[Leica] Breakfast - I figured it out!!

[richard-lists at imagecraft.com (Richard)]

Ted, it's simple once you know how it works :-) See, it is BECAUSE you did 
everything the auto-way that everything more or less works for you. The 
main thing to know is that there is no such thing as "color" in a digital 
file. It's just a bunch of numbers. To map these numbers to colors, you 
need the translation keys. These are called profiles. The sRGB profile is 
the preferred one for auto work because it works with most devices, be it 
monitor, printer, camera, etc. The downside of sRGB is that the range of 
colors it can represent is relatively small. For example, imagine a color 
film where it cannot hold all shades of red. The upside is that if you just 
stay with the sRGB profile and not muck around with it, then things more or 
less work pretty well.

This is exactly what happens in your case. You camera when recording in JPG 
mode, is set to use the sRGB profile by default. The same file displays on 
the monitor reasonably well, even after you put it on the web, and also 
print out reasonably.

If you want to keep as much color information as possible, you would use 
one of the wider gamut profiles. When displaying it on the web though, it 
is best to convert the file to use sRGB profile since the web browsers 
expect files to be using the sRGB profile. In Tina's case, she used a wider 
gamut profile. However, at the last stage, instead converting one profile 
to another, she accidentally just make her file take on a new profile. This 
makes the translation no longer correct. For example, lets say the number 
15 is some shade of red in Profile A. If you want to use Profile B instead, 
you would look up the number for that shade of red in Profile B, and use 
that number instead of 15. If you don't do the conversion and just use 
Profile B, then you would continue to use the number 15, which is probably 
some other color altogether in Profile B.

Since you are the Keep It Simple type of guys, and I doubt anyone ever 
complains that your pictures are lacking in the color department, just 
continue to do whatever you are doing and ignore everything I wrote above :-)

At 02:34 PM 3/8/2006, Ted Grant wrote:

>Now dear lady a simple question.
>
>Let's say you had shot this material JPEG and just down loaded straight to 
>computer, clicked on auto everything, levels etc., (well I still don't 
>have a clue about RAW, so be it) and I realize there are advantages if one 
>does. But that still entails a bunch of extra work on the original work as 
>I understand.
>
>But a straight down load without the extra fiddling..... "Would you have 
>run into this kind of.... the colour is off comments from others?".....
>
>Would a simple straight down load have given you the results as you 
>say...... "They look much better now - at least on my monitor.  They 
>almost match the original files."
>
>You see I'm still having a very hard time getting around all this extra 
>"computer screen in my face time" that takes away from shooting time when 
>it happens.
>
>Simply because when I read what you've said and others have commented on 
>the colour, I just don't understand why bother with the extra time at the 
>screen. Like this goes way beyond working in the darkroom!
>
>When I shoot a basketball game in a high school gym in JPEG, down load and 
>do the levels, contrast and colour on auto and they come out smashingly 
>great for a 20D, available almost no light at 3200! I really have to 
>wonder what the hell am I doing wrong because I'm not shooting RAW for one 
>and the other corrections etc. that it seems everyone else is going through?
>
>But then everyone who's seen the pictures are blown away with the quality, 
>sharpness, colour, never mind the brilliant action moment. ;-) (a little 
>plug.) Once again, is all this extra work in the face of the screen 
>absolutely necessary beyond fixing a some what screw-up during shooting 
>when an exposure or light goes crazy?
>
>Man I know some folks must begin to think I'm an idiot for this time after 
>time, but I'm looking at the results I get against how much better would 
>this photograph be if I did all the other fixin' some folks go through?
>
>ted
>
>
>
>
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>

// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
use richard at imagecraft.com)