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The ColorChecker, photography's most important 24 squares, turns 50

62 points - last Tuesday at 10:54 PM

Source
  • nayuki

    today at 5:56 AM

    I didn't learn much from reading this article. Questions linger in my mind, for example: What are the CIE XYZ coordinates of each colored square? What is the spectral distribution of each square? How were the colors chosen?

      • willtemperley

        today at 6:41 AM

        The Wikipedia article is far more informative, though I'm uncertain if read the full dpreview article due to ad-induced nausea.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorChecker

        • michaelt

          today at 9:12 AM

          > What are the CIE XYZ coordinates of each colored square?

          In the most expensive versions, they measure each individual patch, in case printing imperfections make the colours slightly different. And of course because you can’t get the exact same inks when a product is 50 years old!

          > How were the colors chosen?

          Skin and foliage; primary colours; greyscale; and miscellaneous.

          They also make a 140 colour patch version - the “ColorChecker Digital SG” - that provides more coverage; 14 different skin tones instead of 2 for example!

          • jey

            today at 6:13 AM

            You sound like you actually want to just generate them yourself using ArgyllCMS `targen` and `printtarg`.

              • rustcleaner

                today at 6:26 AM

                I don't know about him but yes yes I do and you should want to, too! :^)

                  • today at 6:28 AM

            • eviks

              today at 6:06 AM

              These aren't appropriate questions for the birthday party

          • isomorphic

            today at 5:10 AM

            These are great, even for manually-adjusted color workflows.

            Fun fact, though: You have to replace them every couple of years (or sooner) because no pigment/dye is stable, especially if exposed to bright light.

            Having a test shot with one of these in it saves you untold amounts of pain later.

              • Wistar

                today at 5:47 AM

                Many of them, especially the smaller hard-case versions, have a space to write date of first-use.

                • tyffanypastecf

                  today at 7:16 AM

                  [dead]

              • jimnotgym

                today at 9:20 AM

                Nostalgia! I don't remember them coming out, but I was involved in setting up Calibrite. I was more involved in the monitor calibrators (my team developed the new software) and the infrastructure.