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V O L . X X I N O. X X S E P T E M B E R 7 , 2 0 1 5 28 a commercial photographer and technology inventor based in Westbrook, became an early adopter of digital photography, opening New England's fi rst digital studio in 1991. With his wife, Colette, he established Howell Ltd. as a studio business doing catalog work for a client list that included Cuddledown, Talbots and Angela Adams and then, after the 2008 reces- sion hit, pivoted by turning his attention to devel- oping multiple technologies related to digital imag- ing and light science. Both have learned how to weather the inevitable setbacks — most notably the crash of 2008 — in part by paying close attention to customer service but also by continuing to innovate in their respective arenas. at openness to innovation is what brings them together in a deadline-driven job using Howell's patented Artemis color proofi ng system to fulfi ll Kahn's needs for color-accurate images of thousands of multi-colored, multi-shaped beads in his inventory that will be posted on a new website this fall. A change in vendors for Caravan Beads' website provided the impetus for that project. It comes at exactly the right time for Howell, who is fi nding it to be a perfect "proof of concept" opportunity to demonstrate the eff ectiveness of the Artemis system's ability to produce color-accurate images of thousands of small items straight off the camera. "Barry understands this is a young technology," Howell says. "It's like a Bath Iron Works ship on sea trials: You just don't know how it's really going to work until you start pounding against the waves … I need to see where the weak links are. is arrange- ment gave us a chance to do the 'sea trials' with a cli- ent who is realistic and understands there are going to be problems that we'll encounter along the way." Proving the concept A former Fairchild Semiconductor executive with an academic background in astrophysics, Howell says the Artemis system tackles the intrinsic problem of color photography dating back to the fi lm era: e fact that it uses just three colors — red, green and blue, or RGB — to replicate the full spectrum of col- ors visible to the human eye. In the fi lm era, he says, photographers compensated for the inherent color biases of the diff erent fi lm brands by knowing which ones were best suited for particular lighting condi- tions and subjects and by using fi lters and lighting as corrective tools. Although digital photography makes it much easier to adjust the camera's color sensitivity even before shooting the subject, there's still a need in high-end catalog work to make color corrections of the images before printing or posting online to make sure they match the color of the subjects being depicted. at adds to the cost. For Kahn, whose online catalog features liter- ally thousands of beads in various types, colors and sizes, achieving accurate color is more than an aca- demic problem. e Miyuki Delica cylinder-shaped Japanese seed beads sold by Caravan Beads, for example, come in more than 1,100 colors. "Our cus- tomers range from the person who doesn't care that much, who says 'Blue is my favorite color' and the range of what is acceptable as 'blue' is very broad, to someone who wants a particular shade of blue and will send the beads back if their color doesn't match what they were looking at on our website when they placed the order," Kahn says. Achieving the right color straight out of the digital camera, he says, greatly reduces those "lost in trans- lation" customer complaints — not to mention the added time and expense involved in making refunds and sending a replacement batch of beads with the hope that they'll be closer to the desired color. Howell says the Artemis system overcomes the limitations of a simple one-shot RGB capture of an image through a patented multiple-shot capture that applies science to the art of color perception. In simple terms, instead of capturing single values for red, green and blue, it provides the equivalent of a RRR-GGG-BBB exposure in one shot for a more nuanced capture of the subject's true color within the continuum of the human visual spectrum. "As an astrophysicist you get really, really good at understanding light," he says of the scientifi c knowledge and curiosity that's spurred his testing and development of a digital photography system P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY F O C U S » C O N T I N U E D F R O M C O V E R Barry Kahn, co-owner of Caravan Beads, left, and Paul Howell, co- owner of Howell Ltd., review images of beads created on the patented photography system 'Artemis,' which produces color-accurate images of small items, at Howell's studio in the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook. Proof of concept Caravan Beads and Howell Ltd. test new color imaging technology

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