NY Times Magazine Color Error

[Matt F]

I wonder what this was all about?

Can a man be seen on the cover of a national magazine wearing a pink shirt and still run for President?...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/magazine/312bwarner.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Editors' Note: Wednesday, March 15, 2006:

The cover photograph in The Times Magazine on Sunday rendered colors incorrectly for the jacket, shirt and tie worn by Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor who is a possible candidate for the presidency. The jacket was charcoal, not maroon; the shirt was light blue, not pink; the tie was dark blue with stripes, not maroon.

The Times's policy rules out alteration of photographs that depict actual news scenes and, even in a contrived illustration, requires acknowledgment in a credit. In this case, the film that was used can cause colors to shift, and the processing altered them further; the change escaped notice because of a misunderstanding by the editors.

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-- Pmatt
Gallery - http://www.silentcolor.com

 

[dinoSnake]

I wonder what this was all about?

Just the inaccuracies of reproducing color - anywhere, anytime. If you stay in one program for workflow you can somewhat control it, but once you go to 2 or more programs you can quickly lose control.

Why is it such a nightmare? After a while you almost throw your hands up in disgust.

The probable issue (and boy, do I know this issue) is that they probably scanned and brought it into Photoshop for retouching, then brought it into either Quark or InDesign for layout, then out to a RIP for the high-speed separations.

 

[AmanitaM]

On NPR, I heard the photo editor of the Times Magazine state:

1. They used "old film" that did not give good color rendition.
2. They liked the color alteration and thought it was edgy.
3. Warner's office called to complain, which prompted the "confession."

4. The photo editor was completely nonchalant about this deliberate alteration , which she signed off on while knowing it was inaccurate.

 

[Victor Engel]

So where are the pictures? I didn't see a picture with the named wrong colors in the article.
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http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 

[Laurentiu Todie]

There's no excuse for a blue shirt to print pink.
Pink is mainly Magenta.
Even on a PC the color would look at the most, purple,
and Macs have system-wide calibration;

the color difference among applications comes from low resolution layout previews compared to the high resolution of the Photoshop files and isn't that drastic.

Old negatives age the same way, regardless of the color they carry and previewing them is a visual skill of the professional printers, dot etchers, strippers, with or without the help of a copy-dot scan or Haseltine (analog negative composite previewing device from the late 70s : ).

The NYTimes is incompetent and hires help on the cheap.

 

[Victor Engel]

I've seen color messups in print where the color separations were swapped. That could easily result in a blue shirt turning pink, if, say, cyan and magenta were swapped. But then skin tones would look horrid.
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http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 

[Laurentiu Todie]

err… and even that scenario would be a result of incompetence. No? : )

They do make pre press color proofs at the NYTimes, don't they? : )

 

[Tom Rowland]

So where are the pictures? I didn't see a picture with the named
wrong colors in the article.

It was on the Drudger report, been on TV too. It looked like a cartoon to me. Skin tone was not that bad, but the purple coat looked like Jack Nickleson in Batman.

 

[Victor Engel]

err… and even that scenario would be a result of incompetence. No? : )

Yes.

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http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 

[Tom Rowland]

is here

http://observer.com/20060320/20060320_Gabriel_Sherman_media_newsstory2.asp

 

[Victor Engel]

http://aproportionalresponse.blogspot.com/

Not quite so cropped.
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http://www.pbase.com/victorengel/

 

[Tom Rowland]

and a better one here

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/03/fancyfrist_soun.html

 

[Laurentiu Todie]

nice beard!

oh! you mean the Times photo? : )
someone's playing with crayons at the Times (on purpose).

 

[peripheralfocus]

Guys, this was cross-processed infrared chrome film. The photographer shot it intentionally to produce crazy colors, in other words. There's no reason to believe that the NYT printers made any mistakes. The chrome almostly certainly looks pretty much the way the cover printed.

The NYT editors then picked the picture because they thought it was the most interesting shot of the guy (where, in this case, weird = interesting), and that it would get people to open the magazine. There are apparently some more normal pictures from the same shoot floating around; images not taken on cross-processed IR film. See the NY Observor story linked in another post on this thread for details.

 

[Yves]

Yes, I read all the posts here on this topic.
It is important to have, as much as possible, an accurate picture.
No?
No excuses.
A mistake is a mistake.
I just hope it was an honest mistake. We all make such.

Otherwise there will be a lack of credibility, already there I am afraid, about photographers because digital manipulation is so easy. Not a good thing when it comes to reporting.

 

[Laurentiu Todie]

Cross processing should be experimented with on shots of rockers or LSD users, not presidential candidates.

If that's the case, both the photographer and the editor are incompetent and inconsiderate.

They may have made the candidate look to some readers like he's using the Queer Eye guys as his official stylists : )
(not a big deal, but political struggle is hard enough without it)

 

[zenphoto]

Better one here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_enlargement.php?imageResId=5284096

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5283952
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Nikon D50 / Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 / Sigma 70-300mm APO / 2GB SD