I'm in Color Management HELL!! PLease advise...

[nikita]

Viken,

good work!!

The green tint can very much be something you're seeing from a
slightly off greyballance in the separate channeladjustments in Adobe
Gamma. Doing this adjustments a few times after each other will reveal
to you that it's impossible to get it back to the same spot each time
by eyeballing. That's why wer're going for instrumented calibration.

Even if scannerRGB seems OK it could look bad when on a correct
monitorcalibration, if the one you made is slightly off. We're dealing
with noncontrollble variables here....so anything is possible.

The greenish tint can also be that the "scannerprofile" which is used
for the conversion within the scannersoftware on the fly from
Scannerprofile to AdobeRGB would be a little off for your scanner as
it is a generic one. As you said, try to make a conversion in the
imageeditingprogram from the scannerprofile to Adobe RGB and then
compare with the rest. Does that also create a similar green tint?
Then you know that the conversion in the scannersoftware is doing a
good job. If differences, try different renderings in Photoshop and
see if you can replicate the green tint even in Photoshop, see below.

The most straight forward way is of course to scan directly into Adobe
RGB from the scannerdriver. These offs you see can be a diff in the
profile as I said and then the flow is good in itself. If any profile,
source or destination, is not accurate the offs should be fixed with a
better profile if possible.

The fact that the pure ScannerRGB into the Imageeditingprogram lacks a
little punch and that might be because off a larger scannerspace is
put right into the smaller Adobe RGB without a conversion into it. The
same effect as putting an Adobe RGB into the web. Try more
testpictures and see if it looks good allover in any scan.

When you're talking about if it would be better using the Scannerspace
I don't know if you mean editing in it and keep the pictures in it.
No, the scannerspace is not greyballanced and is not perceptual
uniform and will give diffrent effects depending on what is edited in
the space. Always convert to a Workingspace before editing. Thats a
general rule within colormanagment.

The skintones may be calmer without that high saturation when using
scannerRGB.
But that is very easy to fix with Hue/saturation if Adobe RGB feels
better allover. Go for the redchannel and reduce saturation and
perhaps move reds towards yellow slightly. Of course that depends on
what you have kick with from the beginning.

If the green tint is the only "bad" sideffect from using Adobe RGB
from the Scannersoftware I would try to find a simple correction with
the tools in the scannersoftware and save a "preset" if possible.
always load that prsete and the tuning is there. With an
profileeditingprogram it would be simple to hammer that into a new
profile too. Go for the allover feeling and find a way that needs as
simple adjustment as possible. Getting everything spot on with a
straight scan takes a customprofile. It would cost the price of an IT8
and downloading the free Little CMS profiler. But I think you can find
a tuning within the scannerprogram that will give you what you want.
We have to live with adjustments when not using customprofiles. Even
Vuescan needs adjustments, belive it or not.

Do you see any diffrences between Photoshop and paintshop regarding
these tests? If you chose to convert from Scannerprofile to Adobe RGB
in Photoshop by using the Image>mode>Convert to profile, try both
Relative Colormetric and Perceptual rendering and see what happens.

Sometimes a general workflow with correct profileset up is easier to
get back to when changing scanners or flow later on, than depending on
homemade "on/off CMS" here and there. Even if it takes some easy made
tweakings it may pay off in the long run. It's extremely frustating
when trying to get back to a homemade flow with new tools that refuses
to behave like the old stuff.....simply chaos and no fixed references
to lean back on.

Again, damn good work Viken. Be happy that your offs are so small
without a customprofile. You'll get there.

nikita

PS

remeber the difference between ASSIGNING and CONVERTING. You're not
converting just because you switch cms on/off with Adobe RGB or s-RGB.
That would be ASSIGNING. That just change the view in an
colormanagment aware application like Photoshop. You have to CONVERT
from a SOURCEprofile to a DESTINATIONprofile. Then the colors will
change in both CMS aware apps and nonaware apps like a web browser.

 

[Hecate]

On 9 Jul 2004 11:56:20 -0700, (e-mail address removed) (nikita) wrote:

nikita

PS

remeber the difference between ASSIGNING and CONVERTING. You're not
converting just because you switch cms on/off with Adobe RGB or s-RGB.
That would be ASSIGNING. That just change the view in an
colormanagment aware application like Photoshop. You have to CONVERT
from a SOURCEprofile to a DESTINATIONprofile. Then the colors will
change in both CMS aware apps and nonaware apps like a web browser.

Still raining I see ;-)

 

[false_dmitrii]

"I'm glad you had the time to add all that! ;-)"

Yeah, vacation and a rainy Europe...one has to get all the frustration
out somewhere.

The googleforums can be a real lifesaver in these situations. After a
session in here I don't even have enough energy left to fight my
neighbour whos Dog shits at my lawn. Well, I might stay out of this
list someday and kill that f****** animal anyway. I'll run over him (
the dog ) with with the lawn mower. Could explain this evil act by
telling hem that Shit Happens...they can't arrest me for that, eh?

Hmm...now I wish I had more questions for you.

false_dmitrii

 

[nikita]

Still raining I see ;-)

Yeah....you bet it is! That very wet kind of rain. And my tuned up
Lawnmower does'nt feel like starting in this damp air......been
pulling that string all morning now. I'm afraid that I've put on that
look Jack Nicholson is famous for. The neighbour (including that
little piece of animal) came out, turned around and went back in again
(??). I think he feels something. Well, now he can put a plug in the
rear end of that dog for a few days – good training and a bit extended
life.

I'm turning to the googles forums.....but I'm still into the other
thing in my mind. After rain comes sun.....and I will be on that
string again.

nikita

 

[Hecate]

Yeah....you bet it is! That very wet kind of rain. And my tuned up
Lawnmower does'nt feel like starting in this damp air......been
pulling that string all morning now. I'm afraid that I've put on that
look Jack Nicholson is famous for. The neighbour (including that
little piece of animal) came out, turned around and went back in again
(??). I think he feels something. Well, now he can put a plug in the
rear end of that dog for a few days – good training and a bit extended
life.

Heeeeeere's nitikta!!!!

I'm turning to the googles forums.....but I'm still into the other
thing in my mind. After rain comes sun.....and I will be on that
string again.

LOL! You need a remote so you can say you were nowhere the lawnmower
when it "went off". ;-)

 

[nikita]

LOL! You need a remote so you can say you were nowhere the lawnmower

when it "went off". ;-)

Good idea, Hecate!

I just lost all "contatto con quella macchina pericolosa" !! Who
would expect a Take Off like thaaaaat – all by itself in the gentle
morningsun.......completely filled up to the lid with high energy
gasolin, eh........heh....? I was standing in the kitchen making
breakfast and suddenly saw it passing the window á lá full speed. Off
it went to give the whole block a free and , mildly speaking, rough
haircut. Never happend before, believe me.

Well Hecate, there is *another* neighbour down the street who pisses
me off from time to time too.......I don't know if that would be bad
taste and asking for to much? This could get me into some kind of
addiction. But what the hell, I guess I'm already in it up to my
knees. One more or less. Just this time. Then I quit both that AND the
cigarettes.

nikita

Not a single little yellow warninglabel anywhere on at that machine as
far as I can see......nope, not a single one anymore.......I'm
definitely not the one to be hold responsible for this incident what
so ever. I will only stand accused in front of God when that day
comes, but I think I could talk him over on my side anyway; He must
have seen that evil Dog too!!! Suuuure he did.

 

[Hecate]

Good idea, Hecate!

I just lost all "contatto con quella macchina pericolosa" !! Who
would expect a Take Off like thaaaaat – all by itself in the gentle
morningsun.......completely filled up to the lid with high energy
gasolin, eh........heh....? I was standing in the kitchen making
breakfast and suddenly saw it passing the window á lá full speed. Off
it went to give the whole block a free and , mildly speaking, rough
haircut. Never happend before, believe me.

Well Hecate, there is *another* neighbour down the street who pisses
me off from time to time too.......I don't know if that would be bad
taste and asking for to much? This could get me into some kind of
addiction. But what the hell, I guess I'm already in it up to my
knees. One more or less. Just this time. Then I quit both that AND the
cigarettes.

nikita

Ah, a fellow nicotine addict.

You ought to take pictures of these neighbours and then Photoshop
them. I'm sure you could make, say, an excellent dartboard or shooting
target. Helps with the frustration and keeps you out of jail ;-)

 

[nikita]

You ought to take pictures of these neighbours and then Photoshop

them. I'm sure you could make, say, an excellent dartboard or shooting
target. Helps with the frustration and keeps you out of jail ;-)

Well, actually I've been doing that for some time allready......sure,
works as a substitute but nothing is like the real thing, so to
speak.....if you just know how much printing I've been doing for these
targets

We'll see. I'm glad you're suported me so far. Who knows, you might
get the cell next to mine when this is over >GRIN<. If they push me to
get who you are I just tell them; "Who knows, somewhere in rainy
England"....that would take them some time to work out.
Just kidding.

Anyway, the sun has been through the grey mass, still I left the
string resting. I'll be out for some suntan instead. I'll let you know
if I get it started someday. Brrrrmmmm!

take care.

nikita

 

[David Chien]

http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/issue13.html

Issue 13
Color Management and Calibration - True color matching ever possible?
4 January 2004

Many programs and tools are sold today which claim to 'calibrate'
and 'manage' your monitor, printer, scanner, and other output devices
more accurately than before. One of the benefits often advertised is
that 'what you print will look like what you see on the monitor'.

To 'calibrate' a device is to measure the output of color when
given a known input value, and to record the difference for future
reference. Thus, if the computer wants to produce a very dark blue, but
the monitor produces a slightly lighter blue, the 'calibration' will
make a note of this difference.

To 'manage' a device is to make sure it produces colors as close as
possible to what is being requested of it. Thus, following the case
above, if the computer knows the monitor produces a lighter blue than it
is told to, the computer will 'adjust' for this difference by sending an
even darker blue to produce, one which will look as close to the correct
value of blue as possible.

Quite sadly, no product on this planet in existence today can
properly match what you see in print vs. what you see on the monitor.
This is not a fault of the products, but instead physical, absolute
reality -- the printer can make colors that no monitor can produce; the
monitor can produce colors that no printer can produce.

This means, quite simply, that if you want a product to help you
match what you see on the screen to the print exactly, you can't.

This does not mean you cannot use a color calibration & management
tool to help you match and edit colors. Rather, you must still use your
judgement to adjust what you see on the screen to what you want to print.

Color calibration does produce the benefit where you can rely on a
stable, consistent output where images viewed on it don't look too pink
one day, then too blue another day. In commerical press applications
where thousands of books and publications must be printed to match in
color, color management and calibration products are a must.

BUT, for the home consumer today, such devices are not necessary,
and the marginal benefits are usually not worth the hundreds of dollars
spent on the products and time required to use them.

Why?

Simple! The introduction of sRGB gamut, LCD monitors, and sRGB
calibrated scanners, printers, and monitors.

The most critical device is the monitor. If you see something with
a slight color cast on a monitor, your eye quickly adjusts for this and
you soon lose awareness of this color cast. (You can try this by looking
at a white piece of paper indoors, then walking outdoors into bright
sunlight and noting the color of the paper with a slight color cast in
the first few moments.)

Luckily, almost all LCD montiors today are calibrated to the sRGB
color gamut, and even without further calibration and management, they
closely match the expected colors (usually with 90-95%+ accuracy, even
for cheap LCD monitors). If you use a LCD monitor, you can expect most
colors to be true and accurate to your images (usually, digital camera
images and scanner scans that also use the sRGB gamut).

Because the print color gamut and monitor color gamut will
physically never match, you won't see significant improvements by using
a 3rd party color calibration and management device, and you could
achieve excellent print results on your own - since in either case, you
still must make the subjective judgement regarding how you must adjust
what you see on the screen to produce the print you would like.

 

[Hecate]

Anyway, the sun has been through the grey mass, still I left the
string resting. I'll be out for some suntan instead. I'll let you know
if I get it started someday. Brrrrmmmm!

Yeah, really humid here today.

take care.

You too

 

[Jimmy]

http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/issue13.html

Because the print color gamut and monitor color gamut will
physically never match, you won't see significant improvements by using
a 3rd party color calibration and management device, and you could
achieve excellent print results on your own - since in either case, you
still must make the subjective judgement regarding how you must adjust
what you see on the screen to produce the print you would like.

This advice may or may not be good, but like everything it is subjective. A
few years ago I took on the task of scanning a number of old slides and
family prints, correcting them with PS. I relied heavily on Adobe Gamma and
my eye-ball. About three years ago I went in for an eye exam and discovered
I had cataracts on both eyes. After the surgeries to remove them, I soon
discovered most of my previous work was really off. Since that time I rely
more on hardware calibration, using my sight to confirm the accuracy of the
hardware produced monitor profiles.

 

[nikita]

David,

the s-RGB isn't a solution – it's a limitation.

The s-RGB allover is just a Microsoft dream that has no real place in
the Colormanagment that today means FREEDOM and QUALITY. The freedom
costs money still. The s-RGB standarization between devices is no more
than a generic concept. You can't be serious about beliveing in that
the "factorycalibration" (!) would be good enough for editing in a
complete flow from input to outputs? Any scanner will show OFFs from a
factorycalibration as it is an individual. No one at that factory is
measureing EACH sample. Put a different paper (non Epson but an
artpaper or any paper not listed in the driver) in that little Epson
which is set to assume s-RGB and you need customprofiling, my friend.
The LCDs are getting better and better and STABILITY colorwise they
much better than the CRTs. However you have to NAIL those colors in a
descriptionfile – the iccprofile. And the backlighting is drifting
with aging quite much which will effect perception even though we will
adapt to a certain level. Photoshop needs to know the exact state of
the monitor at that particular time the editing is done. The generic
profile will never be true. So whether you work in s-RGB or a larger
space Photoshop will not be able to show you the real thing that you
have in front of you.

You've been falling for those arguments that is floating in from
pepole who doesn't know what they're talking about. The s-RGB will of
course be a better thing than nothing for amateuers that don't see
diffrence between pure red and orange. But it's not a colormanagment
solution for any productivity beyond that field of use.

Any device is an individual. If s-RGB was the real gift, then even the
generic profiles the manufactures give us would be doing the same
thing within a accurately set up colormanagmentflow. The s-RGB factory
"calibrated" devices will not be more precise than that. Even Eizos
highend LCD in the Coloredge family which today is the
industrystandard needs PROFILING. They even have their own software
for it....These LCDs are working in internal 10bit and has hardware
gamma-adjustments to get away from banding. Don't give me that shit
about even lowend LCDs shows colors accurately (according to the
standards we use today) right out of the box. You're dead wrong.
You're right in the sense that they are better than a CRT directly
from the box which is defaulting to office use at 9300 K......the LCDs
most often are down at 6500 thanks to the backlighting tubes.

Any limiting to s-RGB or an individual monitorspace for serious
editing is really nuts. Even those who "only" think that they will
scan for web should reconsider that. The scanner (and the cam) is
capable to much larger gamut than that. Grab that for the archive.
Then convert dupes to the destinations. Why limit yourself and your
freedom at the first base...??

You're experinces of the Spyder tool doesn't have to set
standard.....use a better tool and a real workflow where all devices
is profiled to a high standard. Set those in a accurate set up, then
you'll change your mind. An LCD needs one of the Sequel pucks or a
real Spectro to deliver.

I'll be out of town over the weekend and into next week. So, I can't
meet your arguments until later on. No computer nearby whatsoever.
Even the lawnMower will stay home.....>grin>

nikita

 

[Anoni Moose]

http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/issue13.html

Issue 13
Color Management and Calibration - True color matching ever possible?
4 January 2004

Interesting article. Basically says that one doesn't need calibration
if one already has calibration (buying devices pre-calibrated). Sounds
reasonable. If one is happy with one's current results, then leave
it alone.

Of course, it's interesting that the chosen 'standard' was
developed as the minimalistic common denominator color gamut for
CRT monitors.

But this is a good thing. It's what makes things like PictBridge
technology work. Built-in default color management.

But then, of course, my printer's native color gamut is larger in
most directions (all but one) than sRGB's color space according to
the online 3D VRML mapping one can produce on a really neat website
(URL not handy to me at the moment). Using that extra gamut certainly
isn't necessary, but it'd be nice to have. Sticking to sRGB doesn't
allow that.

FWIW, my getting a spyder for both monitor calbration AND monitor
profiling made a big difference over my previous use of the Adobe
gamma utility. As my monitor has aged, it has shifted ever so slightly
and calibrations keep in in line. Perhaps new ones don't age anymore.


Mike

P.S. - Even a pre-calibrated sRGB monitor still needs to have a profile
associated with it, even if it's not a custom one made off of that
particular unit. Software needs to know to use an sRGB profile.

P.P.S. - Are video cards completely interchangeable with no affect whatsoever
on color/brightness rendition (something that custom profiling takes
into account)? Seems like they should be, but I've used less than a
dozen over the years (and some of those did make a difference, but
that may just be ancient history or indication of a problem card).

 

[Hecate]

This advice may or may not be good, but like everything it is subjective. A
few years ago I took on the task of scanning a number of old slides and
family prints, correcting them with PS. I relied heavily on Adobe Gamma and
my eye-ball. About three years ago I went in for an eye exam and discovered
I had cataracts on both eyes. After the surgeries to remove them, I soon
discovered most of my previous work was really off. Since that time I rely
more on hardware calibration, using my sight to confirm the accuracy of the
hardware produced monitor profiles.

In addition - it's a fact that men have a problem with colours. Whilst
1 in 10 (IIRC) are almost completely colour blind, it is believed that
a large proportion of the remaining 9 out of 10 have varying degrees
of colour blindness.

So, when your wife tells you it's red, believe her ;-)

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

In addition - it's a fact that men have a problem with colours. Whilst
1 in 10 (IIRC) are almost completely colour blind, it is believed that
a large proportion of the remaining 9 out of 10 have varying degrees
of colour blindness.

Complete colour blindness is *much* rarer than 1 in 10, its around 1 in
10 that have some colour vision deficiency.

That reminds me of when I was a kid and my youngest brother, about 4 or
5 at the time, was given the standard Ichihara colour vision tests by
the school medical examiner. Being a smart ass, he figured he was
wasting his time trying to work out what the numbers were that were
hidden in all of those dots when it was printed in tiny letters in the
bottom corner of the page. Of course, that was just the sheet number
and had nothing to do with the colour dot encoded digits! Consequently
he was classified as being completely colour blind, as opposed to just
having a colour vision deficiency.

This affliction was rare enough for it to come to the attention of a
doctor at the main regional hospital where, as it happened, one of their
senior doctors' research subject was colour vision and its genetic
transmission. He couldn't believe his luck. Since there were 4
brothers including a set of twins, 3 of which had no deficiency
detectable by the standard tests and one who was apparently completely
colour blind, he took a particular interest. Together with my father we
were all called into the hospital for a couple of hours a week over a
period of about a month or two to undergo extremely detailed colour
vision tests, well beyond the detection level of the standard Ishihara,
as well as blood tests to make sure as well as possible, in those
pre-DNA testing days, that we were all true siblings!

Some of these tests I remember had a series of around 20 loose counters
with two counters of different hues fixed to a board. The object was to
place all the counters in sequence as the colour gradually shifted from
one hue to the other along the board. In some of these the fixed
counters would be quite different hues, in others they would be very
close, so that the change between any two adjacent would be almost
imperceptible. Unfortunately, all the counters had a number on the back
and each test had a different coded number sequence so that the doctor
could determine whether you had got it right or wrong and in which areas
you made mistakes. Yep, my youngest brother, again, figured out that
all he had to do was put the numbers in order from the left to the
right, meaning that the colours were completely out of sequence.

It was only after about two months going through these more and more
stringent tests that someone actually noticed what he was doing and that
the entire exercise was flawed from the outset. When the Ishihara test
was modified to that the page numbers appeared on the back of the sheet,
not the lower right hand corner, my kid brother showed normal colour
vision along with the rest of us - because the easy answer had been
removed.

However, as a consequence of the detailed tests in the hospital we did
find out that we all had a very minor colour vision deficiency which
would normally go undetected in standard tests. In my case it is
limited to a narrow range somewhere between yellow and green.

So, when your wife tells you it's red, believe her ;-)

Nah, just means she isn't smart enough to read the label that tells her
its "tropical flamingo". ;-)

 

[Hecate]

Complete colour blindness is *much* rarer than 1 in 10, its around 1 in
10 that have some colour vision deficiency.

<snip>

That was fascinating. It also shows how scientists sometimes can't
see the wood for the trees. My first degree was in biochemistry and
the number of times people seemed to miss obvious..... (in one case a

Nah, just means she isn't smart enough to read the label that tells her
its "tropical flamingo". ;-)

LOL!

 

[Don]

That reminds me of when I was a kid and my youngest brother, about 4 or
5 at the time, was given the standard Ichihara colour vision tests by
the school medical examiner. Being a smart ass, he figured he was
wasting his time trying to work out what the numbers were that were
hidden in all of those dots when it was printed in tiny letters in the
bottom corner of the page.

;o) Very good!

That reminds me of an IQ tests many years ago where the conclusion was
drawn that right-handed people were significantly more intelligent
than left-handed people.

Until a (presumably more intelligent) left-hander pointed out that the
check boxes were to the right of the questions and that a right-handed
person would just quickly go down the list without significantly
moving their right hand.

A left-handed person, on the other hand ;-), would obscure the
questions each time they made a checkmark and would have to remove the
left hand and find their place before continuing, thereby wasting
valuable time and accounting for significantly different results.

A revised test had checkboxes on both sides of the question.

Don. (a right-hander)

P.S. Speaking of lefties, I knew a guitar player once who was a lefty
and learned to play the guitar "upside-down". (A left-handed guitar
has the strings reversed.) To our great amusement, he just learned the
chords and riffs "upside down".

P.P.S. And now even more off topic... ;-)
Speaking of upside-down, there was a pre-school kid who's mother used
to read him stories at the kitchen table. He would sit opposite and
follow intently. Long story short, he learned to read upside-down to
the astonishment of his 1st grade teacher.

OK, somebody better stop me with all this free association... ;o)

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

P.S. Speaking of lefties, I knew a guitar player once who was a lefty
and learned to play the guitar "upside-down". (A left-handed guitar has
the strings reversed.) To our great amusement, he just learned the
chords and riffs "upside down".

Not that unusual, Paul McCartney did it right from the start.

 

[Don]

Not that unusual, Paul McCartney did it right from the start.

Really? Learn something new every day! I never noticed the strings
were upside down and I consider myself a Beatles fan. Maybe it's those
faded black and white films!? After the Beatles split up anything
McCartney produced doesn't even rise to the level of garbage, in my
estimation, so I didn't pay attention to any of that to notice the
strings. Definitely a case of "the whole is bigger than the sum of its
parts".

Anyway, the guy I'm referring to said it was much simpler because he
could use any guitar instead of having to either re-string or always
carry around a special left-handed guitar.

Don.

 

[Kennedy McEwen]

Anyway, the guy I'm referring to said it was much simpler because he
could use any guitar instead of having to either re-string or always
carry around a special left-handed guitar.

I seem to remember McCartney saying that's why he started playing that
way too. Whether he still does or not I have no idea, its almost 30
years since I last spoke to him.