800
   From: "Jeff Smith"
Subject: Re: statements to validate

My business has spanned the gap between design and commercial photography for over 25 years now - offering both services to our clients. It's a symbiotic relationship.

I've also actively advocated for photographers partnering with prepress houses for their prep for many years.

Lately, there is a trend, at least in our local area - of larger prepress houses offering photography to their clients in addition to prepress services. Three local color houses have established in-house studios over the past several years. It may be a hard sell to those photographers that find themselves competing with prepress houses for their livlihoods.

On the other hand, because we've had partnerships established for quite some time now, one of our partners asked recently if they can sell our photography services as a part of the projects they are bidding on. They find themselves competing with the largher shops that offer it all. Sometimes it works, sometimes it becomes a question of who should be selling the job in question. It's a matter of who should control the project.

When the other shoe drops, it is hard to make certain that they are selling it as a professional service - not just a necessary evil to create files for them to work over for their client.

This situation will take a little time to work out the kinks, but at its best its a win/win/win situation, helping the photographer, the prepress house, and the client to a better project completed more efficiently.

--
Jeff Smith

Smith/Walker Design and Photography

P. O. Box 58630
Seattle, WA  98138
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   Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:40:02 -0800
   From: "Darren & Leanne Bernaerdt"
Subject: RE: statements to validate

Henry,

You raise a good point about this previously being two distinct jobs. For those photographers that are uncomfortable with getting involved with the pre-press side, then by all means a partnership makes sense. For those that want to take it on (assuming the necessary education is in place), my experience has been that a conversion to digital capture has made me significantly more productive as a photographer.

While various areas of specialty will certainly have differing degrees of impact, the loading of 4x5" film holders (after cleaning them out!), waiting for Polaroids, dropping the film off to the lab, running a clip test, evaluating the clip, picking it the final film...well, you get the idea.

With the pro level digital devices, the color is bang on and the results essentially instantaneous. There is obviously no scanning to worry about and no time consuming color correction when you scan a shot taken last month and one taken yesterday. A film based workflow is usually more variable than controlled digital capture. And more time consuming in my experience.

If I have to add a clipping path to 50 product shots, then I certainly want assistance. For the rest of the work, I enjoy taking on this additional aspect of production that I was not able to be involved in during my film shooting days. It provides a balance to the time spent photographing and I feel it is not unlike doing your own darkroom work (although WAY more enjoyable).

Darren Bernaerdt