>Subject: [OM] Re: E-1 discussion
>Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 11:35:54 -0500
>From: "Wilcox, Joel F" <joel-wilcox@xxxxxxxxx>
>Hi Stephen,
>Thanks for your response. I am enjoying this dialogue and learning a lot
>from it. You are bold to champion your C*n*n here as I suspect most are
>like me and hope for a great success from Olympus. But your
>contribution keeps things honest. More below:
Hey Joel,
Thanks....I've had some other folks write me and said they found the
discussion informative.
I am trying very hard to be as objective, wearing my professional
scientist hat, as I can. No camera is perfect, they all have their
strong points and weak points. I will agree with Skip, CH, and others
that the E-1's tendency towards neutrality and nice histograms
generally means less overall postprocessing than others, but the
numbers tell me also that it is not a perfectly accurate device.
Regardless of that, we will have an E-1 with us tomorrow, and I am
really looking forward to using it this weekend to photograph some
classic car racing with the beautiful 50-200 lens that Skip (and I)
like so much.
> > -----Original Message-----
>> From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx
>> >PMFJI but this sounds like the characteristics of the digital capture
>> >are made irrelevant by post-processing. The differences
>> between Velvia
>> >and Provia can also be made irrelevant, mostly, by
>> post-processing too.
>> >
>> >I would think it might be OK to prefer the capture of one camera over
>> >another. In color photography, what is more of the essence
>> than "bias
>> >for coloration"?
>>
>> Neutral grays.
>
>Right, neutral. Under what color light? ;-)
Neutral being R/G/B values of 128/128/128. but if pressed on what
color light, then 5000K in a controlled lighting booth.
Regarding the comments about color temperature for monitors, as has
been discussed by myself, CH and Winsor, one can use whatever
temperature you like, but the going consensus for photographers like
us who are outputting to RGB devices e.g. monitors or printers is
that 6500K is what most people are happy with. Usually the only folks
that use 5000K are color prepress pros who need to proof for CMYK
printing acc. to usual U.S. printing stds, where the base color of
most papers has a yellowish look to the paper white. Regardless of
what your monitor is set at, most pros use a 5000K viewing booth with
a dimmer to proof their prints.
Here is a posting by Ethan Hansen, one of the country's leading color
management pros on the subject of color temperature for monitors.
"-> What is the best environment for color correction?
You may well find a better color match between your prints at 5000K
and images viewed on a monitor calibrated to 6500K rather than 5000K.
GIve it a try. For viewing prints, a good booth is a must. Most come
with 5000K fluorescent tubes using strange phosphor mixes to produce
a fairly even spectrum. Something along the lines of a SpectraLight
that offers D50 tungsten is even better albeit more costly. No matter
which solution you choose, you want a booth that is dimmable to match
the brightness of your monitors."
><SNIP>
> >
>> -Stephen.
>
>I am not a disciple of Dan Margoulis and the "color by numbers"
>approach, but occasionally I run into a tough image to correct where it
>helps to open the Info and Curves dialogues in PS and use the white,
>gray, and/or black droppers to pull the color palette into some
>semblance of order. Finding a gray that really wants to be neutral is
>often very tough however. For me this kind of correction is always
>empiric. If it works, great! because it worked. But if it doesn't
>work, you run from it. I am surprised that you are able to make of
>workflow of this. Do you have tools to work with that I may not be
>familiar with?
>
>Joel W.
The white and black droppers are for tuning endpoints, not for color
correction or major tonal moves as the make a linear transformation,
not the non-linear one you may want by taking advantage of by using
curves. For example, the white dropper is often used to tune
endpoints for the minimum highlight dot for press so that highlights
lighter than the minimum highlight dot the press can hold blows
softly out to white paper. The black is used conversely for the same,
to retain shadow detail around the max shadow dot, before the blacks
plug up with solid ink. The gray dropper is used for color
correction, but I prefer to map neutrals by the numbers by balancing
the R/G/B values at the midtone point, 128, by using the sampler
tool and inputing the source value sampled and outputting the target
value, which in this case is 128. You're right, though, Joel, that
finding a grey that wants to be neutral can be tough, but in most of
my situations, it's pretty easy for motorsports because pavement is
often very close to a neutral gray! :-D
The above discussion probably sounds like a lot of doublespeak to
some....it did to me for a long time.
For those of you following this discussion that want to know more, I
can't recommend strongly enough getting a copy of Michael Kieran's
Photoshop Color Correction and Bruce Fraser's and Don Blatner's Real
World Photoshop CS. I imagine Winsor's book by Scott Kelby would be
good, too, but as I don't have it yet, I can't comment.
Regards,
Stephen.
--
2001 CBR600F4i - Fantastic!
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|