Digital BW, The Print

Darin Boville wrote:



> Gee, Photoshop seems to wok just fine...

I've never tried to fry up a copy of photoshop, but who knows, it might 
be good. ;-)

We recently tried to use Photoshop to convert a Nikon D2X raw file taken 
with a user-set white balance under low pressure sodium vapor lighting. 
ACR ignored the user-set white balance information and the converted 
image had a strong yellow-orange cast. It may have looked just fine to 
you, but the result wasn't "just fine" to the client.

My proposal to print the image in black and white was shot down, 
unfortunately. We ended up buying software from Nikon to deal with the 
image, passed about $1,300 in additional charges on to the client, and 
ate about that in lost productivity ourselves. So dealing with a single 
image from a $5,000 camera cost about $2,500. Not an impressive business 
outcome.

This is the result of Nikon's encryption scheme: to force changes in 
some of their users' workflows. Changes which the users don't want, in 
part because their old workflows worked fine, and in part because 
changing a workflow costs money. Even if you don't need new (and grossly 
overpriced) software, the cost of learning and adapting to a new set of 
practices can be significant to many users. I know some photographers 
think they have all the answers and that their simple ideas can be 
usefully adopted by all photographers, but that simply isn't the case. 
The controversy surrounding Nikon's move is real, and is grounded in the 
dollars and cents that some Nikon users are losing as they adapt to the 
greater control Nikon is exercising over how they can process their 
images. It is too bad, because the users unaffected by Nikon encryption 
would also be unaffected by a lack of encryption.

-- 
Jeff Medkeff
Eagle River, Alaska