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To: nopardons
BTW, as an artist I'm sure you're aware that since the development of television video displays and later, computer monitors, it has been a huge field of research and study to come up with a scheme for the displays/monitors that can produce accurate colors of reflected (subtractive) objects.

There are, as you no doubt know, many proposed mechanisms to translate between pigment colors and RGB monitor signals (e.g. Pantone). Artists who work on computers for websites have faced this problem for a few decades, and it's still not a solved problem -- there are only approximations.

Take an apple. Paint a picture of it. Take a photo of the painting. Display it on a monitor. Print it out on a high-quality color laser printer. They'll all be subtly different.

For millennia, humans experienced almost all colors as reflected light -- a sunlit garden, an apple tree, the face of a lover -- and our brains got very good at discerning color that way. The only additive light sources were the Sun (and you better not look directly at it), fire, lightning, fireflies, etc. which are all very transient. Even electric light bulbs -- who stares at a lightbulb expecting to see something? We only use it to illuminate reflective objects.

The introduction of TV displays and computer monitors changed that, and transmitted light sources are now common everywhere. Artists are still tearing their hair out trying to get a computer image to look exactly like their pigment-based creation.

As one trained in physics, but having many family and friends who are artists, I have watched this evolution for the past decades with great interest.

140 posted on 02/03/2025 9:52:19 PM PST by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: nopardons

Oops, overlooked something. Pantone is more generally associated with the CMYK printing process than the RGB transmitting process. But (at least according to my artist friends who also work with computers), one must become conversant in both systems to be able to do anything productive these days. :-)


142 posted on 02/03/2025 10:01:34 PM PST by dayglored (This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24)
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To: dayglored
As always, many thanks for your very informative comments!

I paint for enjoyment and to give to friends and family, so I have no trek with T.V. nor computers. Okay, I sometimes take pictures of the different cards I make ( which are on my phone and sometimes on my laptop ), but that's only because I like to have a personal record of things I no longer have. Hence I have no worries about how they will look on some machine.

Like many artists, yes, I do watch others on YouTube, to see what's new ( products ), get ideas from, and maybe learn a new technique. Does their works look different in person? I have no way of knowing that. And in the long run, it doesn't matter to me or others watching them.

What I can tell you, is that IF a new line of paint is reviewed and I buy it ( the "want monster" is pretty BIG with most of us who watch these videos ), it DOES look the same as it did on line. And I'm not just taking about the paint itself, but also the swatches.

144 posted on 02/03/2025 10:07:41 PM PST by nopardons
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To: dayglored

One interesting thing I have noticed with light and pictures is that the pictures never get the subtle colors that we see.

The place I’ve noticed it most was in FL walking on the beach at sunset. The water seems to have a silvery shimmer to it that NECVER shows up in pictures. And the colors of the sunset don’t have the vibrancy that they do in real life.


166 posted on 02/04/2025 4:24:07 AM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus)
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