Re: [photo-3d] Accuracy Debate

["David Lee" <koganlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have to think about it some more, but I believe that film that
> renders flesh tones "neutral" should render everything else "neutral"
> also.

I'm not sure what the meaning of "neutral" is here, but from my experience
as a color printer I found that only one color in an image can be rendered
accurately, all the others are going to be off to some degree. The same
would be true with transparency film, and it is often worse since you don't
get a chance to do multiple iterations as you do in printing and are stuck
with what you got (unless you want to change the overall color balance on a
duplicate). The reality of this struck me when I got a device called a
Macbeth Color Checker. It is a chart with a gray scale and 18 colors
representing things such as skin color and foliage, as well as red, green,
blue, cyan, yellow, and majenta. It costs $30 to $40 and is available at
professional photo stores. If you photograph it with a few different films
you will quickly realize that what you see is not necessarily what you get.
However, this is an excellent tool to help you predict what you are going to
get.

As for the flesh tones being rendered accurately, since no more than one
color can be rendered precisely it makes sense that Kodak (on at least some
of their films) aims for skin color since so many people are photographed,
and it is more jarring when it is rendered poorly.

David Lee