ColourMeister - Introduction

The quest for predictable colour is as simple as a standardisation of desktop colour, then colour by numbers. Professional photographers wanting to check the colour capabilities of a particular type of film and/or make colour correction easier when making prints – will standardise colour.

This is achieved by setting the camera for a calibrated exposure - using either through the lens focusing full frame on a GrayCard or with other measured light reading equipment. Basically this ensures that a 50% gray will be reproduce at exactly that. The GrayCard is then replaced with an 8 x 10 MacBeth Color Checker™ card and a photograph is taken with the first shot on the roll of film. The known colour values of the sixteen colour swatches on the MacBeth Color Checker™ on the first Negative/Positive are adjusted to their known value and the rest of the prints are made with the same colour compensation.

A digital imaging environment should utilise similar principals, as problems can occur with variance in the reproduction of colour between similar output devices. A personalised approach to standardising each input/output device will produce more reliable and predictable colour results.
Stability of output devices is the key to any colour management system – if a RGB output device receives the RGB values of 128, 128, 128 it should reproduce a perfectly consistent colour.

All colour referencing should be printed on the primary calibrated output devices within a business network. That will be a photographic transparency/negative and or print for the RGB colour space and a Chemical Proof or press-print made from imagesetter generated film for the CMYK colour space.
Master Colour Targets are supplied in both RGB and CMYK colour spaces – referencing percentages of both primary and secondary colours as well as a range of 256 colour swatches.

Measured references to other colour spaces should also be made on the same equipment as it will aid operators when making colour adjustments / corrections i.e. a HSB reference print will give the designer/digital imager/colour correctionist visual testimony to how saturated a particular hue will be
at a saturation level of 20 when and a brightness level of 50.

All other hardcopy secondary output devices can then be calibrated by printing the Master Colour Target files, visually comparing the results with the primary MCT prints, adjusting the colours to their visually correct values and saving a profile/setting on a Printer Options level, or as a colour adjustment within the colour correction software.

Monitors and projection systems can then be calibrated by opening Master Colour Target files, visually comparing the results with the MCT prints, adjusting the colours to their visually correct values and saving the adjustment as a profile/setting in the monitor adjustment software.

Input devices can then be calibrated by scanning/capturing the MCT prints and comparing the results with the MCT files, adjusting the colours to their known values and saving the adjustment as a profile/setting in scanner/digital camera adjustment software, or even on the scanner/digital camera itself.

After calibration has been taken care of, the collecting of values for known colours becomes
the most important task for colour correction i.e. if a banana's colour values are known, checking and or correcting an image containing a banana is made a matter of numbers for it to be reproduced correctly. Storage of these known colours can be made in the ColourMO™ pending. database supplied.