Edward J. Giorgianni

Edward J. Giorgianni

7/4/2025

Edward J. Giorgianni passed away peacefully at the age of 81 after a long battle with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. He is predeceased by his parents, Anthony and Olga Giorgianni, and brother Paul Giorgianni. He is survived by the cherished love of his life, his wife of 47 years, performing pianist, teacher, and author Jane Sharp Giorgianni. He is also survived by his son David Giorgianni and David’s life partner Anna Fortin, and by many dear cousins, friends, and colleagues.

Ed was a 1967 Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society graduate of the University of Rhode Island. Immediately following graduation, he joined the Photographic Technology Division of Eastman Kodak. He later transferred to the Kodak Research Laboratories, where he worked to develop new color science, physics, and methodologies for optimizing color reproduction for advanced photographic, electronic, and hybrid color-imaging products and systems. He was the principal inventor of the digital color technologies implemented in several Kodak commercial color imaging systems, including the Photo CD System, which received the Kodak Team Achievement Gold Medal Award, and the Cineon Digital Film System, which received a Science and Technology (OSCAR) Award from AMPAS, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In 2005, Ed retired as a Kodak Distinguished Inventor and Senior Research Fellow, but his work continued throughout his retirement. He became a technical consultant on digital color imaging technology to numerous corporations, law firms, and U.S. government agencies, including the FBI and the DOD. One of his principal and long-term retirement consulting positions was with the AMPAS Science and Technology Council. Based on Ed’s system design and on many of his prior inventions, the Council developed and implemented the ACES digital color system that is now widely used throughout the motion picture and television industries. For their contributions to this project, Ed and his team of colleagues each received individual Prime Time Technical EMMY awards.

During his career at Kodak and continuing through his retirement, Ed was an author and educator. He wrote numerous technical papers and journal articles and a contributing author to four textbooks on digital color technology. He was also the principal author of two editions of the textbook Digital Color Management: Encoding Solutions.

As an educator, Ed taught courses and mentored Kodak students in color science and color imaging for 25 years, and he was a multiple recipient of the Imaging Science and Technology Instructor of the Year Award. He also taught courses in the color science and technology of digital color imaging systems for the M.S./Ph.D. graduate program at the Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In 2008 he became an Adjunct Professor in RIT’s Motion Picture Science program, where he continued teaching courses based on his textbooks and his many years of industrial experience. In 2013, he was awarded the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) Gold Medal Award for career excellence in education.

In addition to his technical career, Ed was an avid bicyclist, a builder and flyer of radio-controlled model airplanes, and an audio recording technician He was also a keyboard player who wrote and produced music solely for his personal enjoyment using a complex array of computers, synthesizers and other electronic devices. With characteristic modesty and humor, he maintained that these devices were “absolutely necessary to compensate for my fundamental lack of any real musical talent”.

Ed will be greatly missed by his loved ones and by many friends, colleagues, and former students.