Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: Dansk on May 06, 2009, 02:57:07 pm
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Well the world is changing and so are some needs of my clients. I just wrapped a decent sized food campaign which is pretty normal BUT the primary usage target is online marketing and email subscriptions etc. which is a first for me. Not that this is a big deal theres been plenty of my works rez'd down for online use before BUT these guys are getting a bit sticky about why the images look so great on my studio monitors but mighty gacky on their PC craptops. So it got me to thinking that maybe there was a better color space to target than the usual sRGB for web? Maybe there is someone here who has a better idea of how to manage these files to max out the impact? I figure 12x12" at 72 dpi should be plenty for resolution but typically I would offer SRGB color space and leave the color settings as I would for print.
I know I can increase saturation and contrast until the shots look smoking on their weak displays but then they look awful on mine so I wonder if theres a happy middle ground or perhaps some color destination that I should be looking at? Using Phase software here btw.
I know this doesn't specifically have anything to do with MFDB but the professional audience that might have dealt with this before likely spends more time browisng through here more than other areas of this site.
Thanks
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Well the world is changing and so are some needs of my clients. I just wrapped a decent sized food campaign which is pretty normal BUT the primary usage target is online marketing and email subscriptions etc. which is a first for me. Not that this is a big deal theres been plenty of my works rez'd down for online use before BUT these guys are getting a bit sticky about why the images look so great on my studio monitors but mighty gacky on their PC craptops. So it got me to thinking that maybe there was a better color space to target than the usual sRGB for web? Maybe there is someone here who has a better idea of how to manage these files to max out the impact? I figure 12x12" at 72 dpi should be plenty for resolution but typically I would offer SRGB color space and leave the color settings as I would for print.
I know I can increase saturation and contrast until the shots look smoking on their weak displays but then they look awful on mine so I wonder if theres a happy middle ground or perhaps some color destination that I should be looking at? Using Phase software here btw.
I know this doesn't specifically have anything to do with MFDB but the professional audience that might have dealt with this before likely spends more time browisng through here more than other areas of this site.
Thanks
may i ask what settings you use for monitor calibration ?
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I run a custom calibration with a spider 2 pro. 6500K, no ambient, In my retouching room with no lights anyways. I get bang on accurate prints through a 3800 and never have any printed work related issues. Kind of odd really that crappy hardware has to be considered here but cest la vies. They're paying so I'm playing
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I run a custom calibration with a spider 2 pro. 6500K, no ambient, In my retouching room with no lights anyways. I get bang on accurate prints through a 3800 and never have any printed work related issues. Kind of odd really that crappy hardware has to be considered here but cest la vies. They're paying so I'm playing
6500K isn't that rather warm? Sorry just wondering myself but always thought 6500K was way too warm for accurate color.
Thank
Snook
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Well I used to use this guy who sets up most of the major players around here for color settings, print settings etc. Very knowledgeable and handles just about every local printers Communication arts award winning set ups and he set all this stuff up for me. I've just been being cheap the last couple years and carrying on with his settings and only calibrating with the eye and clicking continue for re-use previous settings so 6500K was it and I just stuck with it.
As I mentioned I havent had any complaints on any of my work when its being printed until this email issue ( Lotus notes the stuff looks rancid ) and I'm a mac only guy and figured this may have been crossed by someone here along the way. I have quite a few displays so I trust my color picker for highlight and shadow points and I dont pay much attention to the actual look of the file until it hits the retouching station where I study it in more detail. Running Mac cinema displays
Maybe I'm out in lahlah land altogether? What do you guys suggest? I could create a whole new profile for web targets and load it as nec
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Well I used to use this guy who sets up most of the major players around here for color settings, print settings etc. Very knowledgeable and handles just about every local printers Communication arts award winning set ups and he set all this stuff up for me. I've just been being cheap the last couple years and carrying on with his settings and only calibrating with the eye and clicking continue for re-use previous settings so 6500K was it and I just stuck with it.
As I mentioned I havent had any complaints on any of my work when its being printed until this email issue ( Lotus notes the stuff looks rancid ) and I'm a mac only guy and figured this may have been crossed by someone here along the way. I have quite a few displays so I trust my color picker for highlight and shadow points and I dont pay much attention to the actual look of the file until it hits the retouching station where I study it in more detail. Running Mac cinema displays
Maybe I'm out in lahlah land altogether? What do you guys suggest? I could create a whole new profile for web targets and load it as nec
There is some member in here I think color wave or the guy with the dog and computer icon who probably can help you for sure.
I cannot help just noticed that you used 6500K and was surprised to see that.
If it works great.
Like I said some one here should pop in to help you. But I think that many people have different monitors and do not think you will ever get a color that everyone is pleasant viewing. Match that with different taste and opinions and uufff might be a long one.
Good luck
Snook
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But I think that many people have different monitors and do not think you will ever get a color that everyone is pleasant viewing. Match that with different taste and opinions and uufff might be a long one.
Indeed. I think I just discovered why he set me up at 6500K... I dont think this display can go any lower. I cant find anywhere on it where you can set a custom Kelvin temperature so thats probably why. Odd but then again these monitors are not known for being the ultimate answer for soft proofing. I just hope the new displays that seem to be forever in the works will be top level performers. If not I'm jumping to a proprietary company like Eizo or the like.
In the meantime I'm going to push up the contrast in the images until they are on the verge of barf and hope that gives them enough punch without going over the top.
Maybe someone else will drop a note or two in here that has some insight. Thanks guys
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6500K isn't that rather warm? Sorry just wondering myself but always thought 6500K was way too warm for accurate color.
Thank
Snook
What do you mean by accurate color?
To be honest to get a good monitor to print match, I find 6500k too cool, much better match at around 6100k. (Apple Cinema Display calibrated with i1 pro).
Are you saying you use a number higher than 6500?
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Indeed. I think I just discovered why he set me up at 6500K... I dont think this display can go any lower. I cant find anywhere on it where you can set a custom Kelvin temperature so thats probably why. Odd but then again these monitors are not known for being the ultimate answer for soft proofing. I just hope the new displays that seem to be forever in the works will be top level performers. If not I'm jumping to a proprietary company like Eizo or the like.
In the meantime I'm going to push up the contrast in the images until they are on the verge of barf and hope that gives them enough punch without going over the top.
Maybe someone else will drop a note or two in here that has some insight. Thanks guys
6500 aint warm... If anything it's a tad on the cool side. Lots of press guys used to run their monitors at 5000 to help simulate crappy paper stock.
srgb is just fine for your pics and using a different colour space won't make any difference to your clients as I'd be willing to bet they are viewing your images in a non colour-managed environment.
I think the bottom line here is that your clients has crappy monitors.
Why don't you send your colour management guy around to your clients (at your cost) to calibrate profile their screens?
Nick-T
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So it got me to thinking that maybe there was a better color space to target than the usual sRGB for web?
actually not, sRGB is okay. for a logo or other graphics you could use the "web safe" colours but for the photographs sRGB is the right colour space.
you can't judge colours on a non colour managed system - no way! and you have to explain it to your clients.
you could buy them new displays maybe...
6500K isn't that rather warm?
too cold! in average daylight indoor 5800K matches the white point of D50 quite well. on the other hand: without direct comparision to a D50 viewing box the white point is not that essential as you are adapting to the white point of the display if it is the brightest light source. but everything colder than 6500K is too cold anyhow.
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I'd be willing to bet they are viewing your images in a non colour-managed environment.
Theres no need to guess this is a certainty. I've been suggesting to most of my clients for years to invest in a decent soft proofing station but its only fallen on deaf ears. I could calibrate their monitors close enough that they would not be unhappy with the results of what they would then see but... What they have asked me for is to consider that most of our market will not have any better displays than the 6 month old laptops these guys have and they asked if I could try and get the color set to look nice on their screens as they figure most of the intended audience will probably have worse displays. I was wondering about how most PC's come profiled out of the box and thought I might be able to target a space that was going to function better for this. Food is so delicate too if anything looks off its unappealing and not to toot my own horn here but these shots turned out excellent. Until you open them on their machines and then the color just goes bye bye. I messed around with one of their laptops to see if i could figure out the color settings but I'm not so good on a PC and I didnt come up with any settings that I could play with. Plus they kept mentioning that most consumers would simply be running the canned profile that their comp came with when they bought it and we should focus on tweaking the images to hit that mark instead of focusing on the hardware.
So the challenge was put out to me and I said I'd look into it and here we are. This board is full of fussy, discerning, talented eyeballs and theres a decent swath of commercial guys too so I thought I'd see who had what to say about it.
So far its sounds like we are all in the same boat and this is pretty new turf for me too. A Web focused campaign over print... Geez... Anyways the destination space so far is still looking like sRGB as you guys are echoing my thoughts more than anything which is good.. and bad I think I need to learn more about hardware market percentages and the like.
As a small rant... Just when we finally get all the digital print issues firmly behind us and a smooth ticking system now I'm getting redirected and my hands are tied. Maybe this is how musicians feel when they are told to focus on crappy sounding MP3 format?
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but... What they have asked me for is to consider that most of our market will not have any better displays than the 6 month old laptops these guys have and they asked if I could try and get the color set to look nice on their screens as they figure most of the intended audience will probably have worse displays.
They have a point.. Not sure why your images should look bad on a newish display, can you provide a link? I've looked at my food stuff on a variety of fairly crappy screens and it looks fine..
Nick-T
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I dont really show much of my work to anyone thats not paying for it I hope that doesn't offend its just the results of my previous experiences. The studio I used to work for got embroiled in some nasty law suits over the digital market and usage and exposure and blah blah blah so I just stay invisible the best I can.
The scary thing is they track everything now. Based on hits and click throughs theres little talk that can be offered over hard numbers so last years "test run" went far better than expected. It was a spin off of one of our regular print focused gigs so they used those files with success. Unfortunately the agency that did the work is now gone. The clients marketing director who set this all up has been laid off as well. The new team handling this are tech savvy but creatively... lacking... for lack of a better word so as Snook mention above
uufff
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Man, this is such a pain in the butt. I had a meeting with a client a week ago who was conderned about how one of our shots looked on her monitor. I actually thought ALL of our shots looked like crap on her monitor. We talked a bit about calibration but she was like, "I have no control over how this stuff gets presented by the Architects, and they use all different projectors in all kinds of conditions..."
Oh man... Prints I can guarantee.....files? Is there a lowest common denominator? I thought about getting a cheap PC and leaving the monitor at the out of the box settings to preview work on.... maybe putting a second folder of images on the disc entitled "Adjusted for your crap display"
Seriously, though.... when I first calibrated my Cinema Display with my i1 Pro, it had me drop the brightness from 100% to like 40% for a luminance of, what was it.... 120? If all these monitors are jacked up out of the box, then how are the few of us who actually calibrate our systems going to produce files that look decent anywhere else? Even Graphic Designers I work with rarely have calibrated screens..... frustrating indeed
My chromes always seemed to please clients whether they were viewing them with a Macbeth lightbox or a dirty window....
-CB
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I run a custom calibration with a spider 2 pro. 6500K, no ambient, In my retouching room with no lights anyways. I get bang on accurate prints through a 3800 and never have any printed work related issues. Kind of odd really that crappy hardware has to be considered here but cest la vies. They're paying so I'm playing
the color temperature seems not to be the problem but what about your luminance setting ? if you work in a dim room i guess it is set to a low level. i would suggest that you move you monitor in an average lit room calibrate the display to 140 - 2.2 / 6500 and check how they look now. the ambient light has a great effect on perception of contrast and color.
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My chromes always seemed to please clients whether they were viewing them with a Macbeth lightbox or a dirty window....
Haha yes indeed. For the most part chromes were just delivered and there was neary a peep from anyone. The proofing was signed off typically with a polaroid proof right on set and then we would bracket a couple stops each way for a roll or twenty depending on the importance and then pull one out after looping through them... sometimes through a window by hand haha the good ol days. I miss em it was much more in our hands then. I think the issue in general with a lot of the market now is the game has become more intense and quality driven. Digital has given everyone a surge of interest and imagery is literally bombarding us from every angle nowadays so just from sheer exposure the average layman is getting a finer trained eye. This is both good and bad depending on how you choose to see it I guess but dealing with this specific issue regarding destination of??? is tricky.
the color temperature seems not to be the problem but what about your luminance setting ? if you work in a dim room i guess it is set to a low level. i would suggest that you move you monitor in an average lit room calibrate the display to 140 - 2.2 / 6500 and check how they look now. the ambient light has a great effect on perception of contrast and color.
My calibrator does not measure luminance but the original color tech who set me up did and I just run with that setting which is about 2/3 up on the slider so I'd say I'm 66% or thereabouts. I lean towards the bleeding edge of exposure on a lot of my work anyways so this seems a good fit for me.
All in all though as interesting as this thread has become I'm still in the dark about an effective solution. It looks like sRGB space is still it and I'll push the contrast/saturation point up as high as I can without turning the images into neon glowing radioactive brain poison.
Appreciate the input guys. Thanks
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may be it would help to get a crappy pc laptop or two and pull your images there before you hand it to the clients. once I heard this story of some musicians, (i am not sure, but it could be petshop boys), working in a super high end studio with best monitoring equipment available, but they also kept their rancid old car with a shitty radio, and if their music sounded ok when they cruzed around the block in this heap, they would sign it off.
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There's absolutely no way you can control what people with uncalibrated monitors will see. The solution to your problem is: Buy a big bunch of top-quality monitors and have them all calibrated. Then give one to each client.
Or: persuade them all to accept prints again.
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hi
A bit late maybe.
D6500 grayscale, 2.2-2.3 gamma has been the standard for calibration.
Try to get within a dE of 3 for grayscaling.
Lightoutput varies a bit.
For CRT arround 110 cdm
For LCD arround 120-130 cdm
5500 is sometimes used for certain offset presses and their paper.
We photographers/retouchers should stick to D6500.
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add.
To avoid confusion I always deliver an old fashioned contact sheet with the files to show them how it should look.
If their monitors show something else at least I'm not blaimed or passed for another photographer who delivers bad work that shows nicely on their monitor.
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add.
To avoid confusion I always deliver an old fashioned contact sheet with the files to show them how it should look.
If their monitors show something else at least I'm not blaimed or passed for another photographer who delivers bad work that shows nicely on their monitor.
Excellent point (and less expensive than buying calibrated monitors for all clients.)
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5500 is sometimes used for certain offset presses and their paper.
We photographers/retouchers should stick to D6500.
why should we stick with 6500 ? can you explain this ? most professional shot images still end on a offset press, so it seems smart
to adopt prepress standards from the beginning to avoid troubles. 5500 - 6000 gives a much better match to paper used for proofing and printing
than 6500. handing out a contact sheet which is not produced with a similar standards than a proof is useless how do you decide what is
correct if you have a mismatch between your print and a monitor. ever heard about metamerism ?
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most professional shot images still end on a offset press, so it seems smart
to adopt prepress standards from the beginning to avoid troubles. 5500 - 6000 gives a much better match to paper used for proofing and printing than 6500.
agreed. But it does not depend on the final output process that much. It depends on the ambient light you are working with. The white point of the display should be "neutral" to the viewing conditions. If it's a "digital darkroom" with a D50 viewing box and D50 ambient light the white point of the display should match the paper white in the viewing box (which is mostly somewhere between 5200K and 5800K and at a luminance level somewhere between 120cd/qm and 160cd/qm). If you work with soft natural daylight indoors the colour temperature is somewhere around 5500K by average. Only - and really only in this case - if you work with D65 ambient lights and/or a D65 viewing box 6500K will match the right white point.
The most important thing prior to all the ISO standards is that the monitor matches the targeted output visually. The numbers are not that important.
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Hi,
When we go back to the ISF norm than a display should be calibrated on D6500.
It's as simple as that, meaning if you want your shot to look accurate on the industriestandard D6500 is the way to calibrate, there's really not much more to it.
If you want to adjust for certain paper or printtypes it's better to use a profile to simulate that.
D6500 is simply put the industries standard for all displays displaying video/film/photography.
Especially with nowadays alot of photographers also doing video or having photos in slideshows displayed on TV sets or projectors or digital bill boards D6500 is more than ever important.
When you only deliver on print and everything is calibrated to one colorprofile/temparature in the end it would not matter, but as soon as you deliver a file to someone else to view or print it will.
And now comes the problem.
I've been doing calibrations since 2001 and have calibrated many thousands of displays and projectors but I'm almost the only one in the Netherlands doing the ISF calibrations, only the last 2 years more calibrators are doing the ISF calibrations.
In other words the customers will often watch your material on displays that are in 99% of the cases too blue.
HOWEVER, I STRONGLY believe that we should NOT change our work for that, bare with me.
When we look at film everything is mixed on D6500 monitors with a Rec709 or Rec601 colorspace and gamma between 2.3 and 2.4.
People with a BAD display are USED to their "problem" if you as a photographer steer away from that by subtracting blue for example the customers will see your work different than what they are used to and in that case not perfect, the really bad thing is that people who DO have a perfect setup will ALSO see you work in the wrong way.
And those people are often the ones that DO care and will make a note to it.
So instead of adjusting for bad displays I would say, adjust for the perfect display because the customer is used to how "shitty" their display looks (or even likes it) and will view your material just as bad as the rest.
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Hi,
When we go back to the ISF norm than a display should be calibrated on D6500.
It's as simple as that, meaning if you want your shot to look accurate on the industriestandard D6500 is the way to calibrate, there's really not much more to it.
so you think it is better to fulfill a a kind of video industry norm than follow what organizations like swop, gracol, ugra and fogra recommend ?
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D6500 is simply put the industries standard for all displays displaying video/film/photography.
That's all great but, again, it doesn't matter that much. On my display calibrated to around 5400K I see white as neutral white under my viewing conditions. When I send you one of my images you will see it as I see it (beside limitations of the monitors...) even if your display is set to 6500K... because you see the white on your display as a neutral white (if this is the case). That simple.
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That's all great but, again, it doesn't matter that much. On my display calibrated to around 5400K I see white as neutral white under my viewing conditions. When I send you one of my images you will see it as I see it (beside limitations of the monitors...) even if your display is set to 6500K... because you see the white on your display as a neutral white (if this is the case). That simple.
Not quite true.
The human eye is very easily fooled in what we see as neutral gray.
When you work with a 1000 degrees difference you will most certainly see the difference.
It could be that we both see the file as neutral but when you set both monitors next to each other there is a huge difference.
In my setup I have no light hitting my screen due to a hood and blinds on the windows were I do the editing.
There's really no disscussion needed for calibration to D6500 it's writen almost in stone that a display should be calibrated to that point on the grayscale.
for more info do a search on for example ISF or visit www.imagingscience.com.
Some photographers will claim that the settings/rules for TV or projectors will not apply for them as photographers but this is simply not true anymore.
As explained before most of our work is shown in slideshows, digital billboards, TV sets, projectors or many different monitors.
For the REFERENCE monitors/projectors the D6500 is chosen as the point to calibrate.
It's only natural that we as photographers/videographers also calibrate conform the industry standard.
REMEMBER this is totally different than a few years back when photographer shot film or only delivered prints.
With those workflows only the end result was show to the client and you must choose the colortemp fitting your other workflow.
Today however all the rules have changed and our work is hardly ever seen on print in most cases expect at the very end of the cycle.
When we all calibrate to the same standard (the industry standard) it would mean that everyone sees exactly the same thing.
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It could be that we both see the file as neutral but when you set both monitors next to each other there is a huge difference.
Certainly. But which one is correct under which conditions. When we both set them up on a glacier they are both quite too dark and quite warm but yours will "match" a little bit better. In an average office in the afternoon mine will match better - I bet. And under D50 anyway.
There's really no disscussion needed for calibration to D6500 it's writen almost in stone that a display should be calibrated to that point on the grayscale.for more info do a search on for example ISF or visit www.imagingscience.com.
There is a lot to discuss (but we don't have to). I follow the latest recommendations of Fogra and Ugra and especially my eyes rather than the TV standard.
Some photographers will claim that the settings/rules for TV or projectors will not apply for them as photographers but this is simply not true anymore. As explained before most of our work is shown in slideshows, digital billboards, TV sets, projectors or many different monitors.
All my images look perfect on screens or beamers or other displays - when they are calibrated! It really depends on the viewing conditions, nothing else. The white point is not "in" the images (though there is a "white point tag" in profiles but this is meaningless here as it is just the illumination of the PCS)... it's just the colour temperature of the neutral white of a certain display under certain viewing conditions.
edit:
When we all calibrate to the same standard (the industry standard) it would mean that everyone sees exactly the same thing.
wrong! when we all calibrate to the same standard and arrange exactly the same viewing conditions... then we could see (more or less) the same.
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All my images look perfect on screens or beamers or other displays - when they are calibrated! It really depends on the viewing conditions, nothing else. The white point is not "in" the images (though there is a "white point tag" in profiles but this is meaningless here as it is just the illumination of the PCS)... it's just the colour temperature of the neutral white of a certain display under certain viewing conditions.[/qoute]
I think there is the thing that's giving confusion.
When calibrating you are building a profile for your monitor, this is not the profile you deliver your work in.
The D6500 is for the grayscale, after that the profile is build with the colors the monitor shows and that the monitor can show (with that whitepoint of course).
When you have the profile this is used against the LAB table to converce with the other profiles like sRGB/ARGB/Prophoto etc.
In practice one delivers work in for example aRGB colorspace with the correct aRGB whitepoint.
It is shown on a monitor or print with a different colorspace.
It just happens to be that for displays the D6500 point on the blackbody curve was choosen as the standard.
Again, I don't say EVERYONE should do this, but if you deliver work to other people who are viewing it on monitors or projectors you should.
Simply put, all TV programs, films etc. are mixed on D6500 displays.
Even if someone has a TV/projector that is not calibrated to that norm he/she is used to how people look on that set, when your pictures are shown it should be the same "wrong" picture that the viewer is used to.
For available light or viewing conditions you have a good point.
For me when I advice customers if they want light in their room is to use 6500 bulbs/tubes or full spectrum lights hitting the wal behind the monitor, in other words not/never hitting the screen itself. When you have available light hitting your screen you could adjust for that but remember that when you have natural light hitting your screen the quality and temperature of that light will constantly change, it's impossible to make a 100% calibration for that, that's why I always advise people to use at least a hood on their monitor and make 100% sure there is no spill light hitting the monitor.
The funny thing is that I have photographers and filmmakers (and consumers) in my client group and that the filmmakers are all 100% D6500 gamma 2.3 for Rec709 and 2.2 for Rec601 and that in the photographer poul there are still people who are in doubt between 5500 and 6500.
In most cases I make a dual setting and let them choose in the next weeks, 90% end up with D6500.
Calibrations has been my muze for some years now and I try to combine that with my photography, it's just too much fun to give up
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@CPs,
I checked the foga website and when you go their manual for colorcalibration/managment you can see that the ARGB/sRGB etc. colorspaces have a whitepoint of D6500.
They advise to calibrate on something else for a fixed situation (or in other words for THAT applicition it works).
I've stated in my previous posts that my story is based on the allround uses of your setup.
When I look at my own uses it's for video editing, slideshows, web and print (in house).
Only for print it would "sometimes" makes sense to calibrate on a different whitepoint.
However when you choose D6500 and make sure your whole workflow is calibrated it doesn't matter.
I print from my mac to the printer and get a correct print.
However when I edit video and play it on a calibrated projector/monitor it's also correct.
In the end it all boils down to the fact that our/your work has to look good on MANY different displays now a days, it's very logical to than choose the D6500 point.
Again when you are working in a closed down workflow with a certain type of printer/lab/papertype it does make sense to calibrate differently of course.
Again in the end it all boils down to getting a perfect result.
However I think the time of closed down workflows is mostly finished and people are delivering work that is shown on much more than one paper/display etc.
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@CPs,
Only for print it would "sometimes" makes sense to calibrate on a different whitepoint.
However when you choose D6500 and make sure your whole workflow is calibrated it doesn't matter.
as a matter of fact you can use any color temperature as long as you don't compare your screen to anything else in a dark room. but no contract proof can be used for color critical checks or adjustments under 5000k norm light if you have set your monitor to 6500. for me this is important .
in europe we have already a very high standard archived by eci, fogra, and ugra if you follow there advise you are within a standard and not outside.
this is available in german only http://forschung.fogra.org/dokumente/uploa...uchV1_47d2c.pdf (http://forschung.fogra.org/dokumente/upload/Softproof_HandbuchV1_47d2c.pdf)
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as a matter of fact you can use any color temperature as long as you don't compare your screen to anything else in a dark room. but no contract proof can be used for color critical checks or adjustments under 5000k norm light if you have set your monitor to 6500. for me this is important .
in europe we have already a very high standard archived by eci, fogra, and ugra if you follow there advise you are within a standard and not outside.
this is available in german only http://forschung.fogra.org/dokumente/uploa...uchV1_47d2c.pdf (http://forschung.fogra.org/dokumente/upload/Softproof_HandbuchV1_47d2c.pdf)
I know the document.
But again, remember what I said.
We use a workflow for ALL KINDS of displays, not only print/offset.
If I look at my work video is creeping in more and more, and for video it's simple D6500 is THE standard.
Also most of the work done nowadays is viewed in many different ways than print, so choosing the D6500 standard for video also for your photography is in my opinion a very good thing to do.
But again, there will be people that work mostly for print and than the story could be different for them.
In the end it boils down to getting to your client what works for both.
For me however calibrating to D6500 is the most logical thing to do due to the continues growing mix of video/photography and photography shown on normal video displays.
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All my images look perfect on screens or beamers or other displays - when they are calibrated! It really depends on the viewing conditions, nothing else. The white point is not "in" the images (though there is a "white point tag" in profiles but this is meaningless here as it is just the illumination of the PCS)... it's just the colour temperature of the neutral white of a certain display under certain viewing conditions.
I think there is the thing that's giving confusion.
When calibrating you are building a profile for your monitor, this is not the profile you deliver your work in.
The D6500 is for the grayscale, after that the profile is build with the colors the monitor shows and that the monitor can show (with that whitepoint of course).
When you have the profile this is used against the LAB table to converce with the other profiles like sRGB/ARGB/Prophoto etc. In practice one delivers work in for example aRGB colorspace with the correct aRGB whitepoint.
nobody is confused here. Just saying that the white point tag in the profiles have no effect on the way there are displayed on the monitor. You can create an AdobeRGB with D50 white point and convert an image to that colour space and compare it with the original version of AdobeRGB - no difference (here). Of course I do not convert my files to the monitor profile
Again, the white point tag in the profile is just the illumination of the PCS and does not affect the image itself.
With the new ICC V4 specifications this is history anyhow as ICC V4 dictates D50 as white point for monitor profiles. So monitor profiles created in ICC V4 all have the white point tag D50... even if they are calibrated to any other white point. My monitor is calibrated to ~5400K but the white point in the profile is D50 due to the ICC V4 specifications ( http://www.color.org/v4spec.xalter (http://www.color.org/v4spec.xalter) ). Eizos Color Navigator for example automatically creates profiles in ICC V4. For sure you can calibrate to D65 or whatever but the white point tag in the profile shows D50.
For me however calibrating to D6500 is the most logical thing
To me the most logical thing is to calibrate to a white point that looks neutral in a certain ambient light. And in the most common environments D65 is too cold (if you work in D65 ambient light then D65 is fine). If you work with a neutral white point and send the images to any other device in any other environment that produces a neutral white in its own specific ambient light there... then everything will look fine (as the white point tag in the profiles has absolutely no relevance here).
For beamer/cinema this is most evident as there is no reference light... because projections take place in dark (black) environments and the eyes are adapting to the white point of the projector.
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Hi,
Every color space has indeed it's own whitepoint, I never say they don't :-)
But when calibrating a monitor a certain whitepoint is asked, native/5000/6500 etc.
For me the video standard is the way to calibrate.
But whatever works for you is ok of course.
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This discussion has been quite illuminating
I think what we can take away is that there is no agreed upon standard. This is not surprising. Color profiles and reproduction in print and other devices is not straight forward (even forgetting the mass of uncalibrated monitors work is seen on by consumers and AD's) and the only thing to be wary of is anyone who gives absolute answers about what is correct.
It is analogous to the issue of color space: Profoto or Adobe 1998 or sRGB or (remember Joseph Holmes custom color space) etc: each of these has their advantages and big disadvantages.
Sometimes there is no standard and that is OK too.
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But when calibrating a monitor a certain whitepoint is asked, native/5000/6500 etc.
no. what for? Yes, there are rudimentary calibration softwares that have just these presets. But more mature softwares allow to set x/y coordinates or different user settings for Klevin values. I edit the white point manually (but with the calibration software) to match paper white & ambient light (all D50 here) and the resultiong white point isn't even a Kelvin value... it's near 5400K but slightly shifted to green (the Kelvin values are just on a small bandwidth in the sprectrum). So I set certain x/y coordinates (and anyhow the profile white point is D50 though the real colour point of white is stored in the profile as well of course).
Sometimes there is no standard and that is OK too.
yes. There are still standards... but due to the advancements of the last years they are less strict as different workflows require different needs and especially because in front of every monitor there is a human being with its individual perception. But all the standards are defined not only for a certain device but for the entrie worflow and all devices involved. None would recommend to calibrate the monitor to D50 in a D65 environment... or the other way around.
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no. what for? Yes, there are rudimentary calibration softwares that have just these presets. But more mature softwares allow to set x/y coordinates or different user settings for Klevin values. I edit the white point manually (but with the calibration software) to match paper white & ambient light (all D50 here) and the resultiong white point isn't even a Kelvin value... it's near 5400K but slightly shifted to green (the Kelvin values are just on a small bandwidth in the sprectrum). So I set certain x/y coordinates (and anyhow the profile white point is D50 though the real colour point of white is stored in the profile as well of course).
It depends on the software indeed, I use 5 different analyzers two are professional ones including a spectrum radio meter.
Those are way more sofisticated than the spyder software for example.
But as mentioned I'm an ISF tech normally we also dial in the settings we want like HDTV(Rec709) CIE NTSC/PAL etc. but for grayscaling for "us" it's all D6500.
With video that is fixed luckely
With the software for PC/MAC calibration it's often very rude by only calibrating the IRE100 field manually but than again for that kind of work it works great.
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the problem in this discussion is that mr. doorhof thinks that his background in calibrating tv sets and home entertainment systems is the holy grail and video and web as important as print.
maybe this is true for him but the majority of professional advertising and fashion photography is still printed on paper and i can't see this will change dramatically in the next years. recommending a video standard for professional image editing is kind of odd.
working for print accurate color is much more critical than publishing on the web where images can be exchanged in seconds or video (what is a different story anyway) because of high production costs. f**king it up can get really expensive and as a matter of fact when something went wrong everybody from the ad to the prepress will first point at you. following the recommendations of fogra or similar organizations will keep us on the save side and none of them recommend a 6500 white-point for good reasons. in europe fogra and others also have archived a wide adopted iso standard within the printing industry which helps everybody including photographers to avoid problems.
i see it as amateurish to stick with a certain white-point anyway if it does not fit the workflow. switching calibration settings on eizos for example s done very easy with CN and i'm sure there are other solution out.
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maybe this is true for him but the majority of professional advertising and fashion photography is still printed on paper
but the question in this thread was: how to match the (uncalibrated) consumer displays! in this sense Frank's idea to calibrate to a standard that quite a wide range of displays "match" (roughly) ex factory is not wrong. Except that the viewing conditions are far different in most environments. There was a study from Kodak (as far as I remember correctly) a few years ago that the average colour temperture in typical indoor environments (offices and others) all over the day is around 5500K. In such an evironment 6500K is always much too cold. Without a kind of ISO standard ambient light I find 5800K to be quite a good compromise (even in D50 ambient light 5800K is still quite okay).
But I don't think that the white point is that essential finally as we are all adapting to the white point of the monitor within 10 minutes or so (as long as the monitor is the brightest light source). Only in direct comparisions to certain outputs/devices the white point is important (and in this case not only important but essential).
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but the question in this thread was: how to match the (uncalibrated) consumer displays!
The bottom line is you can't, and it is pointless and stupid to even bother to try. sRGB is the closest thing out there to a rough average of the colors a given uncalibrated/unprofiled monitor might display; that is what it was designed to do. Educating the client(s) about the futility of trying to critically judge colors on uncalibrated/unprofiled monitors is a far better investment in one's time than trying to come up with some BS kludge that is only going to work properly on one particular monitor and make things worse everywhere else.
Export your web images to sRGB, and when people complain about the color, educate them about the importance of properly calibrating and profiling their monitors and controlling ambient lighting around the monitor. It's all you can do.
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The bottom line is you can't, and it is pointless and stupid to even bother to try. sRGB is the closest thing out there to a rough average of the colors a given uncalibrated/unprofiled monitor might display; that is what it was designed to do. Educating the client(s) about the futility of trying to critically judge colors on uncalibrated/unprofiled monitors is a far better investment in one's time than trying to come up with some BS kludge that is only going to work properly on one particular monitor and make things worse everywhere else.
Export your web images to sRGB, and when people complain about the color, educate them about the importance of properly calibrating and profiling their monitors and controlling ambient lighting around the monitor. It's all you can do.
And tell them with all the money THEY have saved by US shooting Digital to go buy a decent monitor for Christ sake!!!!
Snook
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And tell them with all the money THEY have saved by US shooting Digital to go buy a decent monitor for Christ sake!!!!
Snook
this would only solves one part of a problem. for the average user color management is still to difficult and to expensive, even for some photographers ;-) . we need a one button setup solution
and all works together the os, the software and all connected hardware... i know i'm dreaming.... considering that color management is around since this late 80`we did not come that far.
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Insightful comments gents thanks. I really took to heart the Pet Shop boys cheap radio sound check comment so i bought a cheap Dell PC craptop with a bogus display that I will also be proofing on. I have no idea what the settings or profiles are other than the fact that it is bone stock as sold so i figured its probably close to what the clients are looking at. I'm certainly not going to waiver from my typical process and will be providing a batch of web ONLY files as well as backing up the final print ready ones and some of my clients still spec contact sheets and even these guys dont they are getting them this time too haha. Simple trick that should calm any further comments on this particular gig but it still doesn't really solve the destination viewing issue so I'll do my best with said radio analogy proofing what else can I do? Cant control the market place hardware so tied hands there. Speaking of hardware...
Makes me start to wonder... With the ever growing online market and the beginnings of this as a "new standard" launch point its high time for the hardware manufacturers to start to consider standardized formatting/settings/canned profiles/etc. that set a solid target for us allowing consistency and top quality. Otherwise they are missing out and so are their customers.
Seems by the replies considering the educated sounding board here that we are all somewhat flying blind making best guess choices for now. Kind of reminds me of the mid 90's when digital photography was getting off the ground somewhat save for the fact that the info available was sparse and mainly from vendors or manufacturers. We worked through that so we'll work through this.
With a few more uuffffs along the way though