Color Question
11/09/2013Color accuracy is a major challenge for my camera, scanner, and monitor. The images for my pending review of Rohrer & Klingner Cassia are a good example of the argument between my electronic co-workers and me. The three of them think the ink is blue-purple where I perceive red-violet. They won’t listen to me and keep spitting out images that don’t match reality, that piece of paper on my desk with swatches of color. But there is the possibility that my crew is showing me something different from what you see. In other words, it is possible my three devices are blue-biased and yours is not? So which of the two sets is more accurate on your monitor?
An Inkophile's Blog 
The bottom set/
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Thanks for the reply. That’s the set I adjusted. Does that mean that if I adjust my monitor to show the correct color, the images will be correct also? Yikes. This is over my head to be sure.
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I think the first for me. Not quite as blue, but it’s closer than the second.
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Now I’m totally confused.
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I was just basing my comment on R&K because I don’t have Waterman Purple. In my actual (offline) swatch, Cassia really is a straight ahead purple without being too blue or red – so that is why I picked the first. Mine is also darker than your swatches, but I used a dip pen instead of swabbing.
Sorry to confuse you! I think really everyone’s screen will probably be different, so just do the best you can to get it close to the color on your paper.
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The bottom set is VERY red-violet. But the top set is not blue-violet. It looks neutral violet to me.
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How does the purple on the label appear? http://www.jetpens.com/Rohrer-Klingner-Writing-Ink-50-ml-Bottle-Cassia-Cassia-Purple/pd/7418
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I only have Waterman Purple. It looks closer to your first one on my MacBook Air 11″ – I will drag out this ink and experiment. I assume the paper you are using is Rhodia?
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Yes, it’s Rhodia. Did the lines give it away? 😉
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Maybe
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I am looking at my personal sample of Waterman purple on Rhodia paper. It definitely has red and blue components. That is why I said that the bottom sample is closer. What I would do is to take a picture of your samples. White balance the camera first using a blank white sheet of paper as a reference. Then, compare the photo on the monitor with your scans on the same monitor.
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That’s a good suggestion. Will do it tomorrow.
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Definitely first one, but a little bit pinkier in reality… Not second one, too much red for them…
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Bottom looks more accurate for the Cassia on my screen, but top looks more accurate for Waterman. Argh!
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Aargh, indeed! Too much time spent tinkering with images when I’d rather be writing or painting. But if ink reviews are to continue, this has to get sorted one way or another.
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I have Cassia, viewing this on a MB Pro. The top one is closest for me. Not *quite* that far blue shifted but close. In reality my bottle of Cassia is strongly blue leaning, while the bottom image skews magenta for sure.
I just checked my iphone…not sure if all apple LCDs are calibrated the same way, but it’s the same story there.
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Actually I just double checked, and the top one is dead on accurate for my bottle of Cassia. I don’t know if R+K bottles vary as much as say, Noodlers, which for me vary wildly. Just throwing out the possibility that my bottle’s color is not the same as yours.
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You may be onto something. I began to wonder that this morning.
Thanks for checking the color. I’m just going to post the images as photographed. Hopefully, they aren’t too misleading.
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The actual color is somewhere in the middle of the two scans after looking at it more closely…
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I chuckled at your comment. Really. Getting color right is like rolling dice. You win sometimes and other times, not so much. 🙂
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I think what I would do is to take pictures of the paper than trying to scan it and color correct it. Just white balance it before you take the pics. Try it and post it here and see if it is any closer to the original.
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Will do tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestions. 🙂
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According to the ink colorimetry site http://www.rmimaging.com/projects/inks/inks.html, R&K Cassia is R=92 G=59 B=175 in the sRGB color space (for some reason all R&K inks are listed under ‘Schreibtinte’), which looks closer to the top one to me.
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That’s an interesting chart. I’ll see what I can do with it. Though it is useful to see an ink’s properties through a scan, unretouched photos might be the solution assuming my old camera is relatively accurate. Some colors never seem to come out right without tons of fiddling. Now if I could just make that part more fun…
“Schreibtinte” is printed at the top of the R&K label and means writing ink. Whoever did the the tests probably didn’t know the brand name even though it is at the bottom of the label and on the back as well. Good catch on your part for matching the ink names to the correct brand.
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