Quote:
|
but I've been tossed around in Photoshop enough to know that the eyedropper doesn't deal with optical mixes, it just grabs a pixel's worth of color
|
Steve the eye dropper has different settings, (Depending on the version of Photoshop you use) They are single pixel which is not that useful most of the time, 3x3 pixel average and 5x5 pixel average. I used the 5x5 pixel sample setting when I did my tests but of course it is still just sampling colors from the scan and if it is not color matched to the original then all color data is false anyway.
It is hard to pick out the exact pigments used when looking at a original painting never mind trying to make a observation from a scan on a computer screen. Conservators go as far as looking at pigment particles through a microscope to determine what the old masters used so I am sure we could find out exactly what colors were used in a area of a painting using such scientific methods if we had access to these paintings and the equipment but since none of us do we are all just speculating based on educated guesses.