[cw-discuss] Photoshop CS3

[Alban Taraire]

On Thursday 13 December 2007 07:12:05 Andrew Douglas Pitonyak wrote:

> These sorts of things can be difficult to get right, the majority of
> users don't care, most of the developers probably do not use it, your
> display driver probably does not CMYK.

While it's true most users won't care, it's really reducing to see CMYK / LAB 
and colorspaces in general as just a tool for a specific task, printing for 
CMYK for example.
Colorspaces enable the user to do a wide range of things, from correcting 
color casts to sharpen only one or more specific channels of the color space, 
adding details without increasing noise. These are 2 simple examples of what 
one can do with colorspaces.
Channels mixing is also great, like switching one or your RGB channel with one 
from LAB for example, or merging channels from different colorspaces, here 
also to improve contrast, colors or details in a subtle or dramatic way.
Colorspaces are definitely not only for publishers and printers, but a great, 
if often overlooked, tool for photographers.

> Anyone for whom it should make a difference should understand. I know
> many people that edit photographs and I only know one person that that
> bothers to run an ICC profiles for his monitor (and he does not edit
> photographs, he is simply a geek).

Well, maybe you should try once ;-) profiling your monitor can make it much 
more comfortable to watch :) And good tools exist on Linux, such as 
ArgyllCMS, for profiling and calibrating your device.

> That said, I do understand why it bothers you, because you likely do
> know the difference and are tired of people telling you that it does not
> matter. I likely lack the ability to make use of the difference, which
> bothers me <sigh>.

Well it's a question of personal interest, but if you want to know more, good 
books exist that explain this with details and quite 
impressive "before/after" that (and it's the best part) really are what 
you'll get if you try :)

Alban
PS : I can't wait for Krita, even if I'm a bit worried of which way it'll go, 
between painting and photo works.