Understanding Color Management

Rating:
Summary: Understanding Color Management
Review: The title "Understanding Color Management" is a very appropriate. The list of books and papers on colour management is getting quite long by now, but this is in my view the first one to be really thorough, clear and in depth.

Looking at mr Sharmas background you'll understand why. Abhay Sharma is an ex Crosfield man (todayday part of Fujifilm Electronics). The practical "hands on" experience with Fujifilm's colour management R&D team shines through in all chapters of the book.

The layout of the book is quite conventional, going from the fundamentals of colour theory to more in depth discussions. What is different is the clarity in each chapter, and the depth in wich mr Sharma explains the issues.

While getting and reading "Understanding Color Management" by Abhay Sharma is wholehartedly recommended by me, there are some few areas where I still wish for more clarification or help. One is on the matter of how to correctly calibrate and use the monitor. Abhay concludes, like many other, that using a whitepoint of 5000 K (D50) often results in a "dull image". Yes it does, using a faulty calibration tool like the Apple buildt in monitor color calibration, as well as trying some of the commercial software using measuring devices. The trick is to achieve correct luminance at 5000 K, typhically around 100 cd/m2, as recommended in the ISO 12646 standard (refered to in the book). Many software adjust the whitepoint in the last stage of the calibration process by reducing the power of the blue channel, resulting in a too low luminance (brightness) of the monitor. The ambient lighting condition also effect the appearence of the monitor. A too bright illuminated room prevent the monitor from accurately rendering the colours. Unfortunately the recommended very low ambient light of 32 lux is not mentioned by Sharma.

But all in all it's a very, very good book on a quite complex and "difficult" subject.

/Paul Lindstrom, Malmo University and Digital Dots

Rating:
Summary: Understanding Color Management
Review: The title "Understanding Color Management" is a very appropriate. The list of books and papers on colour management is getting quite long by now, but this is in my view the first one to be really thorough, clear and in depth.

Looking at mr Sharmas background you'll understand why. Abhay Sharma is an ex Crosfield man (todayday part of Fujifilm Electronics). The practical "hands on" experience with Fujifilm's colour management R&D team shines through in all chapters of the book.

The layout of the book is quite conventional, going from the fundamentals of colour theory to more in depth discussions. What is different is the clarity in each chapter, and the depth in wich mr Sharma explains the issues.

While getting and reading "Understanding Color Management" by Abhay Sharma is wholehartedly recommended by me, there are some few areas where I still wish for more clarification or help. One is on the matter of how to correctly calibrate and use the monitor. Abhay concludes, like many other, that using a whitepoint of 5000 K (D50) often results in a "dull image". Yes it does, using a faulty calibration tool like the Apple buildt in monitor color calibration, as well as trying some of the commercial software using measuring devices. The trick is to achieve correct luminance at 5000 K, typhically around 100 cd/m2, as recommended in the ISO 12646 standard (refered to in the book). Many software adjust the whitepoint in the last stage of the calibration process by reducing the power of the blue channel, resulting in a too low luminance (brightness) of the monitor. The ambient lighting condition also effect the appearence of the monitor. A too bright illuminated room prevent the monitor from accurately rendering the colours. Unfortunately the recommended very low ambient light of 32 lux is not mentioned by Sharma.

But all in all it's a very, very good book on a quite complex and "difficult" subject.

/Paul Lindstrom, Malmo University and Digital Dots