Books for color management

[tsdomenichelli]

Hello All,

What is hte titles books that you recomend to read ?

Best regards

 

[Al Ferrari]

See Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy, and Bunting.

Al

 

[TerryWyse]

See Real World Color Management by Fraser, Murphy, and Bunting.

Ditto.

If you want something a bit more "scholarly" and theoretical but still very readible, check out Abhay Sharma's book, "Understanding Color Management".

Terry

 

[David Milisock]

Hello All,

What is hte titles books that you recomend to read ?

Best regards

What are you looking for? An overall concept or detailed technical aspects?
Are you a designer or an output technician?

Real World Color Management is a good example of the problems of the autodidactic, when it comes to basic theory it's ok but they plain blow it on critical specifics of applications, such as Adobe Suite, Quark Express, CorelDRAW and postscript color management.

An example on page 426 is their explanation that they don't understand postscript color management and use the postscript file created from Quark Express as their example. The one problem being that at the time the book was written all vendors were creating a postscript exportation plugin for Quark because it was known by (or should have been known by anyone worth their salt) that Quark at that time didn't create an Adobe conforming postscript file. A good technician would automatically know that without an Adobe conforming postscript file nothing works cross application.

The other problem being the fact that postscript color management worked fine for over a decade before ICC color management. The state that they recommend not using PS color management, unless you're one of the handfull of people who've already gotten it to work reliably. They state if you have, (made it work) congratulations-maybe you should write a book.

Their statement is just an admission that they did not get it. Anyone who understands the process from any technically historic perspective knows the reason that there is not a book on postscript color management is that the description of the entire process is about three paragraphs, not much of a book.

The reality is that a properly set up PS color managed CTP/press system can within reason accurately reproduce any color standard within the gamut of the press/media combination.

With Adobe applications on the MAC the book is ok but fails to point out (or does not recognize) the shortcomings of the Adobe interface, so the problem is that you don't know what to trust.

Take all you read with a grain of salt, read all you can get books from the library if you can find them.

 

[Al Ferrari]

Thank you for your insights into the shortcomings of the Real World book. But no thank you for the attitude expressed in your post. You might instead have said that, unfortunately, the book has become outdated for the reasons you explained.

If a work does not become outdated with the passage of time, it is because there are no new developments in the field.

That said, what book(s) do you recommend on the subject?

Al Ferrari

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Take all you read with a grain of salt, read all you can get books from the library if you can find them.

A general problem with reading books, technical papers etc. in order to obtain knowledge is that it is very hard to know what is good knowledge and what is bad knowledge unless one already understands the problem.

I sympathise with people trying to gain valid knowledge. It is a very difficult thing to do.

 

[David Milisock]

Thank you for your insights into the shortcomings of the Real World book. But no thank you for the attitude expressed in your post. You might instead have said that, unfortunately, the book has become outdated for the reasons you explained.

If a work does not become outdated with the passage of time, it is because there are no new developments in the field.

That said, what book(s) do you recommend on the subject?

Al Ferrari

What attitude? I simply told the truth, the book was not outdated when it was released it was simply wrong about some technical aspects as all are.

To answer you question I would need to know your use for color management. A designer simply needs to know application based color management and can avoid postscript color management or RIP applications.

 

[David Milisock]

A general problem with reading books, technical papers etc. in order to obtain knowledge is that it is very hard to know what is good knowledge and what is bad knowledge unless one already understands the problem.

I sympathise with people trying to gain valid knowledge. It is a very difficult thing to do.

I understand what you mean. Couple that with software bugs and hardware design flaws and this can be complicated.

 

[Al Ferrari]

Well what would you recommend to someone that just wants to learn as much as possible on the subject from books or articles? They should no need to categorize themselves.

Just list a few starting sources with appropriate comments such as you have made for the Real World book.

Al Ferrari

 

[gordo]

A general problem with reading books, technical papers etc. in order to obtain knowledge is that it is very hard to know what is good knowledge and what is bad knowledge unless one already understands the problem.

I sympathise with people trying to gain valid knowledge. It is a very difficult thing to do.

Unfortunately a really good book on the subject of color management has yet to be published. The problem is the pedagogy. Most writers seem to think that information is knowledge (it is not). The writers my know their subjects and/or be experts in the field, but that does not mean they can deliver content by which some one can learn. They are either not educators or they no longer remember what it is like to not understand the topic.

The two available books are "Color Management Handbook - A Practical Guide" Adams, Sharma, Suffoletto and "Real World Color Management" Fraser, Murphy, Bunting. If you already understand color management then these are pretty good books. If you don't, then they're somewhat of a wall of voodoo.

What both books (and many seminars) tend to do is to drill down into the details and minutiae of color management without ever providing a holistic, high level, understanding of how all the parts interact in a color flow. So, it is very hard for the novice to pick out what information is important to get an immediate good result from what information is simply interesting from what information may be useful when more experience is gained.

Dealing with the issue of application software versions is not an issue if one can communicate and scale the underlying principles.

best gordo

 

[Al Ferrari]

Excellent clarification of the problem. Perhaps you should step up to the plate Gordon.

Al

 

[gordo]

Excellent clarification of the problem. Perhaps you should step up to the plate Gordon.

Al

Hah! Not me, though I would be happy to be part of a team that was going either update either of those books or that is going to write a proper guide to color management.

best, gordo

 

[David Milisock]

Well what would you recommend to someone that just wants to learn as much as possible on the subject from books or articles? They should no need to categorize themselves.

Just list a few starting sources with appropriate comments such as you have made for the Real World book.

Al Ferrari

Actually this forum and others are not a bad place to start. I'm on my way to a rather complicated install this morning and will post some basic concepts ASAP. Gordo is right IMO for the designer or graphics user the books are not what's needed. Color management for the user is some basic once and done setup (these can be regional in nature)and some rules to govern opening, importation and exportation of files. Then design and go make nmoney.

 

[rich apollo]

…postscript color management worked fine for over a decade before ICC color management.…

I think I disagree with this statement, but I'm not certain I'm grasping its entirety. It's my impression that color management via ICC profiles provided a way to overcome the weaknesses of Postscript color management. Postscript was an achievement as code to feed a marking engine. There was a basic precursor to color management in Postscript, but color management via ICC profiles was/is a huge step forward.

 

[David Milisock]

I think I disagree with this statement, but I'm not certain I'm grasping its entirety. It's my impression that color management via ICC profiles provided a way to overcome the weaknesses of Postscript color management. Postscript was an achievement as code to feed a marking engine. There was a basic precursor to color management in Postscript, but color management via ICC profiles was/is a huge step forward.

True ICC color management enhances the capabilities of PS color management. However PS color management and the technical aspects that make it work as as viable today as they were a decade ago. In fact if the technology that makes PS color management work breaks down so does ICC color management, one eveloved fronm tjhe other and ICC color management is an enhancement to PS color management. The real problem with color management back in those day was the lack of color management among the applications.

The real problem IMO with CM today is the financial bleeding of the industry with little profitable return,

 

[SilvaJr]

Tiago,

After some additional comments, coming back to your original question, let me give you another option. If you are looking to a complete solution about color management and print production, the best book ever written about Color Management in my opinion is " Digital Color Management - Principles and Strategies for the Standardized Print Production" by Jan-Peter Homann.

This book must be read by who wants to produce under ISO 12647 or G7. It was designed to explain the whole chain of events, helping photographers, print buyers, prepress bureaus and printers to acomplish their tasks under these standards.

Here is the link where we found the book, and probably where you can have additional information:

www.colomanagement.de

Hope this helps.