When did you first understand the importance of color to the photographic process?
For many years before switching to digital photograph, I shot and printed in B&W. As soon as I got my first digital camera (Canon 10D) I understood the importance of color in my workflow. That was about 20 years ago…
What is the most important aspect of color management that an aspiring photographer should know?
Every aspiring photographer has to make sure that the monitor he/she is using is properly calibrated. There is such variety of monitors on the market that it’s critical to properly calibrate the monitor we use for editing photographs. This allows us, the photographers, to deliver consistent colors in our photographs both through web sharing as well as printing through 3rd party labs.
Give an example of the ways in which a solid knowledge of color management (or an accurate color environment) helped you – on a project? In a consultancy situation?
One on our businesses to is to print photography competition prints for other photographers. Those prints are sent and judged but some of the toughest photography judges in the worlds. There is no other way for us but to make the best prints for our clients. Without solid knowledge of color management our prints would not be consistent and hurt our photographer clients during competitions.
Why are you committed to using X-Rite products?
We have been using X-Rite products for over a decade. Through our experience X-Rite products produce the most consistent and highest quality color result. X-Rite products also offer full cycle of products from capture, viewing, to printing. This way we can be sure that our colors are correct from the moment we capture a frame till we made the final print.
How important are the latest color management tools in today’s industry? Why?
Color management tools are as important now as they were in the past. There are so many manufactures across the globe that without proper color management across the board it would make it impossible to have right colors with every assignment.
What does the (near) future hold for the photo industry, in your opinion? Do you think color management will be more or less important – why?
We have been bombarded with online photographs more now than ever before. I strongly believe that because everybody sees thousands of online photos, people get drawn a lot more to printed photographs. For that reason, I think for those photographers that produce prints (on any medium) color management continues to be extremely important. I am not sure whether it’s more or less than in the past, it’s simply important.
How is color management related to your artistic process?
Color management has many components. First, we need to make sure that our camera and RAW processing is properly calibrated to give us the best color results straight from the camera. Our monitors must be properly calibrated and consistent across all the workstations. Then we need to have proper printer calibration to produce prints that match our monitors. Even if we create artistic color grading and toning, proper color management allows to make sure the same artistic colors are printed.
Do you see color management as an advantage for saving money?
Oh yes! Especially when making your prints! Without proper color management and printer profiles we would need to make multiple prints of each photo to match our monitors. Without proper color management we would never be sure that our colors are printed properly. Even after making numerous prints. We all know that ink and fine art paper is not cheap, so having proper color management workflow saves us a lot of money every year!