Digital BW, The Print

>> Can someone give a good explanation of why a 2.2 gamma is standard on a PC
>> but a 1.8 on a mac? I'm doing B/W work on a G4/PS/GF/1160/Piezo machine and
>> trying to get things calibrated. This comes up as an issue regularly.
>> 
>> Brian 

There is monitor gamma, and there is working space gamma. The two are
independent and don't need to relate. The Mac 1.8 convention is for monitor
gamma. There is no recommendations against using a working space with a 2.2
gamma, like Adobe RGB. Even on the monitor side, when the monitor is
calibrated and profiled, and an image is viewed through a color management
aware program, like Photoshop, and including most recent web browsers, the
programs will compensate the display to view the image virtually
identically, regardless of the gamma selected. Many prepress Mac people are
now calibrating their monitors to 6500K gamma 2.2, whereas in the past the
standard was 5000K g1.8. They find they get a better screen to
lightbox/viewing booth match (in other words a batter match in a properly
controlled and calibrated viewing environment).

I'm no expert, I've just asked questions about this stuff on headier lists.
If you have a real interest in the subject I suggest you ask it on the Adobe
PS forum, or the Apple ColorSync list, where you'll get real answers from
real experts.

There will only be a problem if/when you view your images through less color
savvy programs. I don't know all of which are and are not color savvy, but
programs like Office, Pagemaker, Quark, etc, are on a case by case basis,
and very version dependent.

My bottom line: do a good monitor calibration at 6500K and either g1.8 or
2.2, use Adobe RGB for your RGB working space, and view your images through
current versions of programs, and you'll be alright. That goes for Mac or
PC. There are other options, but what I've stated above is the de facto norm
right now.

Todd

> If you use 1.8 gamma on a mac, it looks darker on a PC monitor. You can check
> out what it would look like on a PC clone under photshops View, Proof Setup
> window. When you choose windows rgb, the monitor goes darker. I've
> always read to keep the monitor at 1.8 for a Mac.
> 
> Jerry
> 
> 
> Brian Mikiten wrote:
> 

>> 
>> <snip>
>> Todd, I have never used the srgb colorspace or 2.2 gamma. I'm on a mac. I've
>> always used gamma 1.8 and Adobe RGB Color space.
>> 
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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> Please visit the Group Homepage to check the Files, Bookmarks, Polls and other
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> 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint
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