Had to temporarily abandoned the conversation, do to yet another issue which I still cannot resolve. Had my Mac Mini M1 working perfectly with my existing older NEC PA 271W, then changed back to my Mac Pro for a quick photo shoot at which point I can no longer get the Mac Mini to hand shake with the NEC monitor. Tried different cables, eliminated the docking station all the usual suspects of narrowing down the culprit all to no avail. The Mini works perfectly via other monitors just not now with the NEC. As my wife always says, "its always something". Starting to think she is right.
Back to color management, monitors and other things related since my last post. First for those of you who still might want an NEC Spectraview Monitor I have found at least one vendor who still has 4 of the PA271Q models in stock and that is DTG Web down in Florida. Given that NEC is no longer supporting these at this point I am some what reticent to buy one however, still cogitating on this one. I did ask their resident expert on monitors at DTG about this issue of self calibrating monitors and his response effectively yes as good as these newer monitors are he felt periodic calibration is just as important for a litany of different reasons which have been described extensively in this discussion.
At this point I felt it was in my best interest to give Eizo another try. Called yesterday and this conversation went demonstrably different than my issues with the company some 10 or so years ago with a tech support guy who knew the products and shared a wealth of information not only about the various monitors Eizo makes but also in comparison with other brands and did this in a way it wasn't trash talk about the competitor. Understand the Eizo CG 2730 is no longer avialble as that line of monitor is being replaced with the newer 2700S and 2700X series. Neither of those are currently available but the 2700S is due to be released either in late June or perhaps early July and the X version much later in the year around Q3. There might be some vendors who still have some of the older models in stock.
Have not had a chance to look at the other videos by Art is Right but will do so just to leave no stone unturned. Thanks for the heads up on that one, which I had not noticed.
Agreed art copy work is a science project with a little bit of art thrown in. Not everyone is up to the task, not everyone sees color acutely enough especially the subtle variations, and not everyone knows how to properly color correct. Like others have stated this endeavor always without exception requires some post production tweaking to dial things in correctly and most importantly those corrections (assuming excellent success) are only good for the space within which the original art and proof are created. Granted modern printers have come a long way to eliminate metamerism (sp?) but it still exist to some degree. My situation is a one many show, in that I photograph, edit and proof and print (when required) the entire enchilada unless handing files off to offset printers for articles, promotion and that sort of thing, but then that is always a crap shoot at best.
From my perspective I don't find one type of media to be more problematic than another, ie watercolor, oils, acrylics but rather the type or individual pigments used within the media. A perfect example would be the use of cobalt blue which under any lighting will turn purple or reddish blue due to its exhibiting of infrared wavelength. In the older days with the Betterlight system the fix would be to double up on the infrared filters which of course cuts the light volume down considerably, not idea for the scan back. Other blues can demonstrate this to lesser and varying degrees but none as detrimental as cobalt. Like many of you I have done extensive product photograph especially in the outdoor recreation industry where synthetic cloth and synthetic dyes are used extensively for the products clothing etc. Talk about some serious metamerism! Before the days of digital imaging while working on one project for a company that made backpacks with a brilliant jade-teal colored pack cloth regardless of the film, regardless of the light source that cloth always rendered a sky blue. We literally tried every color film available on the market at that time regardless of light source required to work with and got the same exact results more or less within the constraints of the the color palette of a particular film. Filters were a mixed blessing because they obviously created a color cast where you didn't want them. In the digital domain some 20 or 30 years later this would be easily correctable, not so with film. If I recall correctly the world was on the origin Photoshop 2 or 3, its come a long ways since them.
