[Leica] IMG: Remnant of the Past

[Jim Nichols]

Brian, you are a man of many talents! Thanks for your contribution to 
the trip down memory lane.

On 10/5/21 8:23 AM, Brian Reid wrote:
> Sears Roebuck was a major force in advancing color printing, and was 
> THE pioneer in digital color printing.
>
> By the 1960s, Sears realized that its customers expected the colors 
> printed in its catalog to be spot-on correct. As its VP of catalog 
> sales noted, "Your grandmother will hold the catalog up next to her 
> curtains to see if the colors match. If they match, she will order new 
> sofa cushions. If when the sofa cushions arrive they do not match the 
> curtains, she will return them angrily and stop buying from Sears for 
> a while. The colors in the catalog must be exact."
>
> By the time I got involved, Sears catalogs were all printed by R. R. 
> Donnelley & Sons at its printing plant on Calumet street in Chicago. 
> RR Donnelley won and kept the contract because they were able to do a 
> better job of printing accurate colors than the competition. My 
> involvement was advising them on digital color separation technology 
> so they could use 7-color presses; the classic optical separation 
> process didn't work well past 4 colors and the filters were 
> mind-numbingly expensive.
>
> When my mother buys sofa cushions by mail order, she evaluates their 
> color using the screen on her iMac. Even if she could lift it to hold 
> it next to her curtains, proper comparison of glowing-screen colors 
> with fabric colors is impossible. The catalogs were better. I 
> sometimes wish I had kept one.
>
>
> On 2021-10-04 13:29, Jim Nichols wrote:
>> As I glanced around me on a cloudy morning, I saw this reminder of the
>> days before Amazon and other on-line sources.  Sears Roebuck, and its
>> rival, Montgomery Ward, were the mainstay of rural America.
>>
>> http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/OldNick/20211004-DSCF3289-Enhanced.JPG.html 
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information

-- 
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA