Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2021/10/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I swear, Brian, you have some of the BEST sotries! ric > On Oct 5, 2021, at 9:23 AM, Brian Reid <reid at mejac.carlsbad.ca.us> > 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