Why do people have so much trouble "calibrating"?

[andrew_rodney1]

-->Three arguments FOR calibration that make sense to me:

 

One more. Digital images are big files of numbers. Numbers don't tell us what a color

looks like, it's only a partial ingredient for making color. The same numbers in different

color spaces produce a different color appearance. Different numbers can produce the

same color appearance as well. R255/G0/B0 is a different color in sRGB then R255/G0B0

in Adobe RGB (1998). Both are red. How red id the red?

 

Andrew Rodney

http://digitaldog.net/

[jtk]

Andrew, I can visually quantify the difference between two reds in terms of color compensation units and quantify the density difference in percent, both of which translate nicely to PS. Most old fashioned color printers and many photographers can do that.

[andrew_rodney1]

-->Andrew, I can visually quantify the difference between two reds in terms of color

compensation units and quantify the density difference in percent, both of which translate

nicely to PS. Most old fashioned color printers and many photographers can do that.

 

I'm not clear on how you do this in a binary system which is the only language the

computer understands.

 

R255R in Adobe RGB (1998) isn't at all the same as R255 in sRGB. Both share the identical

sets of numeric values.

 

Again, I'm not clear on your point but I am clear about the fact that a set of numbers alone

cannot describe a color on a computer system.

 

Andrew Rodney

http://digitaldog.net/

[alexandru_petrescu]

<em>Could I ask a very basic question, how do we calibrate & what options?</em>

<p>

One "calibrates" by teaching the device what is e.g. Red. If one teaches all workflow's color-capable devices the same value for Red then one happily gets same Red on screen, on printer, on file, etc. What is Red fundamentally, one may ask. It's given by color.org, which is a set of people agreeing what Red is actually, I think it relates to the temperature of a hot body or something, like the most precise time is given by the time between two successive nuclear Cessium beeps, like the meter is given by a platinum bar in Geneva; approximately.

<p>

There is a set of software tools for that, seek for "color management system" and "targets" and "calibration devices". One can get deep into understanding calibrating with very minimal investment.