So why don't we just dial in sRGB

[3dogs]

I am thinking that I for one was/ am reasonably so described......more light in a darkroom is what photography is about and yes - curiouser and curiouser Alice.

 

[Ian Barber]

If your output is always going to be for the web, then sRGB is the way to go but if you want to deviate and possibly go to a printer then stay in ProPhoto for as long as you can.

 

[3dogs]

Only time I use the web is to post here. However, this thread was initiated to plumb the minds of folks that print and use high end screens.

Despite protests I hold the view that chasing higher and higher values of RGB is like trying to get a diesel engine to run on petrol...the engine being the printer. Consensus has it that most aim high and adopt a vast array of strategies to wrest the last drop of colour depth by any means...
And that was in fact a good enough answer........for me anyway.

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Only time I use the web is to post here. However, this thread was initiated to plumb the minds of folks that print and use high end screens.

Despite protests I hold the view that chasing higher and higher values of RGB is like trying to get a diesel engine to run on petrol...the engine being the printer. Consensus has it that most aim high and adopt a vast array of strategies to wrest the last drop of colour depth by any means...
And that was in fact a good enough answer........for me anyway.

Sadly printing of images is becoming a dieing art. Nowadays a 500 pixel blob on a social media site is considered digital imaging. Of course I am generalizing, and there are exceptions. At a recent show of hands survey of about 50 members at our club, only about a quarter admitted to making prints. This is also reflected in falling entries in our print competitions.
Sort of, the dying art is now the dieing art.

Probably needs another thread, but any ideas on how to promote printing at the club and enthusiast level?

RS

 

[Ian Barber]

I have to agree with you about fewer people printing images and it is a huge shame. To me the journey of making a photograph ends when the image emerges from the printer and you rubber stamp your signature on it.

I hav never really been involved with local clubs but I do hear that even members of my local clubs are printing less today. As for promoting it, I guess having a prize is some form of incentive.

Also, find a local fine art photographer who does printing and invite them to give a talk and hand some prints round to show just how superior a print can look over an un-calibrated monitor.

 

[3dogs]

Sadly printing of images is becoming a dieing art. Nowadays a 500 pixel blob on a social media site is considered digital imaging. Of course I am generalizing, and there are exceptions. At a recent show of hands survey of about 50 members at our club, only about a quarter admitted to making prints. This is also reflected in falling entries in our print competitions.
Sort of, the dying art is now the dieing art.

Probably needs another thread, but any ideas on how to promote printing at the club and enthusiast level?

RS

I don't think there is much to be done to turn this downward trend around now. I believe it is too late.
To my way of seeing this unfolding it has its roots in soil put in place before I got into printing. That is ink cost behaviour. On one hand the big three made printing machines more accessible and greed driven ( the .com era) priced ink as liquid gold....at the time the bubble had no end and we the consumers willingly walked that track. Come GFC and like the drought here, and now parts of the USA crops began to fail. The smart operators got into dry land cropping, and associated research others just kept following the old model. Farm after farm was bankrupted and the upstream supply chain began to fail as the downstream supply chain dried up.
Refill was only ever a stopgap, that may have had a significantly longer life had the ink cost followed downwards. Profound changes are spawned in little ponds and those little ponds dont have either ink or paper at their core...The big three have responded by developing machines that force useres to buy their product and have lowered the build standard to a throw away level already, I fear finding the bottom of this graph has a way to go yet.
Fact is harder they try to handcuff consumers to their product the more oxygen the little tadpoles in the tiny ponds get and their alternate products get more and more traction.
In many of the Towns I grew up in there was no Pro Photographer and just a handful of enthusiasts....we are on the way back there.

Also just walk around furniture stores in big shopping complexes and look at the wall decorations CRASS junk, not inexpensive fine Art that abounds and is/ could be readily available
Damn I think I will just throw myself in my empty bath tub and submit to a virtual drowning so I can be reborn with the same low expectations that our young have been conned into accepting........by our and subsequent gererations.

 

[Emulator]

I think all your remarks could just as well be applied to television, the same degradation in standards is happening in our TV. It must be that world standards are changing or is it that we are getting to be grumpy old men?

The younger generations are going to be influenced by these standards and the downward spiral will continue.

 

[nrdlnd]

I think all your remarks could just as well be applied to television, the same degradation in standards is happening in our TV. It must be that world standards are changing or is it that we are getting to be grumpy old men?
The younger generations are going to be influenced by these standards and the downward spiral will continue.

I've just seen a good British crimi on the TV and I think the standard of these are becoming better! And about the future of printing I'm quite sure it will stay but become more exclusive. A printed photo is a work of art. Of course you can see it on a display or on a screen but it's still not the same as on real paper. That's why I like this site where I can get help to develop this art further. The problem is that if the mass market disappears it will be more exclusive and more expensive to print and the technical development may also halt. I'm also a grumpy old man but maybe a little more positive?

I thought this thread was about what gamut to use. I'm using Adobe RGB in the camera (maybe that's only for JPEG but I'm using raw) and I've also calibrated my excellent display in this gamut. I have a possibility to calibrate it in a "native" gamut that's supposed to be bigger. I've never tried ProPhoto. I can see that it could be good to work in as wide a gamut as possible not to loose any information but in the end when I print I have to compress it as the paper and printer can't take such a wide gamut. I suppose that what I see on the display will not be the same as I see on the finished print? What happens with the colors when you compress them in a smaller gamut?

Edit: When I profile my papers using ArgyllCMS I've got better results using the relative colorimetric intent when printing. If I was to use a wider color space such as ProPhoto I have to use the perceptual colorimetric rendering intent not to loose colors in the print. 'Perceptual' doesn't work so well with Argyll CMS. And what about the Lab color space compared to the ProPhoto? Sorry I'm a little confused!

Per

 

[3dogs]

I've just seen a good British crimi on the TV and I think the standard of these are becoming better! And about the future of printing I'm quite sure it will stay but become more exclusive. A printed photo is a work of art. Of course you can see it on a display or on a screen but it's still not the same as on real paper. That's why I like this site where I can get help to develop this art further. The problem is that if the mass market disappears it will be more exclusive and more expensive to print and the technical development may also halt. I'm also a grumpy old man but maybe a little more positive?

I thought this thread was about what gamut to use. I'm using Adobe RGB in the camera (maybe that's only for JPEG but I'm using raw) and I've also calibrated my excellent display in this gamut. I have a possibility to calibrate it in a "native" gamut that's supposed to be bigger. I've never tried ProPhoto. I can see that it could be good to work in as wide a gamut as possible not to loose any information but in the end when I print i have to compress it as the paper can't take such a wide gamut. I suppose that what I see on the display will not be the same as I see on the finished print? What happens with the colors when you compress them in a smaller gamut?

Per

Your question brings the thread full circle.
At one end we spend squillions on hi-res cameras and screens that drip technology they are so full of it....but in terms of theoretical colour the printer is still an impediment as are our eyes. The question is posed as something of a rhetorical to tease out both practical and perceptual stratergies we individually use to work with the availble tools and their limitations.

On grumpy old men I am quite satisfied that I fully undetstand where it derives from. It is driven by young technoramuses seeing what little they have learned for the first time and believing that it is all there is to know, that because it is new it is necessarily better.......there is more to it, but for now I will just leave it at that.

 

[Emulator]

If your output is always going to be for the web, then sRGB is the way to go but if you want to deviate and possibly go to a printer then stay in ProPhoto for as long as you can.

While I can see your logic, I wonder if a camera set to AdobeRGB and RAW, typical for a Canon, can be converted to ProPhoto and if it could, what the benefit might be?