[Gimp-developer] Haze on GIMP 2.4 image - Should this be a bug report?

[Hal V. Engel]

On Sunday 06 January 2008 11:52:49 Mark Lowry wrote:
> The reason I asked is that my goal when
> post-processing is to end up with a print that looks
> like my screen.  

This is one goal that users should be able to achieve.  But I would take it 
even farther by saying I want what is on my screen to match what I saw when I 
snapped the shutter (before I start changing the image in an editor).  And 
for that to also match what comes out of my printer.

> When I print from Windows Picture & 
> Fax Viewer, it looks like what I see on the screen.  

You were lucky since this usually does not happen for most users.

> I 
> assumed that printing from GIMP would give you a print
> that looked like the image that is open in GIMP, but I
> guess that's just silly.  Who would want that?

Most everyone wants this.   The real question/issue is what is the 
proper/reliable way to achieve this.  If you do not have your color 
management properly setup for your whole imaging workflow you will have 
difficulties getting this kind of result.    GIMP now has some color 
management awareness and can, if properly setup, color manage images on the 
computer display.  This also means that if it is not properly setup that you 
could end up with very strange results as you found out.  As far as I know 
GIMP is still missing the functionality to directly support a color managed 
printing work flow.  But at least on Linux and some other platforms this can 
be handled using other tools such as PhotoPrint.

Setting up proper color management is not a trivial task and it also requires 
some specialized hardware and software.  Not too long ago this hardware and 
software was considered to be very specialized and was also expensive.  In 
the last few years the cost of the hardware has declined significantly and 
there are two cross platform open source software solutions (IE. the software 
can be free).  Most users can now afford to create custom profiles for at 
least their input (camera, scanner..) and display devices.  Many printer and 
paper vendors offer free printer/paper specific profiles for Windows and OS/X 
users that approach the quality of custom printer profiles.  Now days it is 
possible to get everything you need to do proper color management on a 
Windows or OS/X system for under $100 (a color meter and a profiling target 
such as an IT8.7 target) assuming you can get good printer profiles from 
either your printer or paper vendor.  Just two years ago this would have cost 
at least $350 perhaps more and it was difficult to get free printer/paper 
specific profiles.  For Linux users and Windows and OS/X users who can't get 
free printer profiles it is possible to get custom printer profiles from 
vendors that do this sort of thing for as little as $25.  I expect that over 
time we will see farther reductions in these costs but this is clearly to the 
point where almost anyone can afford to do this the correct way.  Most of the 
existing barriers to users doing this are in the areas of awareness and 
education.

Hal

>
> ..... Mark
>
> --- Sven Neumann <sven at gimp.org> wrote:
> > > 2.  If Try to use... is left checked, and printing
> >
> > is
> >
> > > done through GIMP, should I expect the printed
> >
> > result
> >
> > > to be different from the version printed through
> > > Windows Picture and Fax Viewer?
> >
> > What does the monitor profile have to do with
> > printing? Nothing.
> >
> >
> > Sven
>
>      
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