June 14th, 2010 - Color Choices for a 6-bit Palette
The original Macbeth ColorChecker Color Rendition Chart was introduced in the summer of 1976, and was “developed to facilitate quantitative or visual evaluations of color reproduction processes employed in photography, television, and printing…” . It was a tool to provide a window back to reality and was largely based on colors used for “analytical studies” (although a few simulated colors are supposed to represent human skin, foliage, blue sky, and a blue flower).
Along with these colors, for this first test, we chose colors for our custom target that would better simulate the colors that would be found in common gallery environments- ones directly measured from life, as well as reproduced skin tones from google. Essentially, our color target blends historically important colors that photographers have relied on to determine accuracy with colors that extend the experiment to evaluate the effects of quantizing the real. The nature of the 6-bit image will always exaggerate and expose the inherent error within the scientific representation of reality.
A summary of the colors initially chosen for the 6 bit image posted on June 12th:
- The 24 original color patches of the original ColorChecker- a nod to one of the most photographed objects and utilized color control devices of all time. Read more about it here: http://www.ryanboatright.com/Images/ColorChecker%20Introduction.pdf
- 10 different color patches representing a myriad of skin tones and ethnicities seen through google.
- 30 various life readings from a domestic person’s wardrobe (pants, shirts, shoes, hats, gloves, etc…)
Total: 64 different color possibilities
The colors were all printed with an Epson 4880, and then read with a spectrophotometer. When an image from google was used, it was printed, read with a spectrophotometer, re-printed, and then re-read. This is an important step considering that we are thinking to include a large color target in the space of the installation. All readings need to be measured off the printed color target itself.
