Color Gamut, Bit Depth, Control & Quality

Lee Varis explores the issues surrounding the contentious ProPhoto vs Adobe vs sRGB colorspace choice, as well as the almost religious debate over the merits of 16bits vs 8bits! Along the way, Lee examines the role of color compared to luminosity, and provides some practical demonstrations of banding, and comparisons of 3D color gamut maps and how they relate to actual images. Topics include:

• Output vs scene oriented colorspace
• Color vs luminosity
• Color gamut
• Bit depth and level of tones
• 16bits in an 8bit interface

After viewing this discussion you will be surprised by Lee's final recommendations, but before you respond with hate mail, please take the X-rite color acuity test online at: http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge - see if you can get a perfect score! Now realize that this test is delivered in sRGB via a web browser, and getting a perfect score is not trivial, and requires a well calibrated monitor! As it turns out MOST people are not that good at subtle color judgements, and yet we seem to place extraordinary importance on large gamut colorspaces for editing images! This video will provide some food for thought!