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

[Robert Krawitz]

On Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:41:10 +0200 (MEST), Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote:
> Am 25.06.11, 18:17 +0200 schrieb edmund ronald:
>>
>> So why don't we do a persona analysis:
>>
>> -  David who uses Gutenprint to drive a legacy big printer attached to a
>> Mac. This is job-related.
>>
>> -  Peter is a techie who is also a hobby photographer; he likes using Linux.
>>
>> - Jane is an 18 year old in Greece, whose parents bought her a $150 Ubuntu
>> Netbook instead of a Mac because of the bad economy :)
>
> good idea. I will use your persons below.
>
> David and Jane appear to me as very similiar in respect to ICC mode
> usage. They want a certain and relyable colour state and not fiddle
> with anything once the setup is done. The system should be forgiving
> and stabilise itself for them.
>
> Peter is quite different. He is like a old school printer who does
> all the manipulation by hand. It is nice to let him do so. But
> similiar to today printing processes it should be clear that manual
> tweak break ICC stuff. Peter can do that, but David and Jane shold
> not be affected UI wise.
>
> The overlapping part of David and Peter is target printing/ICC less
> printing. If they find a possibility in the UI, to assign a ICC
> profile to a given freely manipulateable calibration state, then I
> guess both are well served.

Because the ICC profile is a good start, but Peter wants to tweak the
results (maybe he wants the print to be a bit more saturated -- his
aesthetic preference).

>> On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:32:44 +0200 (MEST), Kai-Uwe Behrmann wrote:
>>>> Am 25.06.11, 15:05 +0200 schrieb edmund ronald:
>
>>>> ... 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.
>>>
>>> No way.  We shouldn't be absolutely preventing users from doing
>>> something that may be useful to them.  Having a warning or something
>
> Free style mode is different to ICC mode. Free style mode allows to
> do everything.

That's OK, as long as the ICC profile can also be applied in freestyle
mode.

>>> is fine, but absolutely preventing users from overriding settings
>>> because of the possibility of ambiguity or because *some* users
>>> *might* get confused and do something wrong, is simply being
>>> gratuitously restrictive.
>
>>>> 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."
>>>
>>> Users don't *have* to make any changes.  Have a check box labeled
>>> "Allow override (advanced users only!)" or the like that they have to
>>> select in order to make any changes from the predefined settings.  If
>
> As far as I see thats a UI problem. "Allow override (advanced users
> only!)" is not that easy to handle UI wise. What to expect if a user
> has overriden and wants later to go back to a well defined state. Is
> simply unchecking the box enough to remove all changes made? Or will
> than uncheck of "Allow override (advanced users only!)" just freeze
> the changes?

Actually hide (not just gray out) the other options if the override
box is not checked, and then don't apply the changes.  The override
tweaks should only be applied if the box is checked.

> For Dave and Jane this will be pretty unclear and feel like a
> pitfall.  To be sure they need every day to freshly select the ICC
> profile and then can start to work. For Jane this is clearly too
> much to request.

Why do they need to do that?  As long as they never check the override
box, nothing changes.

>>> they insist on checking that box and making changes, what's the worst
>>> that will happen?  They'll get results they don't like.  They won't
>>> fall off a 1000' cliff or lose their life savings.  Then they'll learn
>>> better for the next time.
>
> ... and inbetween loose time, money and maybe even customers.

Then they'll learn that much faster.  David probably knows enough not
to experiment with that kind of thing, anyway.

>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> I disagree -- vehemently.  I think we can accommodate everyone just
>>> fine.
>
> Can you please elaborate, Why you think the above outlined grayed
> out color calibration options in ICC mode do not work for everyone?
> The explicite break ICC mode (by unselecting the ICC profile) is
> more work for Peter. But for David and Jane it's a very big
> improvement. Given that Jane will be the majority and David can not
> reach easily his goal of stability, I would tent to priorise their
> needs. However Peter will still be able to do what he wants at a
> slightly increased amount of work.

As long as Peter can apply the chosen ICC profile *and* tweak the
results at the same time, I'm OK with it.