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Using Color Management For Color Adjustment – Synthetic Profiles

Magazine - Digital Photo Pro  Comment
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How can you change the appearance of a digital image without changing the numbers that assign the color values? Change what those numbers mean by changing the image’s ICC profile. Using abstract or synthetic profiles, you can make massive changes to an image with little to no cost, changes that ordinarily would cause big problems using standard methods, such as posterization and noise. It’s a practice known to color geeks and few others. When you’ve got a big job to do, it can get you out of a pinch in a hurry.

In most cases, we think of using color management to accurately match colors when moving between different color spaces; ICC profiles are used to describe different color spaces and to make precise transformations to values moved from one to another to maintain consistent appearances. In very rare cases, when profiles are assigned to image files without a color conversion, the appearance of the image changes; values stay the same, but their meaning changes, so the image looks different. So when you use this unorthodox method of color adjustment, you get a change in appearance without changing the values in the file, and this is particularly useful when you want to pay a very small price for making very big changes.

Am I saying that ICC profiles are used to change values so the appearance stays the same? Yes. Am I saying that a color space is just a recipe for color, and that there are many different RGB recipes? Yes, but while they’re the standards, sRGB, ColorMatch RGB, Adobe RGB (1998) and ProPhoto RGB are just a few among many.

With just a little experimentation, you’ll find you, too, can make big changes to your images and pay a small price using synthetic profiles. Using synthetic profiles is color adjustment without editing values; they change no values, but they do change the meaning of those values—and thus their appearance. Don’t believe it? Check your histogram when you assign a profile. You won’t even see it move! It’s kind of unbelievable. Try it. See it with your own eyes. You’ll quickly become a believer, too.
Learn the steps you need to take to make your own synthetic profiles …
Read more on Digital Photo Pro.
Learn more in my digital photography and digital printing workshops.

The Epson P800 – Good Things Are Coming

Printing, Tools  Comment
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“Epson recently announced the highly anticipated SureColor® P800 printer, representing a new benchmark in photographic print quality. Designed for professional use, the SureColor P800 is a full 17” wide borderless printer with unique Epson® MicroPiezo® AMCTM printhead technology. Leveraging an all-new Epson UltraChrome® HD eight-color pigment ink set, the SureColor P800 is capable of producing the next generation of color and black-and-white prints that will inspire us all.”
An optional Roll Paper Adapter, for panoramic prints up to 10’ long, will be available for the P800.
Read more about the P800 here.
This news brings two milestones; black density and longevity.
Initial color tests suggest that the new printer / ink technology is capable of delivering a maximum black (dmax) exceeding 2.8 (previously 2.5). By comparison selenium toned silver gelatin is close to 2.4.
And …
Initial longevity test suggest that longevity is improved – dramatically.
“WIR Display Permanence Ratings for black and white prints made with UltraChrome HD inks using Epson’s “Advanced Black and White Print Mode” will likely exceed 400 years.” “The new UltraChrome HD pigment inks are also expected to have WIR Album and Dark Storage Permanence Ratings well in excess of 200 years.”
“With the increased Dmax, wider color gamut, and reduced metamerism provided by the new Epson UltraChrome HD pigment inks – which taken together serve to significantly enhance the visual brilliance of both color and black and white images – the increased overall permanence of the prints represents a significant contribution to photography,” said Henry Wilhelm, founder and director of research at Wilhelm Imaging Research.
Read more about the P800 permanence ratings here.
Yes! You can test the P800 in my digital printing workshops.
Learn more in my digital printing workshops.

All About The Image – The Interview

Interviewed  Comment
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All About The Image’s Woodrow Walden did a short and sweet interview with me by email recently.
You can read the final results here.
And you can compare the rough cut Q&A version here.

Personal

WW    Have you always known you wanted to be an artist, or did you have other aspirations as a child?

JPC    Art has always been a part of my life but I didn’t commit to making it a career until graduating from high school. At one point, I seriously considered becoming a marine biologist.

WW    You were raised in a very artistic household. Your Father of course, is photographer Paul Caponigro, and your Mother is graphic designer Eleanor Caponigro. How much influence would you say that had on your decision to become a photographer and eventually a photo-based digital artist?

JPC   Both of my parents have had a tremendous influence on me. They laid my foundations in photography (dad) and painting (mom).

WW   What was your first camera?

JPC    I don’t remember. The most significant camera I remember receiving as a gift was one of the two Dierdorff cameras my father used to photograph the megalithic monuments in the British Isles.

WW   How old were you when took your first photo and what was the subject and do you still have it?

JPC   I don’t remember. I remember my first significant moment in photography was photographing a black cat in an Irish field with my mother when I was less than four years old – and the amazed look on my mother’s face when the cat couldn’t be found in any of the several images we took.

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Alumnus Olaf Willoughby – On Being Interviewed & Interviewing

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In June 2015, Olaf will be co-teaching ‘Visual Conversations’, a creative photography workshop with Eileen McCarney Muldoon at Maine Media College in Rockport. They will also be running a LightDance workshop in Brooklyn in Sep 2015. 
Olaf Willoughby is a photographer, writer and researcher. He is co-founder of The Leica Meet, a Facebook page and website growing at warp speed to over 7,800 members. After conducting many interviews for the Leica Blog, Olaf was recently interviewed there too. Read his interview here.
Here, Olaf shares his thoughts on interviewing and being interviewed.
What Makes Photography Tock?
This was the question uppermost in my mind when I started interviewing photographers for The Leica Blog some time ago.
We’ve all worked on ideas which tick like a Swiss watch. They have a magic flow resonating with ourselves and others. But some don’t, they linger on that haunting to-do list and never quite get done. Why?
Photographers are often considered not to be the best judges of their own work, so asking a direct question was unlikely to be productive. I was wondering how to tackle this dilemma in my interviews when, luckily, I stumbled on this quote from Duane Michaels,
‘Photographers look too much. They have to start thinking and feeling and make that the source of their work. Don’t just look for curiosity’. (For more words of great wisdom check Sean Kernan’s interview with Duane Michaels here.)
I understood. It identified for me what I love about Michael Ackermann in ‘End Time City’and the shortcomings I see in my own work. Time and again I pressed the ‘thinking & feeling’button in my interviews and it always resulted in a deeper more engaging response.
So when the Leica Blog turned the tables and interviewed me on my ‘Leica in London’Street Photography project (link below) I felt well prepared. Yet initially I fell into the same trap. Rationality ruled. It was only when I let go of the left brain that I could articulate the bigger picture.
Seeing that I had sat on both sides of the interviewing table JP kindly suggested that I might like to share any learnings on his blog.
Working through the process from the questions, to pulling together the images and text and finally telling the story, here are three pointers emerging from my interviews which have helped me to show the work of others in the best light. I hope they work for you too.
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Question the questions
Let’s start at the beginning. The fact that I (or anybody else) am asking the questions doesn’t mean they are the right or the best questions for you. If you have thought through your project then you’ll know the one or two critical points you want to get across. Sense check the questions to see if they  put the spotlight on these areas. If not, suggest changes or take advantage of the more generic questions to make your point. No apologies if this sounds ‘duh’, obvious. Apart from the big and experienced industry names, most photographers are honoured and excited to be interviewed. Often too excited to pinpoint how they think and feel about their project and whether the questions really search out the soul of their work.
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27 Quotes On Listening

Creativity - Quotes  Comment
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Enjoy this collection of my favorite quotes on listening.

“There’s a lot of difference between listening and hearing.” ― G.K. Chesterton

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” – Stephen R. Covey

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. In other words, to learn from the child, we must have empathy, and empathy grows as we learn.” – Alice Miller

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” – Peter Drucker

“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” – Sue Patton Thoele

“Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” – Karl A. Menniger

“One of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is listen to each other’s stories.” – Rebecca Falls

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo Buscaglia

“Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.” – Joyce Brothers

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31 Quotes By Photographer Elliot Erwitt

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“It’s about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby.” – Elliott Erwitt
“I’m an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones.” – Elliott Erwitt
“I’ll always be an amateur photographer.” – Elliott Erwitt
“I’m not a serious photographer like many of my contemporaries. That is to say, I am serious about not being serious.” – Elliott Erwitt
“It’s just seeing – at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don’t see. The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It’s how you organize what you see into a picture.” – Elliott Erwitt
“Making pictures is a very simple act. There is no great secret in photography…schools are a bunch of crap. You just need practice and application of what you’ve learned. My absolute conviction is that if you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting…it doesn’t matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through the process of working things begin to happen.” – Elliott Erwitt
“Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.” – Elliott Erwitt
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt
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