[11.19.2002]
Interview with Don Hutcheson: Part 4
Jeff: Why not utilize a LAB Color workflow? What are the disadvantages to that? I like my luminance values to be separated from chromatic information, at least sometimes...
Don: Lab is very non-intuitive, except for the L* channel. And switching to and from Lab is destructive. The good news is that most of the things you thought you could only do in L* can actually be done in RGB. Simply by changing an adjustment layer mode from "Normal" to "Luminosity" you are effectively applying that layer in L* instead of RGB, but without the destructive switch.
Jeff: Speaking of color spaces, you've provided on your web site several additional RGB workspaces for use in Photoshop 5 or higher. Can you tell us a little about them, and what motivated you to create or distribute them?
Don: I came up with DonRGB to overcome the clipping I experienced when I converted into any of the widely known spaces like sRGB, ColorMatchRGB and Adobe RGB. DonRGB was simply designed to encompass all the patches in a good IT8 Ektachrome without reaching 0 or 255 in any patch.
BestRGB came later when I started to analyze the HCT, which has a much wider color gamut. BestRGB basically takes the red coordinate all the way to the edge of the visible color space.
Jeff: Your RGB Color Space Visualizer (Excel file) does a great job helping people view and compare the gamuts of various workspaces. Where did you learn the color science behind it?
Don: Color science is not rocket science and I'm certainly NOT a color scientist. It's just that the Yxy diagram is an easy two-dimensional way to visualize the human eye's color gamut. In reality it's a little misleading, however, as we're looking down on a three-dimensional space and the plane we see in that diagram is actually tilted.
Jeff: What's the state of HiFi printing today? In 1999 in GATFWorld you wrote that "perhaps the biggest factor limiting [HiFi's] wider adoption is confusion and the lack of a good source of HiFi information." Has this changed in the past 3 years?
Don: Not really. But interest is still remarkably strong. Both GretagMacbeth and Monaco now make very good ICC profiles for several HiFi color systems but the big restraining factor is still Photoshop! Even in version 7 you cannot apply or assign a profile with more than 4 channels!
In spite of repeated requests Adobe doesn't seem to recognize the value of their HiFi customers. Odd when you think that Hallmark has one of the biggest installed bases of Photoshop and prints HiFi on virtually everything! Amongst my client base alone there must be hundreds of potential HiFi users, if only they could edit HiFi images with a real-time preview in Photoshop.
Since 1995 ColorSync has supported eight-channel profiles, and as early as 1996 you could create, edit and soft-proof HiFi images with up to eight channels in ColorBlind Edit. But if Adobe's Color Engine (ACE) is limited to four-channel profiles, that would explain Photoshop's HiFi handicap. We can only hope they'll get with the program in the next release.
Jeff: Sounds reasonable to me. I tire of the limited gamut of CMYK and would welcome the use of a wider range for some jobs. And of course it would be totally necessary for our staff to be able to edit the images in Photoshop.
Speaking of what we want to see in the future, what do you want to see happen 5 years from now, 10 years from now, in the graphics industry?
Don: 5 years from now I want to retire, so color management better be easier by then!
Seriously, I'm no fortune-teller but I do know that press control has to become more automated and profiling has to become easier and cheaper.
More and more devices will become ICC-smart - even self-profiling.
LCD monitors or some other new technology will totally replace CRTs and have a wider color gamut and better viewing angles.
And proofing will be entirely ICC-based.
10 years from now (or more) I think ink jet printing, or something like it, will simultaneously obsolete the offset plate and improve the printable gamut.
And color management as we know it today will become so automated and embedded that the phrase itself will hardly be spoken.
Jeff: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts today, Don. It's been an honor speaking with you!
Don: Thank you, Jeff. It was a pleasure.
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