Re: CMYK separations on Adobe Photoshop

Joe Smigiel wrote:
>

>
> If you feel the need to challenge something I've posted please provide
> the visual evidence to refute it as I've asked. "A picture is worth a
> thousand words." Show me.
>

Joe and all,
Sorry, I'm still stuck on this post, that seems to demand a response.

I suppose the best way to show you that I don't get a distorted color
balance from RGB separations would be to show a color gum print next to
the color image that I've balanced the way I want it in Photoshop prior
to making the negatives. I think you wouldn't see a great difference in
the color balance between the two, but it's not really fair to say so
without showing you the pictures, as you say. (Although people do take
each other's word for stuff here all the time without having visual
proof of it, but I digress). You'd think it would be fairly easy to show
you that comparison, but it's not at all simple because of my current
situation re peripherals. I'm not as technically competent as I used to
be, due to encroaching senility; my film scanner isn't online at the
moment and I frankly don't care to monkey with the SCSI chain, which is
always temperamental. (I don't use the 35mm scanner anymore because
don't work with 35mm anymore and I haven't made tricolors since I
switched to bigger film). That's just one problem; another is that all
the original scans are on old MO disks; the MO drive is also offline. So
I can neither rescan the film nor retrieve the old scans without a great
deal of trouble.

So the next best way to show you that I get good color balance with RGB
separations would be to start with a new color image, from one of the
few 4x5 slides I've taken since I switched to large format, and create
RGB color separations, make a gum print and show you the comparison of
the gum print to the original color image. I'm not really interested in
the CMYK part of the comparison, because that wasn't what I was
objecting to; I was only objecting to the statement that RGB separations
give a distorted color balance. But I was curious enough about all this
that I actually printed out both RGB separations and CMYK separations
for the same image and indulged briefly in some wishful thinking that I
could do the prints and make the comparison. But the fact is I won't be
able to do these prints any time soon, and probably wouldn't care to
even if I have the time and energy, because it's not something that
interests me particularly.

However, in looking at these separations, it seems to me that even
though I can't show you the comparison you want to see, the separations
in themselves may be instructive in showing why I prefer RGB
separations. RGB separations make sense to me; CMYK separations don't.
But this isn't, for heavens' sake, to say that I think everyone should
make their separations from the RGB file. That's not what I'm about, to
tell anyone how they should proceed. My motto is, has always been, "each
to his own." Here's the separations:

http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/CMYK.html

The image I used is an old 35mm image that just happened to be still
sitting on the hard disk, for reason unknown. I made, showed and sold a
tricolor gum print of this image years ago, but unfortunately I didn't
make a slide of it, so couldn't show the gum print in relation to the
original image, even if I was willing to to get the necessary equipment
online. I do think you would find that the gum print was quite similar
in color to the original image, if you could see it, but I do also
understand why you would be skeptical, if your experience is that RGB
separations give distorted color balance.

It's not a substitute for the tricolor print, but I do have a test print
in blue of this image on my page on stain,

http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/html/stain.html

if anyone's interested in seeing how at least one of these negatives
prints. I know this is not an entirely satisfactory answer to your
question, but it's the best I can do at this time.
Katharine
Received on Mon Nov 1 14:53:45 2004