I'm an avid fan of Brian Fraser, Jeff Schewe, and Andrew Rodney. But when did it become acceptable for one (famous) professional to openly criticize another well-known professional in public? Maybe around the time retired army generals decided it was OK to publicly criticize current active leaders.
When one started making up total crap about a number of technical issues that only he believes, then attempt to spread this nonsense to a group of people who don't know better. It started years ago when Dan tried to dismiss the work of Adobe in providing us tools to edit in high bit and started his totally lame 16-bit challenge. Most of us dismissed him because the math is undeniable. When some tried to take the challenge, they found they were working with a guy who was more interested in being right AND using the controversy to shine a light on himself. One very well known, quite brilliant color scientist by the name of Bruce Lindbloom even posted his frustration with Dan's total lack of scientific testing and rule changing here:
http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?DanMargulis.htmlPLEASE read it, it sums up perfectly the genesis of Dan's MO.
Please take note of something Bruce says (and I believe in my testing):
"My goal in preparing it was to be truthful and objective. If it contains errors, please let me know". It would be refreshing if we ever heard something like this from Dan.
Then I submitted actual Raw files on my iDisk to illustrate an image that showed image degradation in 8-bit that didn't show up in 16-bit. Dan trashed it, again moving the goal posts by saying that I used an "Ultra wide gamut" space (ProPhoto RGB) and these spaces are not to be used and don't fall into the challenge. Note the new Dan term he made up and now uses to dismiss a working space that lots of users work with every day. I then submitted again, Raw files to illustrate a situation where using ANY working space OTHER than ProPhoto RGB would show problems (image damage) even in 16-bit. He of course dismissed that as well.
Oh, I should point out that when I uploaded both sets of test files as .DNGs, Dan dismissed them as not being Raw files. Only until his close moderator friends on the list carefully explained to him that a DNG is a Raw file, did he back off on that method of dismissing my files.
As to 16-bit, in Dan's mind, Adobe and all the manufacturers who provide data in high bit are wrong, its not useful and he's right. And yet, has Dan EVER provided any empirical data to back up his theories? No. Instead he expect us to provide files to prove our point, then he dismisses them using whatever he wishes to use to tell us what we're seeing or doing is wrong. That's not good science as I said before.
Then we have the more recent composite curve nonsense of Dan's that resulted in Mark Segal's excellent and well researched article here. Again, Dan and his minions shot it down. Dan told his list that Camera Raw and Lightroom use "sloppy math" and are "unfit for professional use". Instead you should (if you must use these products) set the sliders to default and fix the images in Photoshop, the only application he really has a clue about.
Dan put his foot in his mouth by saying he had produced the exact math used in CR using an Excel spreadsheet to prove his point about the sloppy math. Many of us asked to see this so called proof, even willing to provid this to Thomas Knoll so he could 'fix' this issue. We suggested Dan would do the imaging community a lot of good by providing this to Thomas. Well not only did he spend weeks ignoring countless requests, he finally demanded the topic be closed. This is after all, a highly moderated list. Fine, its obviously there to promote Dan.
Now we have the magic sharpening technique. Again, based on the past history of Dan, many of us, myself in the forefront want to know, where's the beef?
If Dan wasn't a capable guy, we'd dismiss him long ago. That he does make up stuff, basically lie (the spreadsheet is a prefect example) and has the ear of so many less than knowledgeable readers, its simply unfair for those of us that have seen what he says to remain quiet. At the very least, test what he says is the law of physics according to Dan.
BTW, everything mentioned above is documented and direct quotes from Dan can be provided. This is ALL from his list. No one is putting words in Dan's mouth. He's usually pretty careful about not 'getting caught' using terms like "everyone knows" or "if this is too much or too little do this" etc. The spreadsheet was a huge mistake on his part, and he's progressively being caught with his pants down. Just in the last few weeks, he's told folks this new sharpening technique is " highly effective at adding focus..." Technical psychobabble. Again, when Mark pointed out that NO sharpening technique could
add focus, he was shunned and censored (again).
So, to answer your question, its all about letting the imaging community know the kind of crap this guy has been generating and asking these people to TEST and
examine what he says before drinking the Koolaid outright.
As for the army generals, I will only say that I support them in saying what they feel are the facts, as some of us have tried to do here and on other lists. Lists that are not moderated and censored so that those running them can be protected from the facts, or at least to provide readers enough information to make up their own minds, should they be willing to do some testing. Or, people can read and believe what they hear as fact based on the messenger.
The files, should anyone wish to test them continue to be on my iDisk.