Color Management is for Wimps

[Visual Reality]

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/color-management/is-for-wimps.htm

Poll above.

[Bynx]

Things have certainly changed in the last few years. Color management is one of them. I went into this with the opposite opinion, but after reading Rockwell's thread I do agree with him.

[SpecialK]

It seems Ken thinks he has every answer (in this and other articles) and you are a fool if you think otherwise, or there is an alternative approach.

But I've only calibrated monitors by eye, with minor tweaks from the box. Never sent out for prints...

[Rooz]

decent enuf monitor calibration is pretty important but the rest is not for me. i dont print anything at home for the same reasons he pointed out. its cheaper, more reliable and better quality to print at a decent lab.

[Visual Reality]

What I have learned from this is to just use sRGB full-time if I want everyone else to see what I see (more or less). I have my monitor calibrated with my Spyder2 so that I see everything correctly, including sRGB as well.

I just set Photoshop to North America Web/Internet and it looks like all the settings are spot on. I used to have it set to my monitor profile but I'm not sure if that's the right choice, I can't see a difference though.

[JTL]

For happy snappies he's got a point.

But for serious artists, there is no choice but to go the do-it-yourself route, since no lab can duplicate what they have in their heads. This is fundamentally no different than it was in the film days...when the photo artist spent a good chunk of time in the darkroom after being out shooting.

I know he's playing to a general audience but I really dislike his gross generalizations. He always has some good points, but they frequently seem to get lost in his relentless myopia and narcissism. If he would just qualify what he says, he'd be perceived as a much more credible guy.

[Rhys]

If you care about the results, you manage the colour. If you don't - and Ken obviously doesn't then you suffer the consequences.

[erichlund]

A lot of it has to do with your version of reality. A computer with a decent monitor and printer will do a decent job without any color management whatsoever. However, for some people, close is just close, and they want more. They want a fuller spectrum of color than sRGB will give, and they want more accuracy than they will get with the system defaults. For those people (raises hand), profiling tools are a necessary evil.

One gross assumption of the article is that if you don't get it right, it will always be wrong. You may not get the profile right on your first try. That doesn't mean that you give up. The trickiest is the monitor to printer. It can be a bit expensive to zone in on the correct profile, but once you have a good procedure down, profiling a different paper should be fairly straight forward.

For some people, sending out for prints is the best policy, but some of us don't even want a lot of prints laying around. I have zillions of them in boxes somewhere from my film days. Now, I only print the photos I want to display on the wall or in a photo book, and so I want to control the process. My other keepers get sized for either computer screens or our digital display.

[Bynx]

Color management has some meaning if you are doing your own printing. You would like to have your monitor, under under the same lighting conditions, to produce a printed output which looks as close as possible to the monitor so you have an idea what to expect. But why waste the time doing that when someone else is doing the printing? It would then be up to them to look after the color management. I do know, from my experience, the self service printers in photoshops produce minimal results when compared to giving the file to the guy behind the counter to print the same file from his computer. He has calibrated his monitor more accurately to the printer.

[Margus]

I do agree with Rockwell 100%. The key for "buying me in" was following statement:
Color management is already built into everything by designers who know what they're doing. Any attempts to outsmart them usually delivers crummier results than leaving everything alone.

I would draw a parallel with car industry. There are people who want to tune their car engines themselves and who believe that they can make better engines than the professional engineers at Ford, Toyota, etc...

I would rely on the pros ;)

[JTL]

I do agree with Rockwell 100%. The key for "buying me in" was following statement:
Color management is already built into everything by designers who know what they're doing. Any attempts to outsmart them usually delivers crummier results than leaving everything alone.

I would draw a parallel with car industry. There are people who want to tune their car engines themselves and who believe that they can make better engines than the professional engineers at Ford, Toyota, etc...

I would rely on the pros ;)That would be true if every manufacturer's profiles were guaranteed to produce the exact same output from device to device. But, they're not. Once again, more gross generalizations on top of gross generalizations. If you do your own printing and scanning and you care a hoot about quality and consistency (unlike Ken, I "qualify" my statements ;)), you absolutely must calibrate your equipment to match output between the devices..and even for different papers.

Just because Ken doesn't know what he's doing doesn't mean the rest of us don't know what we're doing!

But, for snaps and some commercial work, like wedding mill stuff, I agree with him...my problem is with unqualified blanket assumptions and stipulations. ;)

[Visual Reality]

I do agree with Rockwell 100%. The key for "buying me in" was following statement:
Color management is already built into everything by designers who know what they're doing. Any attempts to outsmart them usually delivers crummier results than leaving everything alone.

I would draw a parallel with car industry. There are people who want to tune their car engines themselves and who believe that they can make better engines than the professional engineers at Ford, Toyota, etc...

I would rely on the pros ;)
Not really a valid comparison. The reason why you can make an engine better is because they are designed for long term durability, emissions regulations and other requirements. You simply can't design an engine to produce maximum results because you have to design with the idea in mind that it is going to be beat on by the consumer, and it has to handle it - period. When you modify an engine you can get amazing results above and beyond the stock configuration - but when it breaks you can't go pointing fingers.

[Margus]

There were times when you had to adjust the colors of your color-TV too. But finally the manufacturers were able to create TV-sets which you do not have to calibrate. The same is happening/has already happened (?) to the colors in the computer world due to the sRGB standard. People tend to acceot the new ideas with a different speed. Some can see the changes right away whilst others get stuck to the old knowledge for a while.

[Visual Reality]

Computer displays are still never "right" out of the box. Some are close, some are way off, and sRGB standards have nothing to do with it.

TV's are better, but I don't think any display is exempt from the benefits of calibration.

[erichlund]

There were times when you had to adjust the colors of your color-TV too. But finally the manufacturers were able to create TV-sets which you do not have to calibrate. The same is happening/has already happened (?) to the colors in the computer world due to the sRGB standard. People tend to acceot the new ideas with a different speed. Some can see the changes right away whilst others get stuck to the old knowledge for a while.

Your last sentences should be the clue to yourself of the indefensible position you are in. Those of us who calibrate are the ones that don't accept the status quo, and are doing all we can to achieve the best possible results.

Clearly you have not used a monitor calibrator. I use a Spyder 3 on a relatively new Sony 20" LCD monitor (on a relatively new computer with a high end graphics card). It makes a clearly visible and significant improvement in the image quality I see on my monitor. The colors are more accurate. Blacks and whites are truer.

As for TVs, there have been big improvements, but they are not perfect. If you go to buy a TV, you will see lots of variation in image quality (I've bought two recently, and yes, you can see significant differences). Some of that is on purpose, but the better brands tend to shine. You just have to look past the detuned colors the stores employ to get you to buy the high spiff items.

If you choose to accept what you get and not question whether you can do better, that is fine. You are clearly able to live with your results. Those of us that know how to use more powerful tools and are willing to spend the time and money to use them will get better results.

[Margus]

Computer displays are still never "right" out of the box. Some are close, some are way off, and sRGB standards have nothing to do with it.

I think it has something to do with it, or to be exact, it is all about it! It is worked out especially for working out devices which produce same colors and to keep the users free of need for color calibration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRGB
sRGB is a standard RGB (Red Green Blue) color space created cooperatively by HP and Microsoft for use on monitors, printers, and the Internet.


Not really a valid comparison. The reason why you can make an engine better is ...


... If you choose to accept what you get and not question whether you can do better, that is fine. You are clearly able to live with your results. Those of us that know how to use more powerful tools and are willing to spend the time and money to use them will get better results.

Amen! Erich hit the point :) I am happy with what I get out of the box and out of the car shop too :)

[Visual Reality]

Perhaps you don't understand.

The sRGB standard for color images has nothing to do with the color your display shows when it gets to your door.

[zmikers]

There were times when you had to adjust the colors of your color-TV too. But finally the manufacturers were able to create TV-sets which you do not have to calibrate. The same is happening/has already happened (?) to the colors in the computer world due to the sRGB standard. People tend to acceot the new ideas with a different speed. Some can see the changes right away whilst others get stuck to the old knowledge for a while.

Not true. Ask anyone who has spent time and money building a quality home entertainment centre.....Like me (just had my new sub woofer delivered last night:))..... TVs still need to be calibrated to get the best results. Ask the pros, they will agree.

As for computer monitorsand photo equipment, not all companies, programs and systems have the same idea of what the "right" colour is. Take your photos into different professional photolabs and look at the results. They will not be the same.

[JTL]

There were times when you had to adjust the colors of your color-TV too. But finally the manufacturers were able to create TV-sets which you do not have to calibrate.Totally untrue. Have you ever seen the difference between a professionally calibrated HDTV and one that hasn't been calibrated? Obviously not, because if you had, you wouldn't have made that statement. Most TVs are too blue and too bright (among other things) out of the box.

I have nothing against people who are willing to accept crappy out of the box results. That's their choice. Just don't delude yourself into thinking that it isn't crap and try to convince others who know better that it isn't crap. ;)

Hey, I see Zmickey beat me to it! :D

[JTL]

I think it has something to do with it, or to be exact, it is all about it! It is worked out especially for working out devices which produce same colors and to keep the users free of need for color calibrationOh yeah? O.K. Choose sRGB as your monitor profile and choose sRBG as your printer profile. Now get two different papers with two different ISO brightness levels and opacity percentages. Print the same image on both without making any adjustments. Compare the prints. If the colors are exactly the same on both, I'll pay you $1,000.00!!! :p;):D

[Rhys]

Those of us with Macs have handy colour profile setups built into the system :D

[JTL]

Those of us with Macs have handy colour profile setups built into the system :DMeans nothing. Guarantees nothing. O.K for the non-critical...just make sure you know what the fact that it has "profiles" actually means regarding consistent output...but I'll save you the time...it means nothing. ;)

[Rhys]

Means nothing. Guarantees nothing. O.K for the non-critical...just make sure you know what the fact that it has "profiles" actually means regard consistent output...but I'll save you the time...it means nothing. ;)


I'm a happy Mac Snob :p

As I sit here with my brand new Mac, trying to fix my wife's Windows machine in an hotel room, I think how nice it is not to have a machine as susceptible to problems.

Seriously though, profiles have to match the output of the printer/ink combination used to mean anything.

[JTL]

I'm a happy Mac Snob :pHey...I'll tell ya somthin'...at this point, even though I dislike Apple, I'll get a Mac before I ever upgrade to Vista! :D

[T06]

That is one of the reasons I went to mac, too many bad things were told to me about it, & that was from software developers.:eek:

[zmikers]

Totally untrue. Have you ever seen the difference between a professionally calibrated HDTV and one that hasn't been calibrated? Obviously not, because if you had, you wouldn't have made that statement. Most TVs are too blue and too bright (among other things) out of the box.

I have nothing against people who are willing to accept crappy out of the box results. That's their choice. Just don't delude yourself into thinking that it isn't crap and try to convince others who know better that it isn't crap. ;)

Hey, I see Zmickey beat me to it! :D

hehehe ya by 11 minutes..... But glad you agree.

[Razr]

I do agree with Rockwell 100%. The key for "buying me in" was following statement:
Color management is already built into everything by designers who know what they're doing. Any attempts to outsmart them usually delivers crummier results than leaving everything alone.

I would draw a parallel with car industry. There are people who want to tune their car engines themselves and who believe that they can make better engines than the professional engineers at Ford, Toyota, etc...

I would rely on the pros ;)
Agreed.
Rockwell is saying there are industry(wide) standards the average (99%) photographer should use.
He also makes a valid point regarding outside (COTSCO-et al) printers too being standardized, though if you think you can do better than (optimized) printing standards, have a go.

Rockwell's point does not speak to the "Artists" amongst photographers, nor those who are experimenting.
But for those of us who get paid to shoot, the utter, 100% predicitablity of today's lab output makes time-wasting and arduous "post processing" an effete affectation.

[Razr]

Your last sentences should be the clue to yourself of the indefensible position you are in. Those of us who calibrate are the ones that don't accept the status quo, and are doing all we can to achieve the best possible results.

Clearly you have not used a monitor calibrator. I use a Spyder 3 on a relatively new Sony 20" LCD monitor (on a relatively new computer with a high end graphics card). It makes a clearly visible and significant improvement in the image quality I see on my monitor. The colors are more accurate. Blacks and whites are truer.

As for TVs, there have been big improvements, but they are not perfect. If you go to buy a TV, you will see lots of variation in image quality (I've bought two recently, and yes, you can see significant differences). Some of that is on purpose, but the better brands tend to shine. You just have to look past the detuned colors the stores employ to get you to buy the high spiff items.

If you choose to accept what you get and not question whether you can do better, that is fine. You are clearly able to live with your results. Those of us that know how to use more powerful tools and are willing to spend the time and money to use them will get better results.
Don't you really mean "preferred results" as opposed to "better"?

Rockwell's entire posit deals with print output, not the tortured convolutions of post processing or arduous practice of coordinating and setting monitor-printer outputs.
Sure if you post process for whatever real or imagined reason, and print at home/office on inkjet or dye-sub printers, you can tweak to your heart's desire.
If you are an "artist", heck yes: tweak.
Try this: "tweak" a file in any format you prefer, then gang the original (jpg) on a CD and trot down to COTSCO nd let them print the files.

In the end, Rockwell's posit says your prints from COTSCO-whoever may be indistinguishable.
Ask yourself: are your "tweaked" files any better (in print) than your jpgs?

[Rhys]

Hey...I'll tell ya somthin'...at this point, even though I dislike Apple, I'll get a Mac before I ever upgrade to Vista! :D

When I went Mac, I did so for several reasons:
1. When I went from Windows 98 to XP, I disliked intensely having to ask permission from Microsoft to use something I had paid for and being reliant upon Microsoft to give me permission to reinstall every time it was needed (and it was needed many times). Also, if I put the same OS on every computer in my house, I have that right - which Microsoft seeks to deny me with their activation con-trick. If I buy a book, I am free to photocopy the whole book and put a photocopied version in each room of my house since I bought that book!
2. All the virus writers write viruses that attack windows because most of them cannot afford a Mac.
3. OSX just works better.
4. When Microsoft went with Vista they made a big blunder. It is backwards compatible with XP which means it suffers the same flaws. They could have made a complete break by writing something so much better just as Apple has in the past.

If Microsoft put their house in order then I might have stuck with Windows. Now I'm a happy Mac user. I'm not going back to Windows as everything I need for what I do is available for Mac and is cheaper than the Windows version. Believe it or not but many of the common games are available for Mac - if that's your thing.

[Visual Reality]

On release XP was a very buggy, full-of-holes OS with a lot of incompatibilities. It took quite some time to get it right. Service Pack 1 was good, SP2 was great - it felt like a whole new OS. Now that SP3 is here XP is going to stay on a lot of people's machines (mine included). Vista...well that's a different discussion, but MS has Service Pack 1 out now and its certainly better than when it released. Compatibility has been nailed down, everything just works and give it enough RAM and its faster than XP. I even have the 64-bit version and everything works.

Obviously it isn't going to be enough to sway the people that already switched but...they should be happy with their decision, even if it means paying more for the Apple name.

Back on topic though...where do you guys go for prints? If it really is cheaper and better than doing it yourself, I'm interested.

[Rhys]

Apple is more than just a name. It's a whole new way of doing things. Come over from the dark side and you'll realise what you're missing.

[erichlund]

Actually, Rhys, it's a whole old way of doing things. UNIX has been around longer than Windows, and is the basis of OS-X, but UNIX is new to Apple. Apple has been doing things their way since they opened their doors, back in the late 1970s. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it very, very wrong. In fact, they got it so wrong that they had to start over and adapt UNIX as the basis for their operating system.

In fact, if you look at their UI, it looks a lot like the UI that is currently on most UNIX systems, dressed up with some fancy colors and backgrounds. I basically use the same thing every workday on a Sun Solaris system. In fact, I've been using that same UI so long, I've forgotten what the darn thing is called. My first experience with it was back in 1997, working for MCI on a DEC UNIX platform. It was a bit buggier then. In fact, some of my coworkers used a different UI by the Open Software Foundation because it could be a pain in the rear.

[Rhys]

Apple has tinkered until finally they got it right - without hampering themselves with old technology. Microsoft tried but screwed up badly with Longhorn and with os2. Windows 3.1, 95, 98/se/me were all examples of Microsoft screwing up too. IMHO NT4 was Microsoft's finest hour. 2000 was OK but nowhere near as good as NT4. XP is a pile of poo in comparison! The only reason I left NT4 was because I needed USB support.

I had considered going over to Linux but for the fact that Linux photo processing software is universally awful - even the paid stuff.

No - OSX is the way to go. I have heard of no RAW processing software for Solaris nor for any other OS aside from Mac and Windows.

[erichlund]

Apple has tinkered until finally they got it right - without hampering themselves with old technology.

OS-X is not a tinker. It's a complete surrender and refit. Prior to OS-X, Apple's operating system was a series of totally in house generations, though like all systems, heavily borrowed from other systems. OS-9 (I think it was) was the final straw. There were so many problems, and Apple was losing customers left and right. They had to do something. OS-X is the result. It's a good operating system. But, it's not Apple, it's UNIX, repackaged.

The main reason proprietary UNIX operating systems have high reliability is the high level of control that Apple and Sun, to name two, place on the hardware. OS-X doesn't have to work on several hundred different motherboards, all thinking they can eek out that last ounce of performance with some special trick, even if the final purchaser employs any of 30 or 40 different video solutions, and adapts all sorts of other devices that the operating system must manage.

On the other hand, with those proprietary systems, you have fewer choices.

Enjoy your MAC. It's a good machine. Just keep it in perspective. It's old technology applied to tightly controlled hardware, with a fancy facade. Seeing only the facade, you get the feeling of something fresh and new, but you should actually be thankful that it is not. Old is not bad, it's good. It means all the bugs have been worked out. It does not mean it's not up to date. UNIX, in all it's forms, has been kept up to current technology. But the core is still UNIX, and that core is not new.

[Rhys]

I understand that OSX is based partly on Free BSD and partly on one of Apple's in-house creations.

[Beowulff]

Ouch!
..... If I buy a book, I am free to photocopy the whole book and put a photocopied version in each room of my house since I bought that book!Most definitely not true — in Australia at least. You could be charged as an individual with breach of copyright, as could any third party who copied it on your behalf for payment.

I'm surprised that similar laws don't apply in America.

Cheers :)

[T06]

It does!!!;) But then it gets technical as in what "color" underwear did the op wear on the date of infringement.:rolleyes:

[erichlund]

Free BSD is UNIX. I seriously doubt that Apple would tinker with the core of UNIX. All they really care is that it works and that it looks like an Apple product. The UI is where Apple would "tinker".