M11 adopts the Japanese~American look to color science

[hdmesa]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

The essence of LAB is the ability to edit the colour channels separately from the luminosity channel. The linking of luminosity and colour is the limiting factor of editing in RGB. It is one of the main reasons why I always edit in Photoshop. Apart from other advantages I regularly switch to LAB for colour tweaking. CMYK is not suitable for editing a photographic process and will reduce your gamut dramatically. It is of course the space that your printer will use in the end.  

I thought no one uses CMYK unless it’s actually printed on a printing press (hundreds or thousands of copies). Aren’t most photographic prints done straight from RGB?

[jaapv]

Yes. That is the way it is used. But  look at the cartridges in your printer. CMYK. It converts internally. 
The difference is additive vs. subtractive. 

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Jeff S]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

Yes, but can you edit the channels separately? 

Not really.  One can, for instance, manipulate the temp/tint sliders and see the a/b effects under the histogram, but there is no LAB mode for editing as in Photoshop.

Jeff

[frame-it]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

The essence of LAB is the ability to edit the colour channels separately from the luminosity channel.

 

[idusidusi]

On 6/4/2022 at 6:05 AM, John Black said:

Pretty much agree Adam.  I've owned every digital M generation and don't remember Leica advertising any given model as mimicking XYZ film.  There are some other handling / function issues that bug me about the M11, but color is one area where I think the M11 does well.  I am hesitant to say that every M11 DNG starts in a better place vs this or that previous digital M, but it is not too often I see something that looks really out of whack.  Thus far, the Leica M11 raws have been the most malleable in terms of moving around colors in Capture One and Photoshop.

Agreed I am very happy with the M11 and it's results I can get in all manual mode or auto ISO, auto speed, and I choosing the aperture. If I am not happy I resort to either Overgaard or Cobalt film emulations for a few of my images. I cannot believe how long this thread is so far.

[jaapv]

Very nice basic LAB techniques. I only caught one mistake. Converting LAB-RGB is lossless so the number of switches is irrelevant. Kelby and Margulis agree on that. 

[adan]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

At some point I read that Photoshop's core processing code/engine actually operates (does its underlying math) in CIE-L*a*b* color space, in any case, all the time.

Because L*a*b*  is device- and gamut-independent. Saves having to write separate code to accomodate users who work in sRGB, or ProPhoto RGB, or Adobe-1998, or 16-bit or 8-bit, and so on.

One opens a file in any space, and Photoshop makes an L*a*b* "working copy" in memory. And processes that copy. Then displays the results of those changes to one's screen on the fly (and of course saves the changes to the file when requested) in one's chosen working space and format.

I know that my Photoshop can display L*a*b* numerical pixel values all the time (if desired) even when I'm working in Adobe-1998 working space with images opened/saved as Adobe-1998. So Photoshop "knows" the L*a*b* values of each pixel at any given instant.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Never forget that the limitations imposed by the user interface (what a user is allowed to ask the program to do with menus and keystrokes) do not necessarily reflect the limitations of the underlying processing code itself (what it is actually doing or capable of doing).

Someone who is a "deep-code" digger (maybe Adam Bonn) may be able to confirm or deny this.

[Jim B]

10 hours ago, hdmesa said:

I thought no one uses CMYK unless it’s actually printed on a printing press (hundreds or thousands of copies). Aren’t most photographic prints done straight from RGB?

It depends who’s printing them, and what equipment they have. In the US, if you are sending out to have a print made most of the consumer places, want an srgb 8bit jpeg. I print my own work on a canon prograf wide format printer. It uses 11 pigments, and one chroma optimizer and prints in 16 bit color. When I capture in 16bit, edit in 16 bit, and print from a 16bit tiff. It gives me smoother transitions, and a wider color gamut. 

For me, it’s imperative to have the paper icc profile so I can see to the best of my ability what the end result is going to be. 

Traditionally, I think everyone is taught, as I was, to edit in ProPhoto RGB color space. But in some situations I think it becomes stressful, having to re-adjust for color shifts when going to a smaller gamut like srgb for web. Japan color 2001, or generic CMYK still makes me nervous. An image not too long ago looked amazing on the monitor but when I had to output CMYK the blue shifted so dramatically I was really rattled, and unable to get the image to my original intent. Hopefully, it was close enough as I haven’t seen it yet.

[adan]

On 6/5/2022 at 1:14 PM, pgk said:

Explain to me how print materials have changed to show higher dynamic range. They haven't have they? So however much dynamic range you capture, it still has to be compressed in order to print.

As someone who has been "Present at the Creation" of digital printing for 30+ years (see previous posts), and traditional darkroom printing for 18 years before that....

Short answer - YES, things have changed quite a lot. Including "DR" - to the extent it has any meaning in printing.

Counter-question: Changed compared to what, and when? A traditional B&W silver print? Or a C-print from a color neg? Or a Cibachrome/Ilfochrome from a color slide? Or dye-transfer prints from a slide? Early CMYK four-ink inkjet prints? Monochrome-adapted Kkkk prints (e.g. Cone inks and RIPs)? Current CcMmYKkk prints, with eight inks? With printers using 120-picoliter ink "dots" - or 3.5-picoliter ink dots? On which paper and paper type? High-gloss? Soft gloss (with or without baryta undercoating or fiber base)? Luster? Matte? With how much "dot gain?"

I would say that today's 8-color inkjet prints on soft-gloss fiber paper at least equal the dye-transfer prints I made in college in the 1970s. And dye-transfer was the crême-de-la-crême process for color prints up until Kodak pulled the plug on the materials (1991-94), for reasons of market size, not quality. And are vastly better than the various earlier stages of ink-jet color (finer dots, and smoother transitions in the highlights and shadows thanks to the "light cyan/light magenta/light and light light gray" inks that can be dithered.

FlashGordon already discussed the very limited DR of Cibachromes and Ilfochromes.

As to B&W - what is the DR of B&W in a print? The "range" is always fixed as black to white. "Dmax" and "paper white." 0,0,0, to 255,255,255. Can't get blacker than black or whiter than white.

What counts is the separation of almost-blacks and almost-whites from pure black and pure white. The extremes of shadow and highlight tonal detail. And here again, the number of inks that can be overlaid has improved that.

I have lots of older inkjet prints where the near-whites look like a case of the measles - widely-spaced and obvious "dots" of pure black on white. Now those tones are smooth, even pools of dithered light-light gray dots (probably modulated with equal (small) amounts of yellow and light cyan and light magenta to produce yet another variable-pale gray.)

As has a software change (at least in the Epson/Photoshop drivers) to allow "black-point compensation." Which compares the black point of the image color space to the black point of the printer color space, and "boosts" the near-blacks slightly to get that needed separation.

Net-net, those improvements since about 2012-15, along with subtler-gloss paper, and better sizing to control dot-gain, have added about two stops of usable, visible detail to my prints, ~one stop at each end of the B>W scale.

Edited June 7, 2022 by adan

[pgk]

8 hours ago, adan said:

As to B&W - what is the DR of B&W in a print? The "range" is always fixed as black to white. "Dmax" and "paper white." 0,0,0, to 255,255,255. Can't get blacker than black or whiter than white.

What counts is the separation of almost-blacks and almost-whites from pure black and pure white. The extremes of shadow and highlight tonal detail. And here again, the number of inks that can be overlaid has improved that.

My point exactly. With increases in the dynamic range captured by cameras we have to make decisions regarding how we map these to produce prints we find acceptable, given, that is, that the paper prints have not, and can not, change dramatically. My point is how we remap greater shadw and highlight detail without this looking strange, or are our tastes in fact shifting?

[SrMi]

6 hours ago, pgk said:

My point exactly. With increases in the dynamic range captured by cameras we have to make decisions regarding how we map these to produce prints we find acceptable, given, that is, that the paper prints have not, and can not, change dramatically. My point is how we remap greater shadw and highlight detail without this looking strange, or are our tastes in fact shifting?

Good point. IMO, we lift the shadows more than before because we can. However, I am not sure that the pictures are better that way.

[adan]

7 hours ago, pgk said:

My point is how we remap greater shadw and highlight detail without this looking strange, or are our tastes in fact shifting?

1 hour ago, SrMi said:

However, I am not sure that the pictures are better that way.

C'mon, folks. You are conveniently moving the goalposts.

The question was "Explain to me how print materials have changed to show higher dynamic range." Which I explained.

Whether one wants more shadow and highlight detail, or likes more shadow and highlight detail in the work of others,  is not the question asked. A matter of opinion and taste.

Edited June 8, 2022 by adan

[pgk]

3 hours ago, adan said:

C'mon, folks. You are conveniently moving the goalposts.

A matter of opinion and taste.

Its an inherent requirement with high dynamic range sensors, if that is, you want to print anything. 'Progress' has moved the goalposts.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

The actual limitation is your monitor, not your printer. Even the best modern screens with 10 bit hardware don't come close to a modern ink printer in the hands of an expert. Whatever you can see on screen you can laydown on paper. Modern printers use a RIP to limit DR and gamut. The hardware is more than capable. It's been this way for a decade.

Gordon

[Photoworks]

7 hours ago, adan said:

C'mon, folks. You are conveniently moving the goalposts.

The question was "Explain to me how print materials have changed to show higher dynamic range." Which I explained.

Whether one wants more shadow and highlight detail, or likes more shadow and highlight detail in the work of others,  is not the question asked. A matter of opinion and taste.

I don't think he read what you put so nicely in the post. Some people prefer to use blinders and complain before give you some credit.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Photoworks

[Jeff S]

Nice to find a discussion about prints anywhere in the forum.  Ironic, though, in a thread originally based on the OP’s critique of forum screen pics.  😳

My digital print workflow hasn’t changed dramatically, in principle, from using the M8.2 and later using various cameras having modern sensors with high dynamic range capability.  In fact, basically the same challenges that existed in my film and darkroom days. Techniques and materials may have changed over time, but it’s always been mostly about user judgment, and deciding when, where and to what degree to apply those techniques. 
 

Jeff

[TheLeicaLook]

On 6/2/2022 at 11:10 PM, Jim B said:

That guy that got banned was right, the magic is gone

The last true Leica M was the Leica M10R.

From now on it’s just to lure the mirrorless Leica users. Partnership Panasonic cameras. 

To be fair, the Leica M10R is, as far as I’m concerned, the maximum that you can do with a Leica M rangefinder. Anything more than that will be inching closer to a Fuji XPro. Might as well give it IBIS, auto focus, EVF, why not? 

IMO, the M11 just doesn’t have the look and magic of the made in Belgium exclusively for Leica sensors. Something has happened between the Panasonic partnerships and the Sony sensors where the only thing that would make you want to buy a Leica M was the “experience of shooting with an M”, because in fact the  A7RIV and the M11 raw files look identical. 

But then, if you keep adding features to a “simple” M rangefinder and you get the same results as a Sony, then why would you buy a Leica M? 

How generic and user friendly do you want to make an M? How many more features does it need? Why does the Leica M have to sell in volumes like a Fuji? Why can’t it be a simple camera that only “crazy rich people buy”? I’m happy with that. I don’t want the M to be generic and easy to use, IBIS, an exposed USB port, etc etc with a Sony sensor. 
 

To be honest I have no clue where the M is going or what Leica is thinking, but I will own my M10R forever and I really don’t care for any future M rangefinders. The 10R does everything you could possibly want from an M. 

Edited June 9, 2022 by TheLeicaLook

[jaapv]

Funny. This post appears each time Leica brings out a new M 😂😇 the partnership with Panasonic is two decades old…. The last announcement was just a reaffirmation of vows  

[elmars]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb TheLeicaLook:

The last true Leica M was the Leica M10R.

From now on it’s just to lure the mirrorless Leica users. Partnership Panasonic cameras.

It is highly probable that the M10R Sensor comes from Panasonic btw a Panasonic daughter. 

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[LUF Admin]

Short notice: A user was banned. 

I stopped counting how often he was banned and re-registered… <sigh>

Andreas