Accurate versus 'emotionally correct' colour.

Pole?

What pole?!

;)

As an aside she was hands down my favorite teacher in all twelve years. And well beyond the obvious she was incredibly intelligent, wise, and well grounded. That photo was taken around 45 years ago, she still teaches at a local university and we have run into each other several times in years since and always had great conversations.

[ATTACH=full]1381286[/ATTACH]

 

I wonder how many photographers have shot a sunset using Auto White Balance, and then wondered where the glorious red, oranges and yellows went in the produced image?

 

Of course, nobody here would have made such a tyro mistake(!), but that scenario got me to wondering if clinically precise colour accuracy was a good aim in most pictorial images.

 

I suspect there's an element of synaesthesia in all of us, that makes us have an emotional response to colours.

 

Probably nobody wants to see a green tint to skin tones, whether they were shot under tree foliage or in the middle of a verdant lawn. But that's what we'll usually get in those circumstances with 'accurate' colour reproduction. As well as blue shadows under a cloudless sky.

 

I guess I'm really making a case for going with what 'looks right' rather than blindly applying some colour profile or other and getting scientifically accurate colour. Because that's what I often did when darkroom colour-printing, long before the days of digital colour profiling from colour-checker cards and suchlike.

 

OTOH, I'm not suggesting we abandon such aids, but more take them as a suggestion, rather than a rigid regime.

 

What say you?

It depends on the application . If you are shooting Forensic, Journalism, medical, or product photography then color accuracy is a must. For most other things, it depends on what you are trying to relay to your viewers. A manipulated photo that has "emotional impact " is much more interesting than a dull, but accurate photo any day.

Sorry if I'm being repetitive -- too many posts to sort through before I address this issue of Auto-WB being an accurate rendition of a sunset; it isn't, it's just the camera trying to make the colors neutral. The same applies if you use a WB reference during sunset, which makes sense because if you look at the WB reference in the light of the sunset it isn't going to be very white. I generally find the most accurate color for sunsets is based on a daylight WB, though I often push it to a higher Kelvin for the sky but might stick with daylight WB for other elements and then blend the two to get a realistic (if not somewhat idealized) rendition of the scene.

OTOH, and related to that, I remember shooting a white piece of paper under an incandescent light and then using it to set the WB. Of course the resulting photo viewed on my calibrated monitor didn't look anything like what I saw with my eyes in front of me, specifically the wall and the lampshade were now neutral in the photo whereas looking at them I could see they were yellowish. Here's the thing though, the piece of paper beneath the incandescent light source appeared white to my eyes whereas if I corrected the WB in the photo to get the wall how I saw it then the piece of paper became more yellowish than how it looked to me as I sat their looking at it.

Our brains do some interesting things. It's hard to say where the line between real and interpreted is, and I think it fluctuates some for all of us and to different degrees for each of us. That said, and going back to the sunset colors, I suspect there is a WB setting that most would agree correlates in the photograph with what they can see when they actually look at the sunset.

Of course, sometimes greens and blues are just what the photographer wants to do with skin.

Or is the cross-processing just a conceit in an attempt to lend more interest to what's basically a snapshot on a bus?

The only interest/power that that snap has is the direct and disinterested stare of the woman into the camera/at the viewer.

I can't show the result here for © reasons, but a B&W conversion was just as effective IMO. Lending more weight to the cross-processing being a mere 'arty' conceit. And more of a distraction than adding anything meaningful.

Especially since cross-processing produces fairly random results outside of the control of its user. Giving a colour pallette that's far from deliberately chosen.

I agree that black and white can be more effective in some cases and that color can be distracting.

As well, color is more effective in certain cases and black and white can be distracting, especially in today's world of abundant color photography (which would not have been the case when only black and white photos were being made).

I generally go for black and white with a positive push where it just seems to be my dominant vision for the photo. I rarely feel a competing force between choosing color and black and white. On those rare occasions when I do feel like I'm having to decide, I kind of enjoy that tension and like noticing how and why I manage to choose between the two ... or opt to live with two versions.

It's usually that either color or black and white just speaks the language that I want to speak more than one or the other being distracting.

Late to the party because of a backpacking trip to Zion NP (again! Can't get enough), but something I've thought about in landscape work. I argue that when I get home after a week out, I don't really remember what the exact color balance was. How red or orange was the rock? By necessity, I adjust to what is pleasing to me. It is probably close to "real", but unless I took the print back to the spot on a similarly lighted day I can't pretend to say it is absolutely accurate.

Accurate versus 'emotionally correct' colour.

Is there a rule book about accurate colour? Is there a institution, a formal body of masters of photography, that judges such things as accurate colour? Pray do tell.

Or, are we talking about an old time tradition, of make believe?

The editing is all about the photograph and what works for it.

From the photographers, perspective and art: unless commercial compromises.

Rule book..... spectrophotometer?

I think precise and accurate measure is possible, but I'm not that good at carrying my gray card or color calibrating my camera. So far so good.

spectrophotometer?

"A spectrometer is an tool commonly used by astronomers which splits the light collected by a telescope into its colors. This allows astronomers see the details in the light from space."

Got it ;what the monkeys.

So, all I now need is a pixel count on my cam: just to make sure ,I've got the proper amount of pixels the brochure claims, Want to be a proper photographer,. and that means lots of big full frame pixels....bucket loads. And a proper grey card ,which has been verified, by proper photographers who write books and stuff. They are named.

My mate Sandy, and i, always count our pixels...but his not very good counting and stuff.

But hid dead good at square dancing, and the girls swoon, at his natural rhythm.

Is there a rule book about accurate colour? Is there a institution, a formal body of masters of photography, that judges such things as accurate colour? Pray do tell.

I can't tell if this is a real question or not. Accurate color is not limited only to photography. Color has been studied for many years, but the foundation for modern CIE color specifications was established in 1931.

For anyone with a technical bent, one of the best, everything-in-one-place, write-ups is Fred Bunting's 1998 historical/primer which was supplied with the X-rite Digital Swatchbook. I said one of the best, but in truth I don't know of anything better. Again, it's technical, but it puts all the pieces in place. Download the pdf from this link:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://silo.tips/download/the-colorshop-color-primer-an-introduction-to-the-history-of-color-color-theory&ved=2ahUKEwj-lIGVvPfvAhXEKM0KHQbxCCEQFjAMegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw15Al_XTSnia4VVfUd2g9uU

"Accurate color is not limited only to photography. Color has been studied for many years, but the foundation for modern CIE color specifications was established in 1931" Bill.

"Fred Bunting's 1998 historical/primer which was supplied with the X-rite Digital Swatchbook. I said one of the best, but in truth I don't know of anything better." Bill

Bless, Fred.

Sort of think he is talking about a railway track, which travels to the same place, to the end of time.

Jeez, wearing a straight jacket, must be really tight and uncomfortable.....sort of like some religious folk, who wear hair shirts, and flagellate themselves.

Pass on all that.

"Accurate color is not limited only to photography" Bill

Many of the artists, we consider as creative genius, ignored such silliness.

Indeed, they were always looking, at new techniques, different ways, untrodden before..

Just some amusement, an escape from the serious stuff. :and the dangers of acholic abuse.....being pissed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82RSwzexhr0

Many of the artists, we consider as creative genius, ignored such silliness.

Good one. I would say that some of the best, what you might consider "creative genius," pondered this mightily, trying to understand how color is seen and how to mix paints to create the impressions they wanted.

Whilst I was writing this you posted the da Vinci video, which I think well illustrates how he investigated and studied many various aspects. In other writing about Leonardo they give excerpts from his notebooks where one can see his thoughts about how colored light works, etc. I think it have been a revelation to him when Newton later used a prism to separate light from the sun into the spectrum, and then to recombine the spectrum into white light.

I don't think that Leonardo would have seen Fred Bunting's writing as silliness. Today's photographers, though, can easily ignore such things - the "giants" of color photography have put it all together for them.

Late to the party because of a backpacking trip to Zion NP (again! Can't get enough), but something I've thought about in landscape work. I argue that when I get home after a week out, I don't really remember what the exact color balance was. How red or orange was the rock? By necessity, I adjust to what is pleasing to me. It is probably close to "real", but unless I took the print back to the spot on a similarly lighted day I can't pretend to say it is absolutely accurate.

[ATTACH=full]1383449[/ATTACH]

No one else is going to take the photo back to the original spot either to compare colors. It looks fine.

spectrophotometer?

 

"A spectrometer is an tool commonly used by astronomers which splits the light collected by a telescope into its colors. This allows astronomers see the details in the light from space."

 

(snip)

Two different things. Spectrometers are for measuring the color (spectra) of a light source.

Spectrophotometers for measuring the absorption or transmission spectrum of something.

The usual design of spectrophotometers is for liquid, but you can stick non-liquid things

in them, and measure them, too.

For liquids, you normally do a difference, with one control sample, in special

(as in expensive) cuvettes, which are pretty much test tubes with flat, as in

optically flat, sides.

The beam is much bigger than a densitometer, but you might still be able to stick

a piece of film in and get the absorption spectrum for it.

Since someone brought up high school yearbook, though this picture wasn't in the yearbook.

(You can see people reading and signing yearbooks, as it is the last day of school.)

I didn't buy a yearbook, and realized that I wouldn't have anything to remember it with, and found

a half-price roll of Anscochrome 200. I believe this is available (fluorescent) light, though I had

flashcubes for some of them. Otherwise, it is a Canon VI rangefinder, probably with a 35mm lens.

Fluorescent lamps come in a lot of different colors, including "daylight". The colors here don't

look so bad, so maybe that is what they are. This was in a more recently built part of the school,

and seems to have a good amount of light.

Fluorescent lamps come in a lot of different colors, including "daylight". The colors here don't look so bad, so maybe that is what they are.

Glen, this photo is mainly illuminated by a flash; it's directly over, and very close to the lens. But you're right - aside from being pretty dark, the skin tones don't look too bad. But they're not a result of the ceiling lights.

Today's fluorescent lamps, especially the "environmentally friendly" ones, are much worse for good color. But at the same time the later films, especially from Fuji Reala and later, became much better at dealing with such color issues. Still, it's hard to get anything better than what I'd call a "pasty" look for skin with such modern fluorescent lamps.