Abstract

The world described in photographs is usually in color today. Applied uses of the medium in particular, such as repro and advertising photography, not infrequently go hand in hand with the promise of chromatic fidelity. But what exactly is behind such an approach to color photographs? Using the example of a photographic process that is described as faithful to colors, the apparative conditions for digital color are studied and the ideas on which they are based are examined critically: The process reveals decisions and settings made in advance that concern calculation and technology and from which the error-prone subject of the photographs is largely excluded also for economic reasons.

The process of transferring goods virtually serves not least to make the materially absented present visually as exactly as possible. Achieving chromatic accuracy in digital photographs thereby functions within the apparative conditions; epistemically, however, it ultimately remains only an invisible and predetermined capability of the photograph.

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