Colours aren't Colours
Art reproductions, as they represent rather special cases in the already quite subjective Fine Art printing realm, follow their own rules. Of course the individual crafts, from image capture to any kind of printing, aim for consistency in their own domain by implementing their respective industry standards, but often it is the artist's final touch which gives a series of prints their own soul, sometimes even at the expense of overall consistency – in regards to the original work – as it seems. Why is that?
The inner eye
Basically this apparent paradox boils down to a wide-spread confusion about the nature of colour. As children we learn that bananas are yellow and oranges are, well, orange in colour. But are they? If colour was a mere attribute of an object observed, wouldn't then all photos ever taken of the object with the same camera show the same colour when compared side by side? This would only be true if one condition was met: when lighting conditions were identical for all shots. Knowing that colours are the product of light bouncing off matter, we realise that how we remember an artwork very much depends on how it was lit when we connected with it the most. I doubt that individuals ever truly see
the same artwork, as their colour perception, context and memory differ. How can one then get a reproduction's colours right
at all?
Matter matters
Prints aren't duplicates. Original artworks and prints always differ in materials, textures and finish. Therefore light will respond differently to them as well. You can however attempt to capture an artwork's colour appearance in one single given situation. Just one. And if all goes well, you will achieve a result that looks the same as the original whenever you recreate the light conditions of that situation. To introduce reliability into their processes, both photographers and printers alike, defined their standard illumination. I better say illuminations, because they are not the same unfortunately. The biggest difference is how white
they are – the so called white point measured in temperature. That is why lights at photo sets radiate a rather cool light (D65, 6500 Kelvin) and lights used to inspect prints appear warmer (CIE D50, 5000 Kelvin). You might know these white points from your computer monitor. There is of course more to the illuminants, for example do they also describe how evenly energy has to be distributed across the spectrum visible to the human eye. You don't want to mistake a painting's shades of blue for greys. We've all been there with our socks, haven't we?
Don't Panic and Match On
Reality is not ideal. One cannot always shoot in a studio or bring the best lights to the set. Which means although one takes the utmost care with multiple colour checkers and camera settings, the colour capture may not be robust enough. And maybe the artist really likes how the artwork looks in the current exhibition, or artwork and reproduction are planned to be shown side by side at a different location. What worked great with artworks for me was colour sampling
– a process where colours of distinct areas or details of a painting are determined individually, using colour charts and, if need be, smaller lights for matching. The information is used for adjusting colours in post. CMYK and Pantone are good systems, if you are aiming for more conventional offset prints.
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For a RGB-focused process geared towards wiide-gamut Giclée prints however they suffice as supplemental references at best. To close the gap I created RGB colour guides (eciRGB v2) which are optimised for this use case: both have a slim design so one can comfortably position and hold them near a point of interest. One covers vibrant hues, the other comprises neutrals and pastel tones. Each colour gets shaded in nine steps towards both, white and black, each of these shades is labelled for short notation. Additionally this set of guides can be printed on a substrate of your choice with the production printer itself, if you want the ultimate match. I had great results with the Stylus Pro Series large format printers and the SureColor SC-P9000 Violet Spectro from Epson. Of course, any colour-managed equipment and process should work as well.
RGB Colour Guide – Main810 KiB
RGB Colour Guide – Neutrals & Pastels683 KiB
Use at your own risk (also see legal notices).