Color Temperature

[deaner66]

<p>I have an older monitor and right now I can't afford the newer one I want. I don't have a calibrator to pinpoint the accuracy of my monitor and can't afford to buy one of those right now either.</p>

<p>Not always, but sometimes I see color temp issues on my prints. So I'm never completely sure how accurate my prints are going to come out. I normally shoot RAW, convert from Lightroom 2 to JPEG, and send my prints away.</p>

<p>Sunday I took senior pictures. I had my K10D set on a manual white balance, and the color of the shots in the LCD was pitch perfect. Now maybe it was a mistake to rely on the LCD for color accuracy, but I've never noticed the color to be off before.</p>

<p>So I decided to leave the color temperature alone in Lightroom. And on my monitor, the color didn't look bad. Maybe it's my eyes, maybe it's my monitor, but when I posted these senior pictures on my Flickr page, the skin tone seemed way too orange.</p>

<p>http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanfotos66</p>

<p>So if anyone out there has a calibrated monitor, could you just tell me if this shot is too orange? If it is, then I know where the fix is, and my monitor isn't far off.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p><div></div>

[deaner66]

<p>I just went back into Lightroom and saw that the original file was shot at 6450K and -6 on TINT. I adjusted the color to 5500K, which is the flash color temp and is about as neutral as anything. This is what the same shot looks like now.</p><div></div>

[mountainvisions]

<p>The top one is too orange, the bottom one is too blue/green. Go to 5700, should be perfect, just look at the whites of the eyes to see what I mean.</p>

[htarragon]

<p>Steve, Yes, there seems to be a tan cast in the picture. Unless the cement between the bricks is, in fact, tan, then a further adjustment needs to be made. The reflected light is bouncing around from the bricks and in another picture, green from the foliage. Your brain is compensating for it, thus, it looks ok when you are shooting.<br>

Going into PS Elements 6, I checked for grey and white neutrality and strangely, they were ok. I went into Levels and pulled the Red, Green and Blue levels back to about 240. That gave me a neutral light. She does have a tan skin, right?</p><div></div>

[deaner66]

<p>Well, at least I see what your talking about, so my monitor in in the ballpark. Thanks.</p>

<p>Here is 5700K.</p><div></div>

[htarragon]

<p>And against the sky---</p><div></div>

[deaner66]

<p>Howard, on my monitor, your version looks way too blue/pink.</p>

[htarragon]

<p>How does the cement look?</p>

 

[deaner66]

<p>She was tan. But not orange spray-on tan.</p>

[deaner66]

<p>The cement looks too blue. The mortar was more weathered-looking. Earthy tones.</p>

[deaner66]

<p>Howard, with the sky shot, I believe I cranked the Highlight Recovery all the way up in an attempt to knock that sky DOWN. So the sky had a gray color from that, I believe.</p>

[htarragon]

<p>Ah, ok. I pulled Yellow back to minus 39 in color adjustment. How's this?</p><div></div>

[michael_elenko]

<p>Hi Steve,<br>

What kind of computer and OS are you using? If it's a Mac I recommend a low-cost software-based calibration tool, <a href="http://www.bergdesign.com/supercal/">SuperCal</a>, that I used many years ago as I was getting smarter about digital photography. I would think that there are similar tools for Windows.<br>

My eyes and brain just aren't gifted enough to determine proper color settings by sight (I have a friend who does possess these talents--what a joy to watch him shape up a photograph or fine artwork) so a color managed workflow is a dire necessity. Without knowing what's accurate, I would just let the camera handle everything or shoot film and outsource all printing. So both of my IPS monitors are calibrated.</p>

<p>The problem with your example shot is two-fold. The color is off and the lighting is too flat, so the perception of color being off is compounded. Howard's initial "adjusted" comes close, but it's a bit too purple and orange.<br>

<img src="http://www.smugmug.com/photos/843342524_okwuA-XL.jpg" alt="" /><br>

LR2 adjustments include:</p>

<p>WB:<br>

Temp-33<br>

Tint-19<br>

Recovery 11<br>

Brightness +6<br>

Clarity +13<br>

Vibrance +6<br>

Highlights +8<br>

Lights +13<br>

Darks -2<br>

Shadows +8</p>

<p>No sharpening or NR applied</p>

<p>What I like about this rendition is that her eye color comes through as does the rainbow of her hair--especially the brighter tones. I also like blueing up the tulips a bit because they complement the intense royal blue of her blouse. It's a nice setup you have there.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

<p>ME</p>

[hagar]

<p>Working on a PC, and non calibrated monitor..I opened the photo in Adobe Raw in CS3 and adjusted as follows<br>

Temp -24<br>

Tint -3<br>

Exposure +.20<br>

Recovery +19<br>

Fill +8<br>

Brightness +14<br>

Contrast +6<br>

Vibrance +8<br>

It might still be a bit on the warm side.. but looks close to normal for me</p>

<div></div>

[htarragon]

<p>Steve - after not many hours sleep, I replicated Haig's settings in ACR and it looks ok on my monitor.<br>

I noticed that if you scroll through all the pictures quickly, at this point, nothing looks right. Oversaturated eyes, like an oversaturated palate, get confused.</p>

[jeremy_corbin]

<p>Haig, your last one is a little warm, but it's pleasing.</p>

[hagar]

<p>Thanks Jeremiah.. it was a quick fix, and I started with the photo that was posted here as opposed to <em>flickr. </em></p>

[deaner66]

<p>Howard, I got too tired and like you said, they all started looking the same, so I went to bed.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for the help. I really appreciate it. My main question was answered. My monitor is close to accurate. I thought the original was way too warm and all of you confirmed that.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>Just gotta say, ME's rendition is pretty darn good.</p>

<p>The only thing I don't like is the fact her skin seems to get a slight metalic glow and it looks a little cool to me.</p>

<p>As I noted in the HDR thread, I need to recalibrate my monitor.</p>

<p>Haigs is quite similar, but a little warmer, and on my monitor it looks slightly better temp wise. The spot I was seeing the metalic blue cast was below her neck, it's gone on Haigs.</p>

<p>Looking at the data, they look almost identical aside from the temp, so it looks like a pickem depending on who's monitor is most accurate today.</p>

[jeremy_corbin]

<p>When we started talking about this, I checked to make sure that my work PC (Windows XP) was using the sRGB colorspace. When I went to see what my monitor was set on (the OSD) I noticed that this monitor has a sRGB preset on the same menu as 6500K....etc. Anyone know if these presets are actually close? I used the preset and colors look spot on, but I don't have a Huey or anything with me at work...(it's all billing, no one cares about color here but me...)</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>There are two components of an ICC display profile that work hand in hand in producing the correct hue and saturation appearance in color managed apps ONLY.</p>

<p>The first one is the "RGB Calibration Correction Curves" (LUT) that neutralize the different color tints of all 255 gray levels and establish the appearance of 2.2 gamma if the display happens to vary from this in its factory default state.</p>

<p>The second part of the profile is the color describers written in the form of a mathematical matrix formula color managed apps use to adjust individual colors to look correct according to a Lab color reference model in each tagged image opened.</p>

<p>Measuring the response of a display must be performed to accurately write these two parts so they fit hand in glove in displaying color accurately (according to Lab which was designed around human visual system). The canned sRGB profile and/or OSD settings are meaningless because they are arbitrary and aren't derived from measuring the current state of the display which can change over several months and even weeks.</p>

<p>My i1Display calibrated iMac is close to sRGB's color model but if I load the sRGB profile as my display profile, peachy pink healthy looking skintone turns a slight dull yellow brown as if green was added.</p>

<p>The color of tan skin in Dean's original image is too GREEN-not orange, but it's hard to see because our eyes have no prominent neutral target to compare against. In fact Dean's "Second Time Around" version is spot on. It just needs a slight boost in saturation which is usually all that's needed when correcting for odd casts like this.</p>

<p>You can see when an image is too blue or too yellow or orange so illiminate that first and regardless how dull and lifeless it looks first increase saturation before you start going back and forth with the color temp sliders. Your eyes will thank you.</p>

<p>I've already done a correction according to what I think looks correct but it already looks close to Dean's "Second Time Around" I didn't see the point of posting it here.</p>