Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Telecaster on December 19, 2015, 09:15:22 pm
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A new article on tetrachromacy…that is, having retinal cones with four wavelength peaks rather than the usual three. In theory this should allow for vision with much finer tonal gradation than most of us experience. This is the first report I've read of any genuine study of the phenomenon.
IMO the report sometimes oversimplifies but overall it's informative and well worth reading.
http://theneurosphere.com/2015/12/17/the-mystery-of-tetrachromacy-if-12-of-women-have-four-cone-types-in-their-eyes-why-do-so-few-of-them-actually-see-more-colours/
-Dave-
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Many thanks for the link! Not only it's interesting, but it has... practical implications for me :)
After reading through the article, I firmly believe my wife is not only a tetrachromat, but she's in the 1/7 of those tetrachromats who have clear separation of M-cones allowing them to actually see extra colors.
My color vision is perfectly fine. When going through color tests, I could always see color separation absolutely perfectly, as clear as if, say, some of the circles forming a shape were black and other white, forming a perfectly discernible shape.
And yet we have constant arguments with my wife about things like the color of the stripes on a shirt, or whether shirt color matches that of a waistcoat! In fact, last disagreement happened this past Thursday. It is almost always about tints of red, or colors having red in them (such as magenta), with my wife apparently seeing [larger] differences where I don't -- perfectly in line with what the article suggests should be expected.
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Many thanks for the link! Not only it's interesting, but it has... practical implications for me :)
After reading through the article, I firmly believe my wife is not only a tetrachromat, but she's in the 1/7 of those tetrachromats who have clear separation of M-cones allowing them to actually see extra colors.
Wow. Your wife may want to consider having her color perception tested…assuming she's interested, of course. :)
-Dave-
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Interesting topic, and one with which I agree insofar as I have seen the better colour vision of women at work. You can't be in the fashion trade very long before you become aware that women are much better at matching different garments to make a pleasing whole.
There's always the caveat that you might, as a male, simply be accepting their better vision as a reality without being able to prove it, but I don't think that's the case.
I also think women have better colour memory in the sense that they seem capable of buying something to go with something else without having the first piece of colour to hand when buying the match for it. In my own case, the way I remember colours is often light years away from the reality that hits me next time I see whatever I had been remembering.
Have you ever stopped to consider the many different shades of nominal 'silver' that cars can have? Few match the perfection of the Mercedes 'silver arrows' look; in fact, some silvers look suspiciously dull grey! ;-)
Perhaps that's partly why I prefer black/white photography, apart from the debilitating cost of any Mercedes that I would actually like to own.
Rob C
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But note, Rob, that functional tetrachromacy is rare. Less than 2% of women by current estimate. Most tetrachromats don't appear to see any differently than we trichromats.
-Dave-
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But note, Rob, that functional tetrachromacy is rare. Less than 2% of women by current estimate. Most tetrachromats don't appear to see any differently than we trichromats.
-Dave-
Indeed, so it indicates, but from my own observations I'd still credit women with far better colour vision. Whether I've met an unreasonable number of special ones is anybody's guess!
;-)
Rob C
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I'd be interested in an analysis of the neural processing that happens for tetrachromats.
Also, more grist for my little personal crusade to the effect that color management is mostly BS.
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Also, more grist for my little personal crusade to the effect that color management is mostly BS.
Probably because you don't understand that color management is number management.
Good luck on that crusade, like so many over history, they are medieval in their mindset. :o
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Sure, but the perceptual goals, as understood (albeit extremely vaguely) by the vast majority are in fact not achievable.
Simply sloshing numbers in model to another is all very well, and you can certainly do it precisely or imprecisely, but if you people don't actually see colors in a consistent way, then the whole exercise, while jolly good fun, has utility only up to a point.
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Sure, but the perceptual goals, as understood (albeit extremely vaguely) by the vast majority are in fact not achievable.
Colorimetry is about color perception. It is not about color appearance.
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I am pretty sure that's what I just said! So glad we agree.
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I am pretty sure that's what I just said! So glad we agree.
It isn't what you said, and where we violently disagree is this:
Also, more grist for my little personal crusade to the effect that color management is mostly BS.
Just what one expects from a self admitted crusader. :P
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Possibly I had appearance and perception reversed but we are in angels on pinheads territory at this point. Yes yes it's a super important distinction. It always it is.
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Possibly I had appearance and perception reversed but we are in angels on pinheads territory at this point. Yes yes it's a super important distinction. It always it is.
So it's pinheads or super important? Never mind. Stick to Intermediate Photography and medieval crusades. :D
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How discriminatory is that X-Rite online color vision test (line up the color blocks)? I assume that it is pretty easy, since I can do it quickly and get 100%. I have always thought that my color vision was "average", and that I just trained myself to pay attention.
Interesting article on tetrachromacy.
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How discriminatory is that X-Rite online color vision test (line up the color blocks)?
Kind of, sort of OK. It's not anywhere as effective as doing the test with actual tiles under an appropriate illuminant. The qualities of your display and it's calibration play a role on-line. If you have a really poor score, it's a indication something is iffy (you or the display or both).
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So if I take a picture of an apple and use a top drawer color managed workflow to make a print, what percentage of the population can I expect to say the the print matches apple?
It's not everyone. I mainly want to impress women with my apple photos so it looks like I've got problems here.
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So if I take a picture of an apple and use a top drawer color managed workflow to make a print, what percentage of the population can I expect to say the the print matches apple?
You're asking a rhetorical question that can't be answered and you've still failed to understand the underpinnings of digital color management and the vast differences (again) between Colorimetry and color perception.
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I dunno, it seems like the answer could be obtained pretty easily with a short survey involving an apple, a print, and a group of volunteers.
Since this is precisely what the average rube thinks his new color munki spyder thing is supposed to do for him, and adding to that the fact that experts become surprisingly evasive when asked these sorts of simple questions, perhaps one can begin to understand my position.
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Also, is colorimetry about color perception (reply #9) or is there a vast difference between colorimetry and color perception? (Reply #17)?
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I dunno, it seems like the answer could be obtained pretty easily with a short survey involving an apple, a print, and a group of volunteers.
That much I agree.
Since this is precisely what the average rube thinks his new color munki spyder thing is supposed to do for him, and adding to that the fact that experts become surprisingly evasive when asked these sorts of simple questions, perhaps one can begin to understand my position.
With respect, based on your comments thus far tonight, you seem to be well positioned to speak for the average rube about color management ::) . But then you yourself wrote quite clearly about your crusade, your opinion of color management (with no basis in fact) and your confusion between colorimetry and color perception. My suggestion is, spend your valuable time conducting such a survey. Or maybe get a book on color management (http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Color-Management-Edition/dp/0321267222 (http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Color-Management-Edition/dp/0321267222)) would be my recommendation for you.
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The qualities of your display and it's calibration play a role on-line.
So it would seem. I did the "line up the blocks" thing one evening at work and got a highish score, but certainly not 100%.
Then today I looked at the hutchcolor Lab-ramp grey scales on the same un-calibrated monitor: there is some vague pinkness going on over on the right, then one specific step at around 80% density lights up as dark red.
So I think I can now excuse myself for some colour perception failings with this monitor :-)
(The same image on my home screen is resolutely grey...)
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Yes. Let us assume I am ticking all the boxes and doing the work. This is a straightforward question with a straightforward answer, which neither I nor digitaldog know. I would like to know but since I don't use a workflow of the sort described, I am not well positioned to find out.
I submit that it's somewhat surprising that digitaldog doesn't know the answer, however.
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Yes. Let us assume I am ticking all the boxes and doing the work. This is a straightforward question with a straightforward answer, which neither I nor digitaldog know. I would like to know but since I don't use a workflow of the sort described, I am not well positioned to find out.
I submit that it's somewhat surprising that digitaldog doesn't know the answer, however.
I told you it's not possible to answer rhetorical questions without a lick of color science. Something you appear to ignore or not understand. I can make up an answer while blowing smoke up your rear end but I refuse to do that. It's pointless. Much like your question and your crusades. It still appears you're no farther along distinguishing between Colorimetry and color appearance than you were last week.
Colorimetry and the dE testing is about color perception. It is not about color appearance. The reason why viewing a print is more valid than measuring it is because measurement is about comparing solid colors. Color appearance is about evaluating images and color in context which measurement devices can't provide.
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It's not rhetorical at all.
You need an apple, a color managed workflow to print, and ten friends. I have the first and the last, but not the middle one.
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You need an apple, a color managed workflow to print, and ten friends. I have the first and the last, but not the middle one.
I can imagine you have the first, wonder about the 2nd and possibility the third. ;D
Well so much for your testing, unfounded conclusions and crusade.
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You really don't read so good. I said specifically that I haven't got the second. If you won't read all the words of a fairly short post there's just not much point.
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You really don't read so good.
You don't write very well. :-[
I said specifically that I haven't got the second. If you won't read all the words of a fairly short post there's just not much point.
A color managed workflow, got it. Yet you admitted originally: Also, more grist for my little personal crusade to the effect that color management is mostly BS.
You're correct about two items thus far in this discussion you've admitted to:
I dunno. That much is rather clear.
2nd is you don't have a color managed workflow to print. Thus the BS crusade based on a process you're unable to accomplish. As I said, stick to writing for beginning photographers and buy yourself a book on color management and attempt to understand the process before going on silly crusades motivated by your own BS.
Yes, there's just not much point in what you're attempting to tell us.
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I've been having a conversation with a real color scientist, and it's been interesting.
There is population variation out there. The metrics we use in perceptual color spaces agree pretty well with the real world, and are technically achievable, with effort.
So two prints that the metrics say will look the same, will look the same across 'most people' and if the metrics suggest 'small differences' most people will agree. Which is as we'd expect, of course, but what we expect and what is true are not always the same. And, importantly, this level of control is technically feasible.
As for making a print that consistently looks like the apple? No. You can do it under stringent conditions which includes controlling how you ask the questions as well as the obvious stuff like illumination.
But in practical real world terms the picture of the apple won't match the apple. Which is a bit of an elephant in the room, if you ask me.
Brands go to great efforts to make their single colors look the same worldwide in various conditions, it's very hard, very expensive, and its a single color.
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It's not rhetorical at all.
You need an apple, a color managed workflow to print, and ten friends. I have the first and the last, but not the middle one.
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You also need a camera that meets the Luther condition (Try finding one of those at B&H), and, the hardest thing is you need to make the viewing conditions identical for the real thing and the reproduction, unless your color managed workflow can compensate for changes in viewing conditions, and I don't know of any that even attempt that across a broad range.
There have been attempts to conduct direct simultaneous viewing of monitor and print that have resulted in very close, but not perfect, matches. The viewing condition matching was very difficult. I am not aware of any similar object to print tests, which would be even more difficult to set up (I think you'd have to limit the observers to one eye at a time to avoid stereoscopic differences for example).
As to the number of subjects, first you'd have to define color normal quantitatively, then devise a test, then test your potential subjects and weed out those that don't meet your definition. 10 would probably be insufficient. There are complaints that the 1931 CIE sample was too small.
When I was doing research of color management, one of the attractive things about it was that the problem as a research project wouldn't be solved out from under me. However, just because color management isn't perfect doesn't mean that it's not useful, any more than General Relativity made Newton's law of gravitational attraction useless.
Jim
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Yep. It's useful, there's a practically infinite amount of chaos to be tamed here, and taming some of it beats taming none!
Thank you for your detailed response!
What seems to be the case is that it's surprisingly hard to articulate even the problems that color management solves or mitigates. The vast majority of people who use color management in some form or another therefore have no clear idea of what problems it's supposed to solve.
It makes things better, in some useful but hard to define way.
Conventional net wisdom is that it's a panacea for all problems. Essentially there is an infinite list of tweaks and dishes you can apply, which provides endless fodder for people on the internet to argue and chide one another.
But you still can't make the picture of the apple look like the apple.
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Yep. It's useful, there's a practically infinite amount of chaos to be tamed here, and taming some of it beats taming none!
Thank you for your detailed response!
What seems to be the case is that it's surprisingly hard to articulate even the problems that color management solves or mitigates. The vast majority of people who use color management in some form or another therefore have no clear idea of what problems it's supposed to solve.
It makes things better, in some useful but hard to define way.
Conventional net wisdom is that it's a panacea for all problems. Essentially there is an infinite list of tweaks and dishes you can apply, which provides endless fodder for people on the internet to argue and chide one another.
But you still can't make the picture of the apple look like the apple.
To see how far we've come (There's a long way to go, and I'm disappointed that many of the things that I thought would get fixed when I left the field twenty years ago haven't) let me take you back to the bad old days before color management (which we called in the early 90s "device-independent color").
Scanner operators would scan 'chromes and (rarely) negs for reproduction on specific presses or at least presses that had been tuned to specific standards. There were more than a 100 knobs on some scanners, which were used to control the CMYK files produced by the scanners. Some of the scanners had only monochromatic monitors, and all the color matching was done by looking at the numbers. The scanner operators were highly skilled. It took years for them to become expert. If you wanted to print on a different type of press, you had to go back and rescan.
Jim
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It makes things better, in some useful but hard to define way.
Here is a look at various ways to frame the issue:
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=12456
The above post includes my paraphrase of Hunt's take on a possible set of color reproduction objectives:
Spectral color reproduction, in which the reproduction, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, contains the same spectral power distributions or reflectance spectra as the original.
Exact color reproduction, in which the reproduction has the same chromaticities and luminances as those of the original.
Colorimetric color reproduction, in which the reproduced image has the same chromaticities as the original, and luminances proportional to those of the original.
Equivalent color reproduction, in which the image values are corrected so that the image appears the same as the original, even though the reproduction is viewed in different conditions than was the original.
Corresponding color reproduction, in which the constraints of equivalent color reproduction are relaxed to allow differing absolute illumination levels between the original and the reproduction; the criterion becomes that the reproduction looks the same as the original would have had it been illuminated at the absolute level at which the reproduction is viewed.
Preferred color reproduction, in which reproduced colors differ from the original colors in order to give a more pleasing result.
Jim
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What seems to be the case is that it's surprisingly hard to articulate even the problems that color management solves or mitigates. The vast majority of people who use color management in some form or another therefore have no clear idea of what problems it's supposed to solve.
You are hardly qualified to speak about color management from your own experiences which you claim you cannot achieve let alone the majority of people who do use color management. You've made a claim of a crusade based on your own admitted ignorance on the topic. You still don't understand nor have you tried to understand the vast differences between Colorimetry and color appearance. You need to spend a lot more time educating yourself on this subject with your buddy the color scientist!
Conventional net wisdom is that it's a panacea for all problems.
Your writings here appear to prove you're the last person who should be talking about conventional wisdom!
But you still can't make the picture of the apple look like the apple.
You can make a picture of an apple appear like an apple.
The metrics we use in perceptual color spaces agree pretty well with the real world, and are technically achievable, with effort.
The sentence as written makes no sense and further proves you don't understand the topic. What metric are you referring to? Perceptual color spaces, such as? Agree with the real world? The effort you yourself claim you are unable to achieve: You need an apple, a color managed workflow to print, and ten friends. I have the first and the last, but not the middle one.
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But in practical real world terms the picture of the apple won't match the apple.
And, in my experience, that's not what most people want. Pleasing color sells better than accurate color.
Jim
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And, in my experience, that's not what most people want. Pleasing color sells better than accurate color.
Exactly. The scene referred, accurate Colorimetrically 'correct' apple would look awful.The print is output referred. But then the other Andrew is struggling with many of these notions.
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And, in my experience, that's not what most people want. Pleasing color sells better than accurate color.
Jim
Since the viewer doesn't see the original apple, as long as the color in the photo appears in a range that looks like an apple, the viewer will accept the color in the inage. There's nothing to compare too. That's how I adjust colors from positive chrome film in post processing after scanning them. I never try to match the colors from the film. I adjust for what looks best to my eyes assuming that other people's eyes are more or less like mine. Saturation and contrast I adjust to my taste keying off the personality of the original film. (I use mainly Velvia 50 with its high saturation). Of course then capturing what I see in a monitor onto a print is another matter that is best left to another topic.
Note: (Flesh tones require closer accuracy because the human brain is very discriminatory with these colors).
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The idea of 'accurate' color in the sense of the apple color matching the apple is certainly quite modern and wrong headed. Most people who buy color management gear think this is what they are buying, however. Look around the internet some, and this is what you will find.
Mainly because people like digitaldog decline to translate their technical language into anything lay people can understand, so people project their own problems onto the solution and hope for the best. Color perception being wonderfully plastic, I dare say they often see their problems being solved. Indeed, I have observed exactly this.
Making it look nice what people ought to be shooting for, yes. The question then becomes 'how much color management stuff do I need to make that happen?'
It all comes back around to 'what problem, exactly, am I solving with this color munki I just bought?' And the answer is remarkably murky. If you're charging real money you should at least be able to explain what you're selling.
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Note: (Flesh tones require closer accuracy because the human brain is very discriminatory with these colors).
In my testing, C1 and Lr default flesh tones are systematically in error in the red direction.
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=12573
In the distant past, I found that was the case with many 'chrome films.
My experience is that people are less tolerant of chromaticity errors along the gray axis than anywhere else.
Jim
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Jim: I'm sure you're right. There are certainly issues with flesh tones in films like Velvia and Ektar so you should shoot Portra. The point I was making in my previous post was to forget trying to match the original object color. Trust the perception of your eyes and brain. Unless you have some abnormality, most people will agree with your interpretation of colors. There's no point trying to match the original color unless you're doing pictures of clothes or other products where the the manufacturer needs the colors to match what they're showing let's say in a brochure. Of course the "munki" is important to make sure your monitor is initially calibrated to "real" base-line color. Otherwise your eyes will adjust to color parameters that won't match what is "seen" in other monitors.
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Jim: I'm sure you're right. There are certainly issues with flesh tones in films like Velvia and Ektar so you should shoot Portra. The point I was making in my previous post was to forget trying to match the original object color. Trust the perception of your eyes and brain. Unless you have some abnormality, most people will agree with your interpretation of colors. There's no point trying to match the original color unless you're doing pictures of clothes or other products where the the manufacturer needs the colors to match what they're showing let's say in a brochure. Of course the "munki" is important to make sure your monitor is initially calibrated to "real" base-line color. Otherwise your eyes will adjust to color parameters that won't match what is "seen" in other monitors.
I'm editing the original quote to make more sense:
Jim: I'm sure you're right. There are certainly issues with flesh tones in films like Velvia and Ektar so you should shoot Portra. The point I was making in my previous post was to forget trying to match the original object color. Trust the perception of your eyes and brain. Unless you have some abnormality, most people will agree with your interpretation of colors. Of course the "munki" is important to make sure your monitor is initially calibrated to "real" base-line color. Otherwise your eyes will adjust the color in post processing to parameters that won't match what is "seen" in other monitors.
There's no point trying to match the original color unless you're doing pictures of clothes or other products where the the manufacturer needs the colors to match what they're showing let's say in a brochure.
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I'm editing the original quote to make more sense:
Jim: I'm sure you're right. There are certainly issues with flesh tones in films like Velvia and Ektar so you should shoot Portra. The point I was making in my previous post was to forget trying to match the original object color. Trust the perception of your eyes and brain. Unless you have some abnormality, most people will agree with your interpretation of colors. Of course the "munki" is important to make sure your monitor is initially calibrated to "real" base-line color. Otherwise your eyes will adjust the color in post processing to parameters that won't match what is "seen" in other monitors.
There's no point trying to match the original color unless you're doing pictures of clothes or other products where the the manufacturer needs the colors to match what they're showing let's say in a brochure.
Had an experience once shooting on 120 Ektachrome with studio flash, white background and walls. The subject was leather coats, one a pale green and the other a pale blue. On the trannies they were indistinguishable. The only way we could separate them and tell which had been which was by noting the different buttons.
Perhaps Kodak though them both cyan...
Rob C
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Yeah, in the commercial world where you're trying to make the logo or the shampoo bottle or whatever look correct under a meaningful range of conditions, heaven and earth are, in general, moved. With varying results, but consistently high costs!
The house paint guys seem to have a surprising amount of this stuff solved quite well, which is a moderately surreal experience.
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Had an experience once shooting on 120 Ektachrome with studio flash, white background and walls. The subject was leather coats, one a pale green and the other a pale blue. On the trannies they were indistinguishable. The only way we could separate them and tell which had been which was by noting the different buttons.
Perhaps Kodak though them both cyan...
Rob C
Some dyes reflect strongly in IR. Many films are sensitive to IR. Another source of color error, especially in clothing.
Jim
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Of course the "munki" is important to make sure your monitor is initially calibrated to "real" base-line color. Otherwise your eyes will adjust the color in post processing to parameters that won't match what is "seen" in other monitors.
Yes, IMO this is where the value in "color management" lies. In theory it should put everyone on the same playing field. (In practice the situation is messy but better than chaotic.) Beyond that, the game you choose to play is up to you. :)
-Dave-
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Spectral color reproduction, in which the reproduction, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, contains the same spectral power distributions or reflectance spectra as the original.
This is the only one of Hunt's set of reproduction objectives that will result in guaranteed color matching for tetrachromats and trichromats. It wil also provide color matching for color deficient observers.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that it is completely impractical, except in very limited cases.
Jim
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Some dyes reflect strongly in IR. Many films are sensitive to IR. Another source of color error, especially in clothing.
Of course "color error" is entirely subjective. If you're a creature with light detectors of the same spectral sensitivity as Rob's Ektachrome, then it is our eye/brain system that's in error. ;)
-Dave-
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It all comes back around to 'what problem, exactly, am I solving with this color munki I just bought?' And the answer is remarkably murky. If you're charging real money you should at least be able to explain what you're selling.
What it does is rather simple, I'm shocked (again) by your misunderstandings and biased view of a technology you don't appear to understand. It's a measuring device matted with software to define device values for the creation of an ICC Profile. As I told you ages ago, digital color management is number management.
You kind of sound like someone who tells other's he is a carpenter, that a tape measure is and measurements are BS and have no idea why you purchased one.
X-rite has provided plenty of text, some marketing hype, much accurate information about what the product does and what problem's it solves:
http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1115 (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1115)
X-Rite ColorMunki Photo is an all-in-one color control solution that provides complete control over calibrating your cameras, monitors, projectors and printers. Our wizard-driven software provides the perfect balance of automation with a full range of creative controls for photographers looking for more control over their color.
http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1115 (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1115):
All-in-One spectrophotometer is the only device required to profile monitors, projectors and printers and measure colors.
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I know what it does. I even, secretly, know what problems it can be used to solve.
I am waiting, in vain, for you to clearly articulate any one of those problems. Well. I'm not. I'm talking to some other folks now.
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Of course "color error" is entirely subjective. If you're a creature with light detectors of the same spectral sensitivity as Rob's Ektachrome, then it is our eye/brain system that's in error. ;)
-Dave-
I was referring to metameric capture error.
http://blog.kasson.com/?p=12504
I apologize if, in my refraining from the technical term, I sewed confusion.
Of course, the term assumes color normalcy, which, while normal, is not universal. It completely ignores viewing conditions and spatial effects, which Andrew R has pointed out as well.
Jim
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I know what it does. I even, secretly, know what problems it can be used to solve.
I am waiting, in vain, for you to clearly articulate any one of those problems.
Do you really want to go back to scanners that sell for six figures, are covered with knobs, and take two or three years to learn how to use?
Or maybe do it with a PC so it's cheap, but still have to rescan every time the printer changes? You'd still need all the skill, since gamut mapping would be manual and individual for every image. You'd also have to figure out the scanner primaries, the printer ink mixing color effects (Kubelka-Munk, anyone?), undercover removal, gray component replacement, max ink loading, and all that printer stuff.
Jim
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Good heavens, no, Jim. That sounds horrible.
You seem to be a fine fellow, and I'm finding what you say to be both interesting and informative. I do know what a color munki does, I promise, and I do have some grasp on the problems that can be solved with the technologies. And neither those problems nor those solutions are to be sneezed at, they are not trivial at all. There is real value, real utility, here. And that value is actually pretty hard to articulate to lay people.
My issue is that the problems solved by color management are not, as a rule, the problems that lay people who buy color munkis and the like think they solve. I have quite seriously seen people (many of them) who believe that because their workflow is color managed, that they are producing natural looking skin tones. They believe that simply turning on the color management checkbox and building profiles for everything in sight will automatically produce "the right" results, when that isn't even a meaningful idea. When someone points out that all the people in their pictures appear to have been boiled, they quote back RGB numbers and charts which tell them what RGB numbers are in-range for flesh tones. Given that this latter step is completely meaningless (I don't even know where these charts could have come from) I can tell you for sure that the marketing of color management solutions is producing some fairly weird results out there in the real world.
Now, these people are not geniuses, obviously. There are a lot of dunces in the world. But the dunces are getting these weird ideas from somewhere.
Consumer-grade color management is a real system that solves real problems which is, in spite of all that, being sold, purchased, and used, in much the same ways patent medicines were 150 years ago. That's a shame. That's a problem.
This thread, with respect to those of you actually trying to contribute information, is an excellent illustration of why.
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I'm not. I'm talking to some other folks now.
Good for you, a bit of a pity for them. :'(
My issue is that the problems solved by color management are not, as a rule, the problems that lay people who buy color munkis and the like think they solve.
Speaking for others, poorly again.
This thread, with respect to those of you actually trying to contribute information, is an excellent illustration of why.
There's really only one person writing here who is clearly confused and providing excellent evidence of it.
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My issue is that the problems solved by color management are not, as a rule, the problems that lay people who buy color munkis and the like think they solve. I have quite seriously seen people (many of them) who believe that because their workflow is color managed, that they are producing natural looking skin tones. They believe that simply turning on the color management checkbox and building profiles for everything in sight will automatically produce "the right" results, when that isn't even a meaningful idea. When someone points out that all the people in their pictures appear to have been boiled, they quote back RGB numbers and charts which tell them what RGB numbers are in-range for flesh tones.
As I have no experience with people who believe as you describe, I have to admit I'm kinda nonplussed by much of your argument in this thread. Imagine the following declaration: "There are actually people who believe the earth is flat! And the existence of 2D maps just plays into their delusion!" How to respond other than: "Uh, okay. Maybe so… (shrug)"
-Dave-
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That seems like a fair point.
I think, however, there is perhaps a bit of daylight between '2d maps' and the sort of hype and jargon color management suffers under.
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I think, however, there is perhaps a bit of daylight between '2d maps' and the sort of hype and jargon color management suffers under.
Or the hype of crusaders who don't know a lick about color management.
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It's OK. You've established that you don't like me.
You can rest now, big guy.
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It's OK. You've established that you don't like me.
That's absurd. Like most of your writings here. I don't know you, I have no opinion other than your silly text in this thread! It's a paper trail that's rather clear and makes you look rather foolish. Need the distillation in one place? Here goes. You're doing a fine job of digging yourself into a hole, I don't see anyone coming to your defense for good reason.
Your very first post here was your admission to a crusade you tell us is based on color management being BS: Also, more grist for my little personal crusade to the effect that color management is mostly BS.
Then you contradict yourself in two sentences next to each other:
Possibly I had appearance and perception reversed but we are in angels on pinheads territory at this point. Yes yes it's a super important distinction. It always it is.
Then you admit you can't color manage output to a printer:
You need an apple, a color managed workflow to print, and ten friends. I have the first and the last, but not the middle one.
Then you write for others when it's clear you're speaking for yourself, an average rube to color management apparently:
Since this is precisely what the average rube thinks his new color munki spyder thing is supposed to do for him, and adding to that the fact that experts become surprisingly evasive when asked these sorts of simple questions, perhaps one can begin to understand my position.
Then a statement that doesn't make any sense and when asked to further explain, you don't:
The metrics we use in perceptual color spaces agree pretty well with the real world, and are technically achievable, with effort.
Then, with all the text proving you don't understand the subject, imply that you purcahsed something and got fooled by the company producing the product:
It all comes back around to 'what problem, exactly, am I solving with this color munki I just bought?' And the answer is remarkably murky. If you're charging real money you should at least be able to explain what you're selling.
Then you again contradict your own writing by stating:
I know what it does. I even, secretly, know what problems it can be used to solve.
I don't dislike you one bit. I have zero respect for your rants and writing or understanding of the topic and think you're the last person here who should be on any crusade, pro or con, involving color management!
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From physicist Brian Cox on Twitter a few hours ago:
"Some flat earth person just tweeted me arguing that space flight is faked because of the Van Halen belts… Rock n Roll :-)"
Attached: a pic of the Van Halen belt. ;D
-Dave-
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For reference, I don't use a color managed process not because I incapable of doing so, but because I have no need of such a thing. I do not have any of the problems it solves.
Van Halen belts explain many of the mysteries of the universe. But, strangely enough, not why some people think the Sammy Hagar era was OK. That mystery appears to be incapable of explanation.
Edit: fixed typo. Thanks Rod!
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I not have any of the problems it solves.
Hilarious. Good way to end this silliness.