QTR-Quadtone RIP

I think it important to “de-confuse” people about what gamma is.

Gamma was created only as a compensation for tube screens that (by default) compressed shadow tones extremely and needed a very heavy ramp-up in power to show a linear image. The industry fluttered for awhile and then settled on gamma 2.2 and the encoding algorithm to compensate for an image to then be fired analogue through a monitor that has no tone translation abilities of its own. That is the short story. Look it up on the googles for the long version.

It’s only a theoretical number that is a standard just to be a standard (or just to be backwards compatible). In short, it’s a dinosaur. Linearizing can be done for a gamma 1.0 image as it could be done for a gamma 3.2 (just picked a number out of a hat) image. A gamma 3.2 image in photoshop will be translated in photoshop internally and then be translated in the system/video-cart and then in the monitor to show exactly the same tones as 2.2. Go ahead and try it.

Encode a target in gamma 1.0 and print it and linearize that target. Then print an image in gamma 1.0. It will print the same as a 2.2 image with a curve calibrated for 2.2. These are all just bla bla numbers that are there as intellectual anchor-points so Joe's image that he creates on his system system will print the same on Jane’s system because everyone has just agreed that 2.2 is the way. It’s like the US currency. It’s the GAMMA DOLLAR.

The problem comes from the fact we generally don’t like how flat things look when the dMax is light. That linear line is no longer at a 45 degree angle so it makes the print look LIGHT slightly. We soft-proof and get expensive monitors to flatten the monitor-image out to look like matte papers but it’s not perfect. Sometimes we need a small curve applied to the image at-print that brings the contrast up a bit. This seems to make people happy.

Printing like this all comes at the cost of tonal fidelity (specifically in the shadows). 

None of it has ANYTHING to do with GAMMA. It’s not about matching gamma 2.2 on your monitor. That is not what it is. It’s about matching the contrast of your monitor which tends to be higher than what a matte print can produce.

best,
Walker