4 ms·

For correct editing operations, and correct display. Sadly, it's not pedantry, it's reality. The 0.5 value is not half the brightness of 1.0 in sRGB. It merely

For correct editing operations, and correct display. Sadly, it's not pedantry, it's reality. The 0.5 value is not half the brightness of 1.0 in sRGB. It merely means half the power output to your CRT. If you want correct editing operations, you need to work in linear RGB. It gets more fun. What is white? The color of your backlight? The color of white paper under your particular desk light? And what is black? Is it pure darkness, or the black ink of your printer? Does your printer represent pure black, or dark gray? We're stuck with images stored in the display profile of old CRTs by default, because that was the most practical option at the time.

sam0x17 5y ago
> We're stuck with images stored in the display profile of old CRTs by default, because that was the most practical option at the time. The analogue in photography is photographs lose color clarity and fade as they age. Why should I care if this is the case in images as display technology evolves when this is already a problem with every physical medium? > For correct editing operations, and correct display. Sadly, it's not pedantry, it's reality. I've been designing images and graphics for the web and sometimes for print off and on as a regular part of my various job functions since ~2009 and I have yet to see a situation where a color profile on an image isn't a huge pain and something that needs to be stripped away to get seemingly correct results. Back to my point, I still don't see the value of having a color profile applied to an image. Images exist in the ether as platonic ideals, and we try to approximate them with our various display technologies. Why complicate the matter by also having multiple "flavors" of the platonic ideal itself? When I say (255, 0, 0), I expect the display to show me its best approximation of red. When I say (255, 255, 255), I expect the display to show me something as close to white as possible (and at the brightest possible setting). When I say (0, 0, 0), I expect the display to show me something that looks as close to black as possible. It's up to the display technology to decide whether this means just turn off that pixel on the screen or disengage the backlight or do whatever, but at the end of the day it's just trying to approximate black. This is complicated enough, why do I need an image that will look good on only one kind of display and will have it's greens look pink on other displays. Isn't having a color profile for the display enough?
- kaetemi 5y ago
  I get what you mean, but... the color profile of the image is the profile of the display where the image can be displayed without adjustment. Think of it as the display profile of the guy that sent you the image. The magic math transforms the image to your display profile. That means it will look exactly the same on both displays. If they both have a correct display profile. If your green is going pink, then either your profiles are wrong, or your software is broken. Maybe it really is pink, and it just looks green for you, because you're ignoring color profiles. But the fact is, most software is broken, and you should store images with the sRGB profile. And also, you can actually calibrate consumer hardware, so that you can scan a photo, and reprint it. And the scan, display, and print will look exactly the same. (It's not the case by default, because consumer printers do what you do, stretch or fit the color space to the printer's. The Vivid and Natural profiles in the driver, respectively. This is a good default for documents, not for professional photography.)
  - romwell 5y ago
    >That means it will look exactly the same on both displays. If they both have a correct display profile We can continue believing that Santa exists, or we can accept that effectively nobody has correct color profiles, and doesn't care either. It's nice metadata you have there, would be a shame if I applied night mode to it at 6PM. > also, you can actually calibrate consumer hardware ...with professional hardware that costs more than the one you have at hand. Again, pretty much everyone will just tweak their monitor/printer settings until they get results that look OK. >display and print will look exactly the same Until you turn off the lights. Or until you turn on the lights (what color temperature is you light?). Or until the wind blows, moving that cloud over the sun, changing light temperature. Or — wait for it — actually, that's all, while you've been waiting the sun has set. The point being, all we can shoot for is FF0000 being what would be "red" for most, 00FF00 being "green", and 0000FF being "blue" — and then accept the "fade" of the digital image from one screen to another as a fact of life. So, learn how to stop worrying and love unspecified RGB colorpsaces. Magenta only exists in your brain anyway [1] Side note: did you ever think about how your recorded music isn't adjusted for the frequency response of the loudspeakers, and half the people will listen to it with the "BASS MEGABOOST" feature on anyway? That's why the art of mastering exists. It's accepting the reality, and putting work into making it work with uncalibrated, crappy hardware — as well as hi-fi gear. PS: have fun calibrating your vision to make sure that you don't see green where I see red [1]https://medium.com/swlh/magenta-the-color-that-doesnt-exist-and-why-ec40a6348256 https://medium.com/swlh/magenta-the-color-that-doesnt-exist-...

sam0x17 5y ago

> We're stuck with images stored in the display profile of old CRTs by default, because that was the most practical option at the time. The analogue in photography is photographs lose color clarity and fade as they age. Why should I care if this is the case in images as display technology evolves when this is already a problem with every physical medium? > For correct editing operations, and correct display. Sadly, it's not pedantry, it's reality. I've been designing images and graphics for the web and sometimes for print off and on as a regular part of my various job functions since ~2009 and I have yet to see a situation where a color profile on an image isn't a huge pain and something that needs to be stripped away to get seemingly correct results. Back to my point, I still don't see the value of having a color profile applied to an image. Images exist in the ether as platonic ideals, and we try to approximate them with our various display technologies. Why complicate the matter by also having multiple "flavors" of the platonic ideal itself? When I say (255, 0, 0), I expect the display to show me its best approximation of red. When I say (255, 255, 255), I expect the display to show me something as close to white as possible (and at the brightest possible setting). When I say (0, 0, 0), I expect the display to show me something that looks as close to black as possible. It's up to the display technology to decide whether this means just turn off that pixel on the screen or disengage the backlight or do whatever, but at the end of the day it's just trying to approximate black. This is complicated enough, why do I need an image that will look good on only one kind of display and will have it's greens look pink on other displays. Isn't having a color profile for the display enough?

kaetemi 5y ago
I get what you mean, but... the color profile of the image is the profile of the display where the image can be displayed without adjustment. Think of it as the display profile of the guy that sent you the image. The magic math transforms the image to your display profile. That means it will look exactly the same on both displays. If they both have a correct display profile. If your green is going pink, then either your profiles are wrong, or your software is broken. Maybe it really is pink, and it just looks green for you, because you're ignoring color profiles. But the fact is, most software is broken, and you should store images with the sRGB profile. And also, you can actually calibrate consumer hardware, so that you can scan a photo, and reprint it. And the scan, display, and print will look exactly the same. (It's not the case by default, because consumer printers do what you do, stretch or fit the color space to the printer's. The Vivid and Natural profiles in the driver, respectively. This is a good default for documents, not for professional photography.)
- romwell 5y ago
  >That means it will look exactly the same on both displays. If they both have a correct display profile We can continue believing that Santa exists, or we can accept that effectively nobody has correct color profiles, and doesn't care either. It's nice metadata you have there, would be a shame if I applied night mode to it at 6PM. > also, you can actually calibrate consumer hardware ...with professional hardware that costs more than the one you have at hand. Again, pretty much everyone will just tweak their monitor/printer settings until they get results that look OK. >display and print will look exactly the same Until you turn off the lights. Or until you turn on the lights (what color temperature is you light?). Or until the wind blows, moving that cloud over the sun, changing light temperature. Or — wait for it — actually, that's all, while you've been waiting the sun has set. The point being, all we can shoot for is FF0000 being what would be "red" for most, 00FF00 being "green", and 0000FF being "blue" — and then accept the "fade" of the digital image from one screen to another as a fact of life. So, learn how to stop worrying and love unspecified RGB colorpsaces. Magenta only exists in your brain anyway [1] Side note: did you ever think about how your recorded music isn't adjusted for the frequency response of the loudspeakers, and half the people will listen to it with the "BASS MEGABOOST" feature on anyway? That's why the art of mastering exists. It's accepting the reality, and putting work into making it work with uncalibrated, crappy hardware — as well as hi-fi gear. PS: have fun calibrating your vision to make sure that you don't see green where I see red [1]https://medium.com/swlh/magenta-the-color-that-doesnt-exist-and-why-ec40a6348256 https://medium.com/swlh/magenta-the-color-that-doesnt-exist-...