Is this a viable alternative to ICC driven color management & display profiling?

[Tim Lookingbill]

Below is a page I stumbled across doing a search on vcgt curves.

http://www.lightillusion.com/display_setup.htm

This is new to me. I've never seen an approach to display calibration done quite like the author describes. He seems to be quite knowledgeable about ICC standards. He advocates the vcgt curve calibration as he refers to as (1D) isn't enough to get accurate color because it leaves out the 3D matrice portion of the profile that controls hue/saturation.

I'm assuming he services the video/movie film industry as opposed to computer/video card ICC driven color managed way of doing things.

Thought I'ld post it because it offers an alternate perspective on the rest of the imaging industry I've been curious about with concerns to the way things work for computerized ICC color managed imaging.

Do you think this author makes sense or is he missing or misinterpreting information on the subject? It was an interesting read from a different perspective for me at least.

[Czornyj]

All modern NEC PA/SV, EIZO SX/CG displays feature 3DLUTs and the software to make use of it. But it's only useful for non-color aware software, and for "hardware-softproofing".

[Tim Lookingbill]

So are you saying those displays will show the correct level of hue/saturation viewing the image in a non-color managed app as long as the profile has the 3D LUT?

IOW the second test image in that linked page showing the boost in saturation of the fruit and vegetables which you can see hovering the cursor over the image is what this 3D LUT profile does to the entire display when loaded in the system?

[Czornyj]

Yes, a display with 3DLUT can correct the hue/saturation while displaying RGB numbers. To put it in simple words - you can calibrate the color space of the display. We choose an ICC profile to create a 3DLUT correction, and our display starts to mimic the color space defined by the selected ICC profile.

[Tim Lookingbill]

I clicked on the CMI link on that page and found some interesting tests on what that industry considers HDR rendering here:

http://www.cinematography.net/epic-alexa-f3.htm

I'm getting the impression that industry's definition of terms and methods used for digital imaging reproduction seem at odds or different from digital imaging for photographers. It's the first I've seen of any info on alternative methods and definitions used outside of what's discussed at LL and other photography sites.

[stalisman]

The way I read it was as a feasible justification for  purchasing the highend software from them and also to invest in a Hubble from xrite.  The end result being a superbly calibrated monitor.


I don't see how that effects anything other than giving confidence when editing, irrespective of the colour space or not, that the colour coordinates in the file were exact as your pocket can afford.

[Tim Lookingbill]

I'm sure that's all high end precision equipment for the very highly picky, competitive and lucrative video and film industry.

Most of what I use for color management I bought for under $2000 combined. I've heard about high bit hardware LUT calibration but I wasn't aware that it could control hue/saturation appearance. What I'm not clear about in that linked page is how a 3D LUT calibrated display (without an ICC profile?) integrates with ICC transform based color management workflows.

That article mentions adhering/standardizing to rec. 709 which uses the same colorant/color temp descriptors as HDTV & sRGB. What I'm not sure about is how that 3D LUT calibrated display will do the transform for non-color management apps of tagged (AdobeRGB? ProPhotoRGB?) images they might receive from outside their closed loop workflow.

I'm assuming they will convert to either some hybrid ICC profile custom made by measuring the response provided by the 3D LUT or maybe just convert to sRGB.