My simple premise is that the legacy 1.8 and 2.2 gamma for displays and working spaces are flawed (no one's fault really) in that these functions do not match with human vision. Clearly many of the color management experts are correct in that the ICC process will iron out these issues, and that with 16 bit images it's a mathematical moot point. However in my personal opinion as a digital photography specialist, the gamma gradations in working color spaces and displays have resulted in tremendous confusion for end users. The decisions by ECI and ISO should be applauded as these organizations have introduced a sound, logical improvement that will allow digital photography and printing to mature to new levels of consistency worldwide. I think what we are experiencing in these forum discussions is a gradual process of people trying to grasp these changes as they have become accustomed to one way of working and thinking for over a more than a decade-especially in the US where for some reason people feel that Adobe could do no wrong. In the L* based workflow a physical 50L (the middle of the LAB model) is mapped to 128,128,128 (the middle of the digital RGB model) When the display is also calibrated to L* there is a wonderful 1:1:1 relationship. Sure ICC moves tones around to make all this work in other environments such as Adobe RGB/2.2 Gamma, but my feeling is that we are over-relying on math to fix tonal relationships that could be correct from the start. I am not a color scientist, or a math genius, but I would prefer a process that requires the least alteration through the workflow. And as a photographer, I respect the nature of human vision. In 1999 I was involved in a project at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we needed to photograph the famous Unicorn Tapestries in extremely high resolution. Using a Leica scan camera suspended on an overhead rig these artworks were photographed in 3X3' tiles. The resulting data was so large that we could not assemble the full resolution images, but the artworks were only available for two weeks to be photographed. Several years later with the help of some mathematicians and the use of their super computer we were able to assemble the data. Here is the interesting thing and why I bring this up: every single piece of equipment used on this project is long since obsolete the top of the line Macintosh workstation is most probably in a junkyard in the US somewhere, the Leica camera was long since discontinued. Photoshop is many versions newer, but many of the core flaws in Photoshop still exist from over a decade ago. On the positive side, If we photographed the Unicorn tapestries today we could capture higher resolution images and with a loaded computer and the photomerge function of photoshop we could perform the assembly on the desktop. The work a decade ago at the Met Museum and the media exposure of the project may have inspired Adobe to add the photomerge funtion so in many ways everything is inter-connected. NOVA | scienceNOW | Profile: Brothers Chudnovsky | PBS If you look at this whole experience from the point of view of the artwork on a timeline of hundreds of years. The entire digital revolution is simply a tiny moment in the life of these incredible artworks. While all of that computer equipment is gone, the Unicorn Tapestries are still hanging on the wall for all to see. So for those that have gotten so involved with computers that Apple, Adobe and Microsoft have become your primary reality, I suggest that you go to a museum and look at the incredibly powerful things people have created without the crutch of technology. After spending time in front of art objects that are hundreds of years old, you realize that the computer at best can only simulate reality, and that as humans we can only experience images with our eyes (so far). Photography has always been a curious mixture of science and art, and the methods of photography also predate computers by many many years. The LAB color model also began to form up over a hundred years ago. The way I look at this particular moment in the history of imaging, is that the technology has just started to mature and the ECI/ISO standards are one of the first steps of that process. The sooner we learn to respect the work of people in the past, the sooner we will enjoy the benefits of the digital age. There are unlimited possibilities that computers offer that have yet to be explored but it is always good to take a step back and take a fresh look. Scott Geffert