How best to convert paper-based workflow images to the web?

[Wayne Fox]

Is distributing digital images for people to look at on uncalibrated monitors so different to distributing prints for people to look at under non-standard lighting?

good point. I believe uncalibrated monitors are substantially cooler than most non standard lighting and the color temperature of uncalibrated monitors as set up by manufacturers is consistent enough to try and compensate for it a little bit.  But non standard lighting is becoming more of an issue because of low quality LED and CFL bulbs that have replaced most incandescents over the past few years. 

The good news is human vision is highly adaptive, and even on displays with different color temperatures images can look pretty good.  Same applies to most lighting situations, although here a poor LED light can really rob the image of important wavelengths and have a major impact on it's appearance.

[Brad P]

Is distributing digital images for people to look at on uncalibrated monitors so different to distributing prints for people to look at under non-standard lighting?

I second Wayne's "Good point" comment. And reflecting on that lowered my blood pressure a bit.  But then in a calm, meditative moment of nihilistic self-examination I found myself wondering why I should even white balance for print, and my blood pressure has been restored.  There probably is a point of diminishing returns pondering all this though, and I suspect this post is closing in on that point. 

[Pete Berry]

I have the same 16-bit PP-RGB to TIFF printer workflow you have, but a older garden variety Gateway 24" 1080p sRGB monitor that I've calibrated to match my larger gamut iPF5100 16-bit printer output quite nicely. I don't see gamut problems on the monitor very often (posterization and its varients), and I generally ignore the hypersensitive gamut warning overlay. If I do see problems, a printer test strip much more often than not looks fine. My ACR intake sharpening routine is convolutional rather than the usual USM (detail slider at 100%, as recommended by Schewe).
 
For my web images, a simple PS action with conversion to 8-bit sRGB, followed by down-sizing and perhaps a bit of sharpening, saving as high quality JPG's complete the web prep. I've found that simple bicubic downsampling to be far preferable to bicubic-sharper, which often gives a harsh appearance to the image.

While there may be occasional subtle differences in my side-to-side 16-bit PP-RGb vs 8-bit sRGB file viewing, the fact is that my monitor is much more similar to what most people will view your images on than is yours - at least color-wise. So maybe a cheap, brighter sRGB monitor with D65 whitepoint is what you need to view, and retouch if necessary, your web images!

[datro]

...

I'm in the process of updating it so it can run on version 7. I'll let people know when that's finished. IM7 offers some possibilities that make it easier to further enhance the script, but we'll have to see if there is time for that.

Cheers,
Bart

Hi Bart,

I'm just wondering if anything ever came of your script....has it been updated for IM7 and somehow I missed that post?  I've looked at the various pages on your website but don't see anything about the script.

I'm asking because I'm very interested in trying IM7 with your script on files produced from 4x5 B&W negatives scanned on my Howtek at 4000 spi.  All of these 16-bit files have "Gray Gamma 2.2" as the embedded color space and will need to be downsized for printing at my normal print sizes and would like to see if I can improve on the Photoshop methods I've been using up to now.

An additional question:   Since I'm only interested in B&W files (16-bit), does the script offer any advantages over simply running IM7 directly with simple Lanczos, anti-aliasing, and moderate sharpening?

Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

Dave

Edit:  Now that I have found the V.122 script and have had a chance to look at it, I've clarified what I originally wrote above.

[Dan Wells]

Some newer calibration-friendly wide-gamut monitors have sRGB emulation modes (I know my Eizo does, I know BenQ does, and makes it extra-easy with their "hotkey puck", and I suspect some of the NECs and Dells do as well). I'd create a version of the image just for export in Lightroom (or C1, etc.) - probably resize at this point so I could see the sharpening as well, flip the monitor into sRGB emulation mode, and edit to taste.
There are two MORE unfortunate considerations - one is that many Web platforms perform an additional server-side compression step you have no control over. They certainly often resize, and some may also mess with color.
The second is that many devices have sub-sRGB gamuts and no color management at all. Almost all Apple devices going back a long time are at least sRGB and have a factory profile, and both Macs and iOS apply some color management at the OS level. Many inexpensive Windows systems and Android phones/tablets have gamuts as small as 65-70% of sRGB, and Windows has no OS-level color management (I don't know about Android). All serious imaging applications on Windows ARE color managed at the application level, but most browsers are NOT.
If you know your target is newer Apple devices (last couple of years) - say you're e-mailing images to a client whom you know uses a 2015 (or newer) iMac, you can still target sRGB, but you can also target a somewhat wider color space called DCI-P3, which is intermediate between sRGB and Adobe RGB. As far as I know, the DCI-P3 support list looks something like:

MacOS:
iMac - mid 2015 and later
MacBook Pro - 2016 and later (all USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 models)
iMac Pro - presumably at least DCI-P3(will it be Adobe RGB?)
NO MacBook or MacBook Air
Mac Mini and Mac Pro of course depend on the attached display (most Mac Pros probably have a wide-gamut display, Mac Minis could have anything, including a sub-sRGB display).

iOS
iPhone - 7 and later
iPad - all iPad Pro models except the original 12.9"

There are a small number of Android phones (and at least one Windows computer, the Microsoft Surface Studio) that also support DCI-P3, plus a small number of Windows laptops whose internal screen is at or near Adobe RGB (and a few Windows desktops with wide-gamut monitors. These are much less common outside the photographic and video world than the DCI-P3 Apple devices.

Dan