Spectrophotometer Analysis of Crayons 40
Volhav writes "Like many as a child, the photographer Mark Meyer wondered what the difference between Yellow-Green and Green-Yellow was in that Crayola box of crayons. Using a monitor calibration tool and the Argyll 3rd party software he evaluated a box of 24 Crayola crayons, and plotted them out with sRGB values. He even included a nice printable poster size version of the chart in his blog post. For the geek or curious this was a pretty interesting plot."
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Thanks for catching the typo!
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Thanks for catching the typo!
So that's twice now you missed the "a box of 24 color box of" error?
Well, you're definitely a Slashdot editor.
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Well then, I feel dumb. FWIW everyone else missed the typo too... if you tag a story typo it makes a jabber bot yell at me so I look harder at the text to find things like that.
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I need that script/hardware :)
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Well then, I feel dumb. FWIW everyone else missed the typo too... if you tag a story typo it makes a jabber bot yell at me so I look harder at the text to find things like that.
Well damn. I was so used to Rob Malda's thick skin :-). If he ever felt dumb, he never told anyone so far as I know. No offense was really intended, just that Slashdot could really use a good copy editor sometimes. It would add that professional touch. I could do this. Typos like that practically leap out at me. I think the brains of most people unconsciously auto-correct things like that "box of" error and they don't easily notice. Mine does that too and the intent of the sentence is quite clear, o
For the geeks... (Score:2)
He's also on twitter: @markmeyerphoto
Just in case you want to say hi.
(Always pimpin' my fellow Alaskans)
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Thanks ak_hepcat.
Mrs. Grundy (a.k.a. @markmeyerphoto)
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Are you the one who got Palin off the streets and into politics?
Real spectrophotometers (Score:3)
Note that chemists have real recording spectrophotometers, not just monitor calibration gadgets. I spent way too long in my youth, if I recall correctly, classifying iron ore samples using one. Its a fairly elegant technique because accurate ultra wide range light sensors have been old stuff for decades. It seems like I took an entire 200 level quantitative chemical analysis chemistry class where all we did was F around with a spectrophotometer in different ways.
If I recall correctly, the infrared ones were the cats meow before NMR got "cheap" for classifying organic compounds.
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TFA says it's an i1Pro which is a legitimate spectrophotometer—significantly more than a monitor calibration gadget, but less than an industrial, lab grade spectro.
Re:Real spectrophotometers (Score:4, Funny)
Note that chemists have real recording spectrophotometers, not just monitor calibration gadgets.
Oh, be quiet and just enjoy nerding out for once in your life already.
Some of us nerd out by pointing out our superiority, thank you very much!
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Note that chemists have real recording spectrophotometers, not just monitor calibration gadgets.
Oh, be quiet and just enjoy nerding out for once in your life already.
Some of us nerd out by pointing out our superiority, thank you very much!
The nerding out bit is he could get dramatically better results using an even more ridiculously expensive tool, if he wanted to.
The standard /. car analogy is you can measure the even-ness of the gap between the door and body using a kids 75 cent wooden ruler to maybe as much as 2 sig figs, but a machinist could loan you a $250 digital dial caliper to get at around 3 sig figs, maybe 4.
I'm surprised no chemist out there has run this exact experiment... I know I'd be tempted if I was still in that field and h
Re:Many ARE real spectrophotometers (Score:2)
Only the bottom end of the calibration gadgets for monitors use characterised colourimeters. Many of the medium and higher end monitor calibration gadgets are proper spectrophotometers. Typically many of the devices where one device is capable of doing the entire colour workflow from scanner to monitor to printer and compare them to pantone charts are the real deal. The i1 PhotoPro is also roughly 10x the cost of your run of the mill "monitor calibration gadgets" like the i1 Display.
In this case his results
Two questions (Score:3, Funny)
Has anyone done a similar plot evaluating the taste of the crayons?
And who pinned these mittens to my jacket?
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On the other hand, black crayons taste just like that black stuff I dig out from under my toenails every now and then.
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oh shit Richard Stallman is onto graphic design! Quick! alert Apple fanboys!
You should not patent rounded corner rectangles Apple, here look my toe nails, they have rounded corners since the beginning of UNIX time, are your iPads edible? because I know my toenails are. Stop thwarting the freedom of the rounded rectangles with your sub-par implementations.
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That reminds me of one of my very favorite old Peanuts cartoons:
Lucy brings Linus a steaming mug, and says "I brought you a mug of hot cocoa."
Linus tastes it and says "It tastes like hot water with a brown crayon dipped in it."
Lucy tastes it and agrees, saying "You're right. I'll go add another crayon."
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It is now. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Knowledge (Score:3)
Why didn't I think of this!? (Score:2)
I "work" with color science. We have an X-Rite spectrophotometer just sitting around. Takes an artist's thinking, I suppose.
I ran into a paper a while back where the author captured spectrum of 100s of "natural" objects. Rocks, leaves, skin, etc etc. Made for an interesting chromaticity diagram.
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Obligatory... (Score:2)
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Well, what's cool is that the first image in the blog post is a graph of the spectra of each of the crayons.
crayon-driven plotter? (Score:2)
does it exist?
He did WHAT!!!???!!! (Score:1)
But...but
Release the lawyers!! Let the DCMA slaughter begin -- Leave No Chemist Standing!!
(...and someone get me Jackson about tha
Not a spectrophotometer (Score:2)
A monitor calibration tool is not a spectrophotometer, its a spectroradiometer.
sRGB conversion? (Score:2)
Has anyone done the conversion to sRGB values via CIELAB?