RockyNook is distributed by O’Reilly in Europe. Brad Hinkel wrote a book on colour management for digital photographers for them. Hinkel gives a good overview of the differences between sRGB and AdobeRGB but he doesn’t cover other spaces, except for ProFoto and even then very briefly.
While a book that explains colour management clearly and concisely is always welcome, Hinkel focuses on what in my opinion, are the wrong issues. For example, monitor brands and video cards are discussed but as we all know, brands, types and models of monitors are difficult to discuss in a useful manner as the market evolves continuously. Hinkel also doesn’t cover the best monitors and systems around. He covers what he knows, and that doesn’t go beyond the usual.
The book does contain some very useful advice with regards to working environment, viewing booth, etc. The quality of what is covered in the book is sometimes very high, sometimes almost useless. For example, Hinkel advises to profile your monitor to D65, but he doesn’t explain why, so if you don’t know much about colour management, you’re left wondering why.
Hinkel covers colour printing too. Good marks: he not only discusses Epson printers, but Canon and HP too. Bad marks: he doesn’t cover Raster Image Processors (RIPs) at all—all colour management discussed is on a printer driver level. That’s really too bad, because much colour management issues can be resolved by using a RIP.
The book also doesn’t touch on workflow and troubleshooting as much as I would have liked it to. Even the chapter on profile creation and management is shallow and won’t teach you much. This book is therefore, in my opinion, not a valuable addition to your library if you already have publications on colour management, such as Rodney’s Colour Management for Photographers—now there’s a book with in-depth information on colour management.
If you’re starting out as a photographer—amateur or semi-pro—then this book will at least not teach you anything wrong. It is all correct, but it is too little to be of value to anyone but the absolute beginner.
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