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Color Managed 14-bit workflow

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Gareth

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I am looking at what monitor to buy. I like the idea of a wide gamut but the drawback seems to be that it will only be 8-bit unless.

Graphics card is 14-bit
monster cables is 14-bit
monitor is 14-bit

now it seems that I can buy 14-bit everything (not so long ago this wasn't possible).

is this practical or useful.

the drawbacks I see are

having to make sure I am working in 14 or 16 bit all the time.

paying more for everything.

sending it to end users who are viewing srgb on screen.

bad (not true to my softproof) conversions to print.

Is it worth the money and hasle?

Has anyone tried it?

Posted 2 years ago #
Vall

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I can only see it worthy if you are going to need to print out colors that look the same on your screen and print. Otherwise it's really useless as you will mostly still work in 8bits per channel, and most of web users won't be able to see the difference. I'd suggest getting a good quality screen (eizo shines here, really) and stop worrying about bits.:-)

your output will most likely be 8 bit, or converted to 8bit when watched. The audience is still too little to justify the costs, unless you need perfect prints.

Posted 2 years ago #
TaoTeJared

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I'm with Vall - focusing on Bits is not really productive - 14bit does not get you accurate colors - color profiles do.

I'm assuming you are not seeing the same colors between your monitor and printer. You need to make sure your you have the correct color profiles and that they match across your monitor and printer. 14bit or 8bit, you need to calibrate your monitors and printers to get the same color.

Posted 2 years ago #
Gareth

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yes, i pretty much asummed as much. but I have seen it stated numerous times that a wide color gamut monitor is a bad idea. i don't fully understand the explanation, but it would seem that a lack of available information in a 8-bit system causes larger gaps between color points causing fine adjustments to be difficult.

A wide gamut LCD display is not a good thing for most (95%) of high end users. The data that leaves your graphic card and travels over the DVI cable is 8 bit per component.

You can't change this.

The OS, ICC CMMs, the graphic card, the DVI spec, and Photoshop will all have to be upgraded before this will change and that's going to take a while.

What does this mean to you?

It means that when you send RGB data to a wide gamut display the colorimetric distance between any two colors is much larger.

As an example, lets say you have two adjacent color patches one is 230,240,200 and the patch next to it is 230,241,200.

On a standard LCD or CRT those two colors may be around .8 Delta E apart. On an Adobe RGB display those colors might be 2 Delta E apart on an ECI RGB display this could be as high as 4 delta E.

It's very nice to be able to display all kinds of saturated colors you may never use in your photographs, however, if the smallest visible adjustment you can make to a skin tone is 4 delta E you will become very frustrated very quickly....

eizo, nec, lacie and even hp make good monitors.

atm i am looking at either eizo with 3rd party puck, nec with the spectraview (which is called spectra-navi in japan) or lacie with blue eye pro.

Posted 2 years ago #
Testing123

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TaoTeJared said:
I'm with Vall - focusing on Bits is not really productive - 14bit does not get you accurate colors - color profiles do.

One of the points I came to make. Never confuse accuracy with precision.
14bits per channel is a measure of precision, but not breadth (gamut) nor accuracy (calibration).

When delivering product to people you expect to be using the sRGB standard one should deliver sRGB colorspace product. Problem solved.

Monster cables are snake oil.
Spend the money taking your spouse out to dinner.
14bits = greater word length, not greater word speed. I don't know who you were quoting above, but they don't know the facts: http://www.ddwg.org/lib/dvi_10.pdf Section 2.2.3
Dual-link DVI is capable of delivering 48bits per pixel (16 bits per channel) by placing the most significant bits on the primary link and the least significant bits on the secondary link. Therefore if a $2 Wal-Mart cable can provide bit perfect 8bpp (24bit) color (it can) it can also provide bit perfect 14bpp (42bit) color.
How common dual-link usage is for 48bit color I don't know. It was purposefully put in the spec, I assume someone uses it.

Maybe someone else can fill me in, but he also says Photoshop would need to be upgraded. How this can be true I don't know. Photoshop has been running internally at 48 bit (16 per channel) for a long frickin time. Display is an OS limitation, not a PS limitation. So that appears to be two factual errors.

Speaking of OS limitations: Windows 7 supports 48 bit color.

Speaking of hardware limitations: Even a lowly Radeon 4850 can do SIXTY FOUR bit color.

You mention bad (not true to soft proof) conversions to print. But I am not sure how a 42bit workflow is different than a 24bit workflow in this regard.
Either you printer has a wider gamut than your monitor or vise versa.
If your monitor has a wider gamut than your new screen, than it has a wider gamut than your old screen, so it isn't a new problem. If you printer has a narrower gamut than your new screen one should create a color profile for the printer and load that into your monitor (video card actually) for proofing purposes.
If you're worried a 14 bit monitor is more precise than your printer, downsample for proofing. If you're worried you're less precise than your printer it isn't a new situation so there wouldn't be a new problem?

Posted 2 years ago #
TaoTeJared

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I am really trying to be helpful. This Focus is on something most of us don't even look at or care about. Those monitors are very, very nice but unless you have a few grand to blow and want to focus on that rather than camera equipment more power to you.

It seems that you got your head wrapped around marketing numbers and have forgot about making images. Bits, Gamut, bla bla, is all marketing hype with just a tad usable info.

Research workflow calibration.

I'm willing to bet my net-book prints more accurate than any of the 48bit hard-ons you two are talking about. Reason? I calibrated it and now it puts each bit in the right spot.:)

(IMHO - sRGB is only for web not workflow.)

Posted 2 years ago #
Gareth

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Yes all coments are welcome, I'm not dreaming about spending a fortune.

I shoot adobe RGB exclusively, I love the adobe rgb gammut. I want to be able to color correct in adobe rgb gammut and convert to print in as close to the same gammut as possible.

How can I do this on a 72% adobe rgb monitor?

TaoTeJared you said you calibrated your monitor, great, you will notice that all of the monitors I mentions included hardware calibration units and software.

You can calibrate a 72% monitor all you want and it will be accurate to print if you have set up a profile. But you wont be able to use or see 28% of the Adobe gammut.

I am not spending money for the sake of it, i started this topic to see what people thought BEFORE i spend money.

In all honesty I am looking at a 90-100% adobe rgb monitor with everything else standard.

I am wondering what color gammut are used by the printers in the city I live in and how to set up a profile that will be accurate when I print. But that will be a long process.

Re precise printing testing 123 (thanks for a detailed post) I never said I have a new problem, I just have a problem. I am not currently selling anything, so if it's not that accurate when printed, I am not that bothered. But after I am fully set up it will drive me crazy,I want to avoid the problems.

Posted 2 years ago #
jonnyapple

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TaoTeJared said:
...
(IMHO - sRGB is only for web not workflow.)

For most of us, this is completely true. Some people have an 8-bit workflow (jpeg shooters), and for most of them sRGB is what makes sense because in wider gamuts the most useful (common) colors aren't represented well enough in 8 bits.

Posted 2 years ago #

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Color Managed 14-bit workflow

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