Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 3
Building Display Profiles
The display is one of the most important components of the digital dark-
room. Being visual people who work with images, I find it shocking that
by and large, so many imaging professionals tend to skimp on their
display systems or fail to implement good color management for this crit-
ical component. For the photographer shooting with a digital camera, the
reality of the image is on the display. Ideally, we hope to reproduce
the scene based on our artistic vision. We have our ideas about how the
image should appear. Yet, without good color management in place, we
have no idea if the previews being provided are an accurate visual rep-
resentation of the color we hope to reproduce.
In Chapter 2 of the topic, I discuss how editing images solely by the
numbers can work in rare situations, yet is nowhere as powerful as
editing images using
both
numbers and accurate previews. The one com-
ponent that absolutely needs to be color managed is our display.
Although we might be able to accomplish our work with canned or
vender-supplied ICC printer/output profiles, without an accurate
preview, we have no idea if what we are viewing is a true reflection of
the data we are editing. Therefore, I usually recommend that at the very
least, users calibrate and profile their display systems on a regular basis.
When building a digital imaging system, always provide an ample budget
for the display and any color management hardware necessary to ensure
it is providing the most accurate previews possible.
The display system should have one of the highest priorities of any
single component in the imaging pipeline. A single processor system with
1 GB of RAM might be slower than a dual processing machine with 2 GB
of RAM, providing a speed boost of a few seconds per operation in most
cases. A good display system will be used for virtually every image editing
operation for years. Try and budget for the best possible displays and color
calibration hardware and software to drive it. If you have multiple work-
stations, be sure that at least one has a highly accurate display. Use this
display for capture or scanning and color critical corrections. If you move
those corrected files to other workstations where the display isn't up to
117
