[argyllcms] Re: help with camera profile
- From: Iliah Borg <ib@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: argyllcms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2012 09:43:45 -0400
> Visual evaluations are not satisfactory because there are dozens of variables
> that affect whether or not the photo looks "good". You can review many
> photos, some will be good and some will look wrong.
Good quality profile does not make a photo to look good (most customers do not
want to put a boring reproduction of Valley of Fire onto their walls, we need
to make it more vivid, contrasty, and saturated to deliver the impression the
market wants), it makes it a reproduction. If that is the goal, I can
understand the struggle for perfect profile. Anything but reproduction goes
through colour and tone editing anyway, and quite often it is beneficial to
have correctional profiles (Kodak used to call those "looks") - like product,
portrait, landscape; or film simulations. Such profiles make for a good
starting point for further artistic work on the image.
Speaking of camera profiles, another problem is gamut mapping. It is not
uncommon to have sensors with chromaticities that exceed Lab and simultaneously
have about 11 stops of dynamic range. Mapping say a Time Square night shot or
even a Diner in the evening underexposed to preserve neon but still keeping
nice details in shadows to some sane RGB or CMYK colour space needs a lot of
manual intervention. Same about many sunrise/sunset photos, or generally
combinations of direct and reflected light.
Ironically, those are pretty straightforward when shot on film.
--
Iliah Borg
ib@xxxxxxxxxxx
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