I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine printer when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press can actually produce (as encoded in its profile used in the proofing process). That allows the ink jet printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is like if the brown cows sorted themselves into groups by color, heading for whichever brown shaded group was closest to their hide. The herd viewed as a whole from a distance would appear banded in rows of progressively browner cows.
Gaps create contrast, contrast creates the optical illusion of sharpness and texture (how USM works) which is why shifting color spaces around can be used to create other than normal contrast and detail in images as Rusty is doing.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine printer when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press can actually produce (as encoded in its profile used in the proofing process). That allows the ink jet printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
Gaps create contrast, contrast creates the optical illusion of sharpness and texture (how USM works) which is why shifting color spaces around can be used to create other than normal contrast and detail in images as Rusty is doing.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press can actually produce (as encoded in its profile used in the proofing process). That allows the ink jet printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
Gaps create contrast, contrast creates the optical illusion of sharpness and texture (how USM works) which is why shifting color spaces around can be used to create other than normal contrast and detail in images as Rusty is doing.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger the pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press can actually produce (as encoded in its profile used in the proofing process). That allows the ink jet printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
Gaps create contrast, contrast creates the optical illusion of sharpness and texture (how USM works) which is why shifting color spaces around can be used to create other than normal contrast and detail in images as Rusty is doing.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger the pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press and produce. That allows the printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
Gaps create contrast, contrast creates the optical illusion of sharpness and texture (how USM works) which is why shifting color spaces around can be used to create other than normal contrast and detail in images as Rusty is doing.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger the pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered back into RGB perceptually to fit the monitor gamut per calibration profile.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press and produce. That allows the printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger the pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
So the printer gamut can\'t be reproduced accurately by the screen or sRBG editing space (which is based on CRT monitor gamut) but it does almost fit into AdobeRGB. AbobeRGB 1998 was created in the mid-90s when color reproduction was: transparency > drum scanner > halftone dots > Web Offset printing press. The gamut was designed to match the size and shape of SWOP CYMK.
SWOP = Standards for Web Offset Printing which defined the physical specs for ink hue, density, ink film thickness on the paper, and the color and reflectance of the paper.
I was dealing with color management starting back in the mid-70s as production manager at a web magazine when getting color separators and ad agencies to use SWOP standard inks and paper for press proofs was the only way to ensure the final production on the web press would match the proof. The worst offenders were ad agencies for cosmetic companies who would use non-standard reds in lipstick ads we could not match on production presses. If we tried and failed the agency, through the publisher, would demand a free reprint of the ad. It was a con game to get free advertising with the shops who did the separations and proofing on presses one generation removed from Gutenberg stacking the deck with exotic ink mixes.
We had a QA section which took the suppled film and made a SWOP standard Matchprint from it on paper matching the SWOP spec, then compared it with the supplied proofs. If they did not match we rejected the proof and sent ours to the ad agency for approval telling them that\'s what they could realistically expect the production press to produce and to either OK it or supply new film and proof. Bluff called they usually OK\'d our proof. Eventually everyone in the supply chain saw the wisdom of proofing to SWOP, mainly because non-press methods were faster and cheaper than press proofing.
Soft proofing works the same way on a monitor. The press/printer profile is placed into the display path which allows the screen to simulate, more or less, how the file will change due to less saturated / lower contrast reproduction with ink and paper:
RGB file values > converted to CYMK printer gamut > rendered perceptually to fit calibrated monitor gamut.
Soft proofing was the Holy Grail in the 90s when ICC profile based color was introduced with grand predictions that it would replace hard copy proofs. But it never will for commercial work because monitor gamut. calibration and viewing environment affect perception of a screen image.
Instead ICC based color management is used commercially in printing to force a wider gamut ink jet to simulate with Absolute Colorimetric rendering what the smaller CYMK gamut of the production press and produce. That allows the printer to create fast, accurate to production hard copy proofs of 8-page press imposed layouts for review and signature approval.
In concept its the same cows and pasture game, with the pasture being defined not by the working space, monitor or wide-gamut ink jet but by the smaller gamut of the web press SWOP ink and paper.
So sRGB workflow will work fine for an all screen display workflow and even printing on photo printers like Costco, AbobeRGB still works OK if the print output is in a magazine printed offset. It\'s only when printing for final output on wider format 8 - 12 color ink jets that a wider working gamut like ProPhoto is needed.
But notice in the 3D wireframes that most of the colors fit inside all the gamuts. It is only the most saturated colors which are the problem requiring the perceptual reshuffling of the color perception deck via the profile guided remapping / perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intent.
If a scene consists entirely of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can usually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger spaces, especially in 8-bit JPGs.
Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them. On a print the gaps are manifested by the banding seen in 8-bit color in flat tonal gradient like sky and reflections on cars. The banding is the like the cows sorting themselves into teams by color, heading for whichever group is closest to theirs leaving a gap in the middle of the pasture.
I\'m confused Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water.
Bob
Think cows and pasture. The bit level determines how many cows (discrete color values) there are. The color space defines the fences in the pasture space they graze in (sRGB being 20 acres and smaller than ProPhoto\'s 200).
In the bigger the pasture the same number of cows, distributed equally, wind up with more grass between them so they will stand out more individually (easer to rope and manipulate) and the herd will look bigger perceptually than when the same number of cows are crowded into a smaller pasture.
The Catch-22 in all that is you never actually see what is actually happening in a larger editing spaces to colors outside the gamut of your monitor, you see a perceptual rendering of the larger space to fit the screen. The colors at the outer edges of the bigger gamut are remapped to the limits of the screen and all the other less saturated colors rearranged proportionately so you get an impression PERCEPTUALLY of how the bigger space is being manipulated.
Why edit in the larger space if you can\'t see what is actually happening? If you never print there is no compelling reason to, but if you do print you want the editing gamut to be big enough to fit the 3D models of both your screen and printer gamuts...
Bigger color space size also matters if the colors of the scene fall outside the borders of the smaller space. If a scene consists of subtle gradients of pastel hues sRBG can actually reproduce the gradients smoother than the larger space. Again its matter of how the cows are distributed in the field, if you see wide gap between them the gradient over the herd doesn\'t look as smooth as when they are crowded together with no gaps between them.
Hope that clarifies rather than further confuses.
Aug 27, 2011 at 07:32 AM
Previous versions of cgardner's message #9872788 « Suggestions - play »
Vincent Versace emphatically writes changing from sRGB to, let\'s say Adobe ProPhotoRGB is like adding a quart of water to a gallon bucket - you still only have a quart of water. 
