[Openicc] [Gutenprint Color Management] Will my prints look good?

[Kai-Uwe Behrmann]

Am 25.06.11, 15:05 +0200 schrieb edmund ronald:
> I'm the Gutenprint color geek, I guess. As such, I guess  in a way my job is
> also to manage expectations.
>
> I don't think we are going to live in a perfect world. Color managed Linux
> users are not going to see perfection.

Perfection is a big word on all levels of expertise.

> Screen and print won't match in most consumer scenarios, although they may
> and should match on *our* systems. We should be well aware of that.

agreed

> For our purposes -Gutenprint- I think we should have agreement that
> profiling will bring the print system into a well known state, which
> incidentally means a decent screen to print match in strong print viewing
> lighting, using a calibrated screen.
>
> Users should be free to move from this state, later, and tune the print so

... but not at cost of becoming ambiguous. Either the printing is in 
ICC mode and colour calibration related options are grayed out or it is
work in free style mode.

> they are comfortable  their own esthetics, screen and viewing condtions.

The other way around will be to adapt viewing conditions description in 
the CMS settings for a better document to screen colour transform.

If thats not enough, a different or even custom profile can be 
recommended to users with high colour quality expectations.

> Telling users to go out and buy a viewing booth is not going to cut it. If
> they say "my prints are too dark", we need to tell them, yes, that is
> because you have a profile that is specifically tailored to irrealistic
> industry-standard viewing conditions. And, if necessary we should be
> prepared to tell them clearly that they need to compensate by eye for their
> own esthetics and viewing condition psychophysics.

IMHO these expectations, even though well drawn, are still too high to 
what most users want. We see users, which do not know the maning of one 
button in the colour management tab and are highly scared to have to think 
around that toppic, as it will take time, bring frustration and extra 
costs. So they do not want tweaks of any kind, but a clear way to let a 
colour guru like you say:
"These are the colours from this driver for your printer."

To meet the demands of some people, who want tweaks and custom 
profiles, is fine. But the above glueless majority is IMO best served to 
see calibration state related options only grayed out in ICC mode. The 
most obvious thing is to remove the current ICC profile from the actual 
options and only then let users play with the calibration state. This way 
we preserve freedom of choice and can provide simplicity in a default 
workflow. To get the new calibration combined with the ICC profile it 
can be embedd and done. Thats a very clear and noticeable modification 
similiar to reprofiling. This matches as well with expectations of expert
users, which want see a clear signal, when a calibration state/ICC 
profile combo has altered. The fact that expert users and beginners have 
very similiar expectations should guide us in designing the systems and 
UIs. I do not think power users, which tweak many jobs with new 
calibration settings and want therefor the most easy access to colour 
related calibration settings, are a good primary target.


kind regards
Kai-Uwe Behrmann
-- 
developing for colour management 
www.behrmann.name + www.oyranos.org