Color blind-how to achieve color balance?

Tim Stapp

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Ok, I'm stone color blind. How should I approach RA-4 printing?

Or, continue shooting B&W analog and d*g*l for color?
 

sfaber17

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You could do it by using a reflective color densitometer to measure the colors on the paper. Typically you would take a picture of a grey card and then print it and adjust the filtration to give you the grey. I have some nice led densitometers that interface to a computer. I just have to finish the pc program and could sell you one cheap.
 

pentaxuser

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My commiserations. Can you say what stone colour blindness consists of. Is it as simple as seeing everything in monochrome or are they subtle differences?

On a practical level most analysers for most scenes will do the job for you and possibly on the occasions that it gets it wrong a non colour-blind friend can point out the wrong colours or shade differences. You can them alter the colour filtration until it becomes right and compare the right with the wrong. The question is how easily is it for you to see the difference between right and wrong when the two prints are side by side? Hence my question about the nature of your colour-blindness.

pentaxuser
 

MattKing

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If the nature of your colour blindness prevents you from differentiating between correct and skewed colour reproduction, I think you are in for nothing but frustration.
If you cannot see the difference between correct colour and incorrect colour, no technology is going to assist you.
Unless you don't care about colour fidelity - Lomography comes to mind.
 

Sirius Glass

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I am not color blind, however I found that once I got the color properly balanced for a particular paper that most other negatives were either the same balance or close to that balance. Therefore once you get it properly set up and measure it with a color analyzer you should be able to keep the balance for all the negatives.
 
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Tim Stapp

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The extent of my color blind state is for example a magazine with red print on a sky blue background is invisible to me. My optometrist used me as an example for other Doctors. I could not make out any primary colors in any of the tests. I recall them saying "textbook."

You do learn where to expect traffic lights in unfamiliar areas.

My wife is very helpful when PP digital images when software doesn't quite get it corrected.
 
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Tim Stapp

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It's so bad that both our dog and.our cat are black and white (verified by my wife). Although she does play tricks on me regarding color at times.
 

MattKing

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Tim:
For colour, slide film and a projector are your friends.

Unless you want to hire an assistant who isn't colour blind.
 
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Tim Stapp

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Matt, thanks. My wife is very expensive assistant. ..might be cheaper to hire one. It is something that I have lived with for 60 years, but I would like to expand past the electronic simulation of color photographs. I have a Job sitting here, a nice color enlarger in the corner. Well, you get where I am going.
 
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Tim Stapp

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Please enlighten me. Are they similar to the ones offered in the magazine classified ads when I was a child? Those x-ray glasses?

Or, is there actually something that changes how the light hits the rods and cones inside my eyes?
 

Mr Bill

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I was going to use the example of a guy I once worked with. I was a punk kid at the time, trying to learn about color - something of a black art at the time. He was an older manager who had sometimes filled in as a color corrector, while the regulars were at lunch or out sick, etc; we did high volume portrait work so there were a lot corrections being called.

Anyway, the company wanted to further quality, and hired an RIT grad in photo science. One of the things he did was to get some tools to evaluate color perception. Surprise! The guy doing color correction had significant color blindness. Yet it never caused problems with his work, evaluating skin tones (although after that they DID tell him he wasn't allowed to do it any more).

So I WAS going to suggest that you might be about to do it too. Except that your color blindness, is probably way beyond his - he didn't even realize it until being tested. So I'm guessing that you wouldn't be able to do it, but I dunno.

I think that I were to lose my color vision (but still have tonal discrimination) I could probably do a good job printing RA4 if I had an instrument that could read what they call "CIELAB" values. (CIE is the long standing organization that deals with colorimetry, and LAB, more properly L*, a*, and b*, is the set of three numbers that roughly define how a "color" would appear to someone with "normal" color vision under, roughly, daylight.) You have to learn a different coordinate system, which is foreign to photographers, but once you do it can be very useful. (I've worked with this a lot and am really confident in the system, within its limitations). Wayyyyy more useful than a densitometer for this purpose. But the equipment is pricy, in the general range of a thousand bucks (X-rite i1 pro is an example).

If you don't like instruments, perhaps an apprentice is your best bet. Best of luck.
 
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Tim Stapp

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Thanks all. I am going to jump in head first with both feet and see where things lead. I've been a service technician for 40 years, working with color codes (ohmmeters are my friend, as are the various ways that I have learned to deal). I will get to printing RA-4 in the darkroom. I will let you all know how I get on.
 

Mr Bill

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Cool.

You might find some useful information in Ctein's book, Post Exposure, available for free download on his website. (He has a couple of pages on room temperature use of RA4.) And now that I think about it, I believe Kodak had a brief publication with a table of development times at different temps; I'm sure I can find it if you want.

I'll be interested in how it goes - how successful you are with setting the color.
 

Bill Burk

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As with all good scientific articles, the headline doesn't make any sense at all.

What the heck does vasculature and bruising beneath skin have to do with color vision?

Turns out it is how humans may have evolved to pick up on social cues...

I guess it was important to identify friend or foe...

So they invented glasses to enhance oxygenated skin, and they worked...


https://www.scientificamerican.com/...d-help-people-with-red-green-color-blindness/
 

removed account4

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hi tim
i'm kind of color blind and instead of worrying about
my colors not being right, i just don't worry about it.
have fun !
john
 

mshchem

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If you are printing Color for the whole world to enjoy, once you get dialed in for a certain film and paper you should be fine. In the old days you would need to adjust for different paper lots. I have found with Fuji Crystal Archive cut sheets that my filter pack is pretty constant with Kodak Portra.
If you are printing for yourself B&W split grade printing gives you WAY MORE control than can be achieved with RA-4. And B&W negatives and prints will last a lot longer.
I still shoot slides and color negative just to maintain my skills. Optical printing blows away LED machine made prints.
Either way you're going to have more fun than sitting in front of a darn computer playing with pixels
Best Mike
 

RPC

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Ctein's info on room temperature processing is out of date. You can use Kodak's Ektacolor RA Developer/Replenisher RT for room temperature processing, typically 68-75F, for two minutes, with excellent results. Kodak Bleach-Fix is also available.
 
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