[11.19.2002]
Interview with Don Hutcheson: Part 2
Jeff: To whom do you recommend the HCT target?
Don: I originally designed the HCT for my own pre-press clients who needed the absolute best their scanners could achieve. I sold it privately at first but word got out and last year I offered it on the open market. Since then it's gained quite a following amongst high-quality photographers and fine artists, as well as commercial separators and printers. The reflective version has also become popular amongst digital photographers. The bottom line is it's is the only choice for anyone who cares about scanning accuracy.
Jeff: What sizes does it come in, and how much does it cost? What profiling software supports it?
Don: I don't want to turn this into a sales pitch but here are the basics. It's available in 4x5 inch, 6x7cm and 35mm transparencies on Ektachrome and Fujichrome film. There's also a reflective 5x7 made on Fuji Crystal Archive paper.
It's not cheap, because every HCT target is measured individually and I reject any that don't come up to specs.
It's supported by GretagMacbeth's ProfileMaker 4.1, Monaco Profiler 4.5, BasICColor Capture Pro and other software. You can learn more about the HCT's sizes, prices and compatible software at http://www.hutchcolor.com/hct.htm.
Jeff: I'd like to ask you about soft proofing, something you've written about extensively, most recently on Apple's ColorSync site. First, why do you think there are still so many people not trusting their monitors? You've been successfully soft proofing for almost 20 years!
Don: The main problem is that few people teach or demonstrate it the right way. In theory you should be able to plunk a measuring device on the screen, fire up the software and walk away. But like many things in color management, it's not that simple. The big weaknesses in most monitor setups is that the ambient lighting is either too bright or the wrong color. So when you hold a proof up next to the screen it doesn't even begin to match. And therefore many retouchers and scanner operators who've seen these unimpressive demos go away convinced soft proofing cannot work.
Jeff: One thing that shocked me was your suggestion not to simply adjust a monitor's white point to D50 or D65. The debate familiar to me went something like this: I choose D50 because I'm familiar with it and it's the white point of my booth. ...or... I choose D65 because the limitations of CIE colorimetry make it match a D50 illuminant better. Both points seem well-made, but you point out that we have more flexibility than this. I recall that when I first adjusted my monitor's white point to match the luminance of my viewing booth I felt like I was doing something illegal...
Don: For some reason that I still don't understand, even the most expensive spectrophotometer and the best profiling software seem incapable of producing a good visual match when you ask for either D50 or D65. While I'm waiting for the color scientists to explain the reason, I still have a job to do - namely help people get the most out of color management. So I do whatever it takes to make the monitor match the proof. I mean really match.
The critical difference between my way and the accepted approach is that I
INSIST on having a GTI Soft-View dimmed to match the monitor. And I set the
monitor's white balance by EYE to match the Soft-View, rather than relying
on the measuring instrument.
If you say I'm breaking the rules, so be it. But the fact is my clients get a better-quality, more useful soft proof than anyone else. They CAN hold a proof up next to the screen and say "Wow. That's really close!". And that makes them more productive.
If the rules don't make sense, I say break them.
Jeff: Colorhythm does hundreds of fabric scans for Levi Strauss & Co. where color matching is utterly critical, and we rely heavily on our soft proof. ColorVision's PhotoCal did not cut it for what we needed. We really required OptiCal and its ability to apply curves to the monitor profile to get the soft proof just right. Does this mean the press profile needed editing, or can users expect to do this level of manual tweaking for accuracy-intensive work?
Don: It depends on why you moved the curves. If you create a blank white CMYK document in Photoshop, assign your proofer profile to it, select View - Proof setup - "Simulate Paper White" and and compare it to a blank piece of proofing stock and the color doesn't match, there are four possible causes.
Of these, the last two go together and are the most likely problem, which my system of calibration solves.
If you tweak the monitor's RGB hardware controls or the calibration curves in something like OptiCal till the paper matches, then you have probably corrected the problem also for other stocks, so long as you use Photoshop's "Simulate Paper White" option.
This kind of visual adjustment is to be expected if you want a truly high-quality soft proof, but you shouldn't have to adjust it for every different stock.
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