using ProPhoto

[Jinbrown]

Hi Jordan,

A couple of other places you might want to ask about this, if you don't get an answer here are (especially the first one):


The digital-fineart List at Yahoo! Groups where the focus is on digital art and printing digital art, lots of professionals and experts available to help:

digital-fineart List at Yahoo! Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digital-fineart)


The two Corel Painter newsgroups:

Add Server: cnews.corel.com

Subscribe to:

c.Painter (for pre-Painter IX versions but lots of long time Painter users available)
c.PainterIX


On both of the Corel Painter newsgroups people from the Corel Painter development team read the messages and sometimes also post responses (watch for posts by Imaging Dev) so you might get some help from them as well as from experienced Painter users.


Good luck!

[frog]

My guess is that Painter does not support 16 bit colour, and Prophoto is 16 bit only (there is no 8 bit version).

More importantly, why on earth would you want to use Prophoto in Painter? It's gamut is so huge you would be using colours that no monitor on earth could display - mixing colours would quite simply be impossible to do accurately.

[DigArts]

My guess is that Painter does not support 16 bit colour, and Prophoto is 16 bit only (there is no 8 bit version).

More importantly, why on earth would you want to use Prophoto in Painter? It's gamut is so huge you would be using colours that no monitor on earth could display - mixing colours would quite simply be impossible to do accurately.
Right about Painter lacking 16 bit support. Painter would be very slow in that mode I suspect. The newer machines may compensate should v.10 have it, however.

I've never even heard of Prophoto :)

Dennis @ DigArts
http://www.gardenhose.com (http://www.gardenhose.com/)
next generation paints for art pros

[JimGoshorn]

In the color management dialog choose Kodak Reference Output Medium Metric (ROMM).

Seems to match well for me.

Jim

[mseydel]

ProPhoto is a large space, and currently unsupported in Painter. It also contains many colors that are not viewable even on a solid graphics LCD such as an Eizo CG210, and quite a few that are imperceptable to the human eye. However, there are benefits to using a Working Space that's larger than Painter's default, especially if you are creating Giclee prints with a Canon or Epson Pro printer with Archival Inks and paper. You would want Painter to support 16-bit color eventually to reduce any gradient stepping you may be seeing in your files.

You could use Adobe Wide Gamut in the meantime, or if you know you're looking for in terms of colors, you could shop around for a space that meets your needs.

[jsdill]

Hello all...am trying to load the ProPhoto color space into 9.5 and Painter will not load it...Jordan

Thanks all...appreciate your responses.

I have confirmed with Corel Support that ProPhoto is a no go. So, that is that.

...Jordan

[frog]

However, there are benefits to using a Working Space that's larger than Painter's default, especially if you are creating Giclee prints with a Canon or Epson Pro printer with Archival Inks and paper.

I don't understand this thinking at all, if you can't preview the colours you are mixing and editing accurately on your monitor, where's the benefit in using a space larger than your monitor can handle? Surely it would be a bit like mixing oil paints whilst wearing sunglasses.

I am sceptical enough when I see Adobe RGB recommended without its drawbacks being made clear, let alone a huge space like Prophoto. I know that some inkjets can print colours in wide gamut spaces, but surely the monitor preview is pretty crucial in a program like Painter where you are creating illustration and mixing your own colours from scratch. I have yet to see a convincing reason to use any space other than sRGB for this purpose.

What's more, very few Painter users would be using inkjets as their sole final output, most professional work is destined for CMYK print or for the screen, and wide gamut spaces are not ideally suited for either of those outputs (and despite what some people think, Adobe RGB is not a good space to use if your final output is CMYK).

[mseydel]

The uses for Painter are still evolving, and by working in a larger RGBworking space than sRGB you're keeping your options open for future possibilities of output and softproof. Monitors will improve, as will the capabilities of offset and digital presses. Wouldn't you like to get the biggest range of color and the smoothest color-to-color gradations? I won't deny that you get a solid transform from sRGB to most CMYK spaces, and you won't get as many 'clipped' colors as your sometimes get with a generic transform like Abode '98 RGB to Kodak SWOP CMYK.

[frog]

One day I'm sure that monitors which are capable of displaying Adobe RGB will become commonplace, and that point I might see the sense in using a wider gamut space.

In the meantime, I would personally recommend most users stick to sRGB. Of course if someone has a specific reason to use Adobe RGB or Prophoto (the latter only in Photoshop obviously at the moment) and that person knows what they're doing and why they're doing it, then of course they should use the wider gamut space. Many expert users do fall in this category.

But to answer your point, no I don't personally think the average user should be using wide gamut spaces for some theoretical advantage. It creates more problems than it solves. It's better, in my view, to be pragmatic and work within the limitations of our current hardware.

The gains to be had from using wide gamut spaces are not actually that great, it's mostly very vivid colours which are outside the gamut of sRGB. I think to most people the colours available today are plenty vivid enough.

[tomt]

You guys are talking way over my head, and in order to educate myself I hit upon this link. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtmlThis thread is still talking over my head, but not quite as high.

[mseydel]

The book they mention in that thread, Real World Color Management, is an excellent resource, even if it reads like a calculus textbook sometimes. I'd definitely recommend it...

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