This:So I intimately know color management…
and this (from
here):
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Cyan green getting clipped? those colors are in the center of the spectrum.
are simply incompatible statements. The second quote can't even be called a misunderstanding of color management — it is a TOTAL absence of understanding the most basic tenants of color management.
Gary, you need to swallow your pride, stop considering yourself such an expert that you don't need to listen to or learn from people who know what they're talking about, stop being so defensive, stop confusing success in one area with expertise in another, and go back to the basics and learn the foundations of color science. If you don't want to do that, you need to stop "educating" people on this subject. You do them a huge disservice. If they want to go from your teaching on to further understanding of the subject, they will need to unlearn you explanations before they can move on.
I'm not sure you are sincerely interested in what anyone has to say, but just in case you are, here are a couple sincerely offered suggestions:
Get rid of the wide rainbow explanation of color gamuts.This doesn't accurately describe how color gamuts work and leads to HUGE misunderstanding. AdobeRGB doesn't include a wider range of wavelengths on a one dimensional spectrum. It is a larger volume in a three dimensional space. The xy chromaticity diagram, while not a perfect representation of color gamuts, is a much better way to compare gamuts. It's not hard for even a beginner to understand — one triangle is bigger that another — not hard. It has the added benefit of being the way most of the world compares color gamuts. When your student looks at other sources they will encounter this diagram often. Looking at a comparison between AdobeRGB and sRGB on this diagram you will see that actually, yes, cyans and greens can easily be clipped.
Don't explain color gamuts by switching monitor profiles to working spaces like sRGBYou and I may know that you shouldn't set your monitor to sRGB, but it is a commonly occurring misunderstanding among people starting out. I frequently see people who want to work in a color space like sRGB and think the way to do that is by setting their monitor to sRGB. There's never a good reason to set your monitor's space to working space. If you want to show what happens when the color numbers from wide space like AdobeRGB are interpreted as though they were in a small space like sRGB, just assign the sRGB profile to an image. This is a much simpler and more accurate way to show the phenomenon of duller colors coming from a wide space to small space. It would also be an opportunity to show what happens in a color managed environment by comparing the results of assigning a space vs converting to a space. When you
convert from profile to profile, which is what will happen in a color managed workflow, you will see that using AdobeRGB doesn't cause dull colors in the way it does when you work in a non-color managed workflow and go from large to small spaces.
Just avoid talking about the number of colors in a gamutI left a comment about this on the Youtube page. You didn't have a coherent argument for why you thought I was wrong but offered this to your audience:
"Folks, this is a prime example of someone who knows absolutely nothing about this topic, yet spouting off like he knows. He doesn't know the topic."I was (and still am) right about this. But it doesn't matter — for the point you are trying to make and only muddies the waters. Just avoid it altogether—if you want to compare color spaces, just use terms like 'wider' and 'greater volume', 'larger ranger', etc. Talking about either the number of colors, or the amount of information doesn't clarify anything and will likely lead to confusing inaccuracies.
Be honestIt's a wonderful ability to be able to explain technical subjects to a general audience. People who are great at this, like Richard Feynman, are able to simplify subjects without intruding inaccuracies and offer simplified explanations that make it easy to move on to more complete understanding. It's more expedient to say AdobeRGB causes dull colors than it is to say using a non-color managed workflow can cause dull colors in certain situations, but the later is true and the former is only half-true. In a non-managed workflow going from a large gamut to small gamut, such as going from AdobeRGB to a iPad without conversion does result in duller colors. But going from a small space to sRGB to a large one like a wide-monitor has the opposite effect in a non managed workflow. If you are honestly trying to help your audience build a foundation of knowledge, you need to find a way to explain both these phenomena. If you want to do this, you need to be honest about your own understanding of the fundamentals, and it's not clear that you are.
Based on my previous encounter with you, I suspect you will not take any of this to heart, but it is offered sincerely, not necessarily for your benefit, but for the benefit of your audience for whom I have a lot of sympathy.