I thought I was alone with my take on colour management but it seems others
have 'discovered' the same thing as I.
I'd also state straight up that I taught photography as a science course, so
the emphasis was not on following what I say, but in having students TEST
what I say - compare it to other methods, compare it to 'what they know' and
evaluate the results as objectively as possible. That is what science is..
degrees don't make a scientist - science is a philosophy of analysis.
So firstly... if you're a graphic designer working with colourmetrics,
you've a set of colours that are limited to your printer, and graphics
printers are generally 4 colour.
This means: photographs will never reproduce well
Your calibration is based on inksets used in specific printers.
You will pay dearly to buy profiles.
You will be outputting to a very tiny selection of printers.
Photographers will hate your work and say you do not understand colour.
We are photographers. We work with many more inks than this, we don't like
spending money, and we DO understand colour, just differently than graphics
guys understand it.
I was thinking about this one day while I was running a control strip
through the RA4 machine. For those who are unaware of the process, a batch
of 'control strips' are bought from Kodak, Fuji or elsewhere that are simply
lengths of RA4 paper, frozen, that have been exposed to give a selection of
colour swatches. Instructions on the box include (specific to each batch)
standard colour correction variables - ie, each batch of paper is different
so even though the exposure of the paper was done under a specific,
carefully monitored light source, the paper will not represent these colours
100% accurate from batch to batch.
Running these through the RA4 machine each day you'd then pop the control
strip under a densitometer and check how close the colours were to what they
were supposed to be (allowing for the included variation) then you'd head
back to the RA4 machine and tweak the chemistry..
This was a number of days after Fuji Australia had failed to reorder E6
control strips and we'd run out.. 4 weeks wait and we neeeeeed these things
to get the chemistry right! Kodak had none either (unbefreakingleavable)
I got around this pretty easily by grabbing a batch of frozen film which
had always produced reliable colours, then I shot a few rolls of a Gretag
card under controlled lights (flash with voltage monitoring) at a specified
distance at a specified exposure with a specific camera. - all carefully
noted in case I needed to go through the process again at a later time. It
is critical you use exactly the same setup, any variations *here* will
affect stuff *there* - how you going to know which was which?
After this, I snipped off a few frames and ran these with the last control
strip through the chemistry. Popping them under the densitometer, I
calibrated the control strip, then adjusted the values against the stock I
shot.. I calculated what the correct values for my control strips were,
adjusted the chemistry based on the last Fuji control strip then checked
mine again. Pretty close to perfect.
Noting the various values for My Control Strips, the rest of the rolls shot
were snipped up and frozen to be used daily.. When the Fuji control strips
finally came in I checked the chemistry as we'd been using it against what
it was supposed to be and it was as though we'd been using the Fuji's all
along.
Back to the RA4 saga..
I was tossing all this around in my head along with what I knew was being
taught about colour management to students and I had a bit of an epiphany
Firstly, aside from the control strips, NO ONE sticks their prints under the
densitometer unless they're testing papers! No final print is ever checked
this way - they're viewed under a controlled 'daylight' light source by eye,
but never a densitometer! We only calibrate the 'printer' - not the film,
not the lighting conditions, nothing but the printer (RA4) and then as we
print we eyeball the results and tweak the filtration until we get the print
looking right. Once your light is right, for that entire roll of film (if
the subjects were shot under the same light) no further tweaking is
necessary.
Sure we may filter light when shooting, and we may select specific film
stocks, but these are always to get 'best looking' results, not '100%
accurate' results (impossible anyway). Who filtered to eliminate the sky
colour in the evening? No one. Unless you were shooting for colour
accuracy, in which case you'd have been better off shooting in a studio..
even then, your film stock would let you down. Remember how we picked Kodak
for reds, Fuji for greens etc? What did accuracy have to do with it?? The
closest film to accurate was Konica 100 and no one used that (that's an
objective analysis done by a compulsive film tester who blew loads of cash
testing every film available on the market talking ;)
Ultimately, we went for what LOOKED right.
Anyone who took a leaf and compared the leaf it's self to the print under a
densitometer deserved to be dragged off to Trembling Willows and placed in a
room with rubber wallpaper. We photographers unlike graphics folk, go for
what *looks* right. The managing director of advertising at Coke doesn't
care if the logo looks green under fluro lights, what he cares about is that
the logo looks exactly the same - exactly - as the pantone swatch value for
his logo colour under the same lightsource, so all coke logos, coke labels
and coke party hats .
We came to digital imaging as photographers long after the graphics guys did
and we adopted their tools - which was all there was - and we basically
copied their techniques without ever asking if it was the right way.. after
all there was a huge learning curve and the graphics guys seemed to have it
nailed. but the fundamental philosophic difference was overlooked..
This set me to work trying to find a more appropriate method of colour
management for photographers than that we were using. I was mixing with
graphics and printer guys not long after this at a Canon printer
repair/setup training course and I mentioned I was on this path - I was
soundly congratulated by all and sundry as (in their words) they were
heartily sick of photographers and how little they understood of colour.
(/hangs head in shame) The individuals who created all on Ilford
Australia's colour profiles were there, the biggest distributor of wide
format printers were there.. they all said the same thing.
The thing was, once I nailed it I didn't actually have anything saleable for
anyone, it's actually very easy.
First thing to understand is printers, as these are often the intended final
output device for photos. More on screen colour later..
dpi means nothing, ppi means everything.. and printer manufacturers confuse
the two to confuse you. DPI is how many splats of ink per inch the printer
may use to make up a colour. Tamper with this value by restricting the
number of colours the printer can select and you'll lose your colour range.
Canon doesn't let you near this value (nor should they) Epson does. Great
for Graphics folks to limit their colour range, a disaster for
photographers. leave this alone.
Media. Basically there's gloss (needs more ink squirted per drop), matte
(needs lots more ink squirted per drop) and plain (doesn't need much). All
changing the media should do is change the amount squirted out per drop.
Canon and almost everyone else abides by this simple rule, Epson does not.
Don't believe me? Change the media setting and run three prints through on
the same media, the colours will look pretty much the same out of a canon,
just more or less (paler or ink sloshing across the paper). Do it with an
Epson and watch the colours actually change. Epson like photographers.
Epson sells many, many profiles to photographers. Photographers love Epson.
Epson is a wealthy company. (Epson is Seiko)
Quality. Draft (skip some lines (low dpi), make tiny drops, go fast).
Standard (don't be too fussy, put a reasonable amount of ink
down, use maybe a few more colours and quirts)
Graphics ( let the rip go stupid on saturating the more
perceptually 'vivid' colours, use lots of ink, avoid subtle tones please
RIP)
Photographic (ok guys, fire up the 'good' rip, be careful with
colours, lay down reasonably heavy drops (check the 'media type') and use
all the dots you need to get the colours goodest)
Photographers should have their printers set to photographic quality, gloss
or matte and nothing else.
Set the PPI on the image before sending it to print and get it to bang on
300ppi for the intended image size. If using an Epson and you go looking at
dpi, set it to maximum, but restrict the print size to whatever it is you
intend, ie an 8x10 image should be sent through as 2400x3000 pixels, image
size 8x10, dpi= max. do not send 4000ppi images to print or your printer
will hate you..
Now the colour side of things.. this bit is actually short.
I made a swatch of colours, RGBYMC and a greyscale, including a headshot of
a person under 'natural daylight' on 'normal' camera settings and bunged
these together as a 'Shirley' and sent it to print, setting the media to
gloss generic, photo quality.
Look at the result under a decent light. Is it too red? go back into the
printer settings and change the 'gloss generic' setting and dial back the
red. Was it too pale (not enough ink)?, increase the saturation. Tweak
away and save it.
Note: Some may view this a laborious and costly exercise, but potholes in
the road cannot be filled in with by the Transport Minister simply sending
an email - someone still needs to pick up a shovel. Same same as thinking
you can calibrate without using any ink.. sorry.
Once you're happy with the result, save it. Repeat with the matte paper.
(Now I know that with Epsons if I do this, it works, irrespective of the
paper brand - the images will all look the same. However if I tell the
Epson I'm using Iford paper for one print and Fuji for the next, the colours
will be wildly different. Why do you do that Epson - it's crazy! If we go
popping in the brand and style for each paper type on an Epson, we'd have to
calibrate each one.. total madness.. but a good way for Epson to sell
profiles! Epson really got to annoying me..)
Next, grab one of your unaltered digicam images at random , using these
print settings above, send it to print. Sit back and be amazed at how good
the image looks.
I've had people who have every calibration device known to man, every
software calibration tool loaded and follow meticulously all the chants and
arm gestures. They've risked everything and tried this method only to
discover all their past image adjustment was simply fighting both ends of
the snake. Consider: you calibrate a profile for importing pics, you alter
the way it looks by having a monitor profile 'adjust' the image to look
good, you have another calibration profile adjusting the printer.. now,
should one go wrong - which is it? Could it be they're all adjusting each
other to give you what you had in the first place? (and that's not even
going anywhere near the 'hidden' profiling done by the OS, browsers and
graphics cards)
Next step is to shut down ALL image tampering your PC/Unix/Mac/Other does
and calibrate the screen - use software or the monitor hardware, no one
cares.. but make the screen match the print as closely as possible.
Looks pretty OK, hey? <glares balefully at the Eye-One>
Don't fret that your monitor is now 'off'. Odds are that 90% of the folks
viewing your images on the web do not have their monitor calibrated and even
if they do it'll still not look anything like yours. Different phosphors,
video cards, Shell enhancements, browsers - they all impact colour. If it
looks OK to your eyes, it's OK.
That's it.
If you plan on using Joe Bloggs Printing Services to have Pegasys prints
made, no bother - make an 8x10 filled with 4x5 rows of those shirleys on the
same page, but tweek each to create a colour ring (0 correction, +5 Red,
+5Red+5Blue, etc) Flatten it and save as a jpg 100%. When you first send
these guys a digital file, make it this one - check the print when it comes
back - if say the +10Green+5Blue looks best, before you send these guys your
images to print batch apply these colour adjustments to your files and send
them off - you've just applied a profile to their printer :)
There is no dark art to this, no hardware required, just a set of eyes and a
change of thinking. Try it and see..
Mind you, I don't know your PC or printer so I couldn't advise what may
complicate things or what may fight you - it's no different from talking to
'that' person via email who has to upload every attachment he wants to send
you to an online fileserver 'coz he somehow can't send attachments with his
email program. How the heck do I know what software has fouled things up?
All I know is all the students who tried this stopped pratting about with
the other methods and whizzed through their work with less stress and more
success, and wondered why they'd ever bothered with all that graphic design
nonsense in the first place. Their work was noticeably better and colours
looked much more natural.
A final word on OS's, browsers and video cards. A lot of modern OS's employ
tweaks to 'correct' colours and smooth jaggies - I don't like this. 3D
graphics cards do the same, often sacrificing colour accuracy for high frame
rates - I don't like this either. Then the new Safari browser as I've said
before, employs some clever algorithms to tidy up images and make them look
nice for the viewer - yeah, not happy with that too. When I am tampering
with images I want to see all the warts, I do not want the gamma being
corrected and the tones smoothed - I NEED to see the faults to correct them.
Apparently I am also blessed with Very Good Eyes so I *can* see problems and
I do not like it when they're being hidden, especially when I'm trying to
make the best images I can.
It's no different than were I doing audio editing while my audio card
decided I should have '3D effects' turned on whilst using a Cathedral
profile to make it sound awesome. The first time I hear my efforts
reproduced on another machine without these enhancements (impediments) I'd
hang my head in shame and wonder how I could have shared such a ghastly
audio track with the world.
Most folk don't realize their computers are doing this, wouldn't even know
how to check to see if it were the case.. but that's not how it should be.
Anyone working as a pro should know precisely what gear they're using and
how it's being used. it's kinda part of the job description.. but no shame
to those who are unaware - that's what asking is all about, trying to find
out what is what and working with new information.
Like I said at the get go, this effort is cheap and requires no purchase,
It only involved people giving it a go and seeing for themselves. Other
photographers have also found their way to this method all by themselves
which heartened me as I read of more and more people 'discovering' this
way - it showed they too were meeting success and had also followed a
similar logical path. Anyone can try it and if they don't like it they can
ignore it and buy someone elses hardware, books, training courses etc.
it's an alternative method - might be what you want, might be worth
exploring.. up to you ;)
hope it helps someone
k
