Microscope not needed and most evident in product and advertizing shots. Not so much in shots with no reference.
To be honest, this is what I am getting from this conversation:
- and color balance is sort of like 'pixel peeping', to the normal eye it is not noticeable, much like noise. It isn't until you get out the microscope that it can be seen.
To be honest, this is what I am getting from this conversation:
- optimum performance of film is at box speed
- color negative film can be shot at least one to three stops over exposed and still be useable
- it is best to over expose color neg film than under expose
- obnoxious amounts of overexposure can cause severe issues with color shift and contrast
- and color balance is sort of like 'pixel peeping', to the normal eye it is not noticeable, much like noise. It isn't until you get out the microscope that it can be seen.
That last item I'd take issue with. If you learn to print color, you'll see pretty quickly how little shift in color balance it takes for things to go from "hot damn!" to "hot mess". I've seen it where as little as 2 or 3 cc's of filtration change will make a print SNAP - two or three the other way and your whites start getting muddy. And its something that anyone viewing the print can see, not just a pixel-peeper.
PE, I can see the importance of rebalancing but not in this casual observation.
Good colour correctors are hard to find these days because of the white balance features you get on them darn pesky digital cameras.
I am afraid that in the future young photographers will lose the ability to colour correct but rely on white balance, or auto colour.
On a related note, but trying not to get too far off topic, I work as a color corrector at a high volume photo lab that processes school sports pictures from photographers from around the country and the worst color we get is from photographers who rely on auto white balance in their cameras. On the other hand those who white balance manually and properly, generally have very consistant, properly balanced color. With auto white balance, the color can go all over the place making images harder to color balance. When we used to color balance film images, the color balance, contrast and saturation was much more consistant from shot to shot since it is all built into the film. This, and the better lattitude of film, made images much easier to color balance and produce better images in my opinion.
My main source of income has been from colour correcting. Today its done in PS with the tools available.. When I teach PS and workflow to groups , sadly the area that most (not all) are weak in is in colour theory. This is one of my first tests for students to ask them to explain the colour wheel and its implications.
We were taught how to work complimentary colours against each other to benefit an image and it amazes me students do not even have this rudimentary knowledge, but are attempting to make a living from their colour work.
The dumbing down of colour has happened where there seems to be a lot more acceptance of so so colour / saturation and density balance.
But I don't think I would like to go back to the old days of VCNas , kodak shirleys and translators, I am happy with supplied files these days.
When I get hired to print colour images for others these days, the first question I ask , is Do they want to control the colour, or do they want me too. 5 years ago most wanted me to control, today its about 70 - 80% want to control their destiny with their prints and that too is ok with me .
RCP I cannot imagine what its like now to work where you do, in my past I worked at a large wedding lab where volumne was king ,and the colour correctors were highly valued.. you must have a great eye as the responsibility is mind numbing with the number of jobs that must go past you..
We do not use Photoshop as it would be much too slow for the volume we have. We use Kodak DP2 software designed more for speed and high volume. Before that I used a video analyzer for film. I am quite fast and when we were mostly film I could correct 7,000-10,000 images a day (pictures of kids and their teams) during our busy seasons, but when we started getting mostly digital images, that figure dropped to about 2,000-3,000 on a good day. That shows you the increased difficulty in color correcting digital images over film due to the increased inconsistancy I discussed in my other post.
Wow thats a lot of correcting , you must eat a lot of carrots.
... Even when I've trained people to match color with a fairly expensive spectrophotometer, in the end you always do the fine-tuning by eye. If you're smart you'll take a second look the next morning when you're eyes are less fatigued. Same in the darkroom. Does it make a difference. Yes. Maybe the public can't articulate what makes a good color
print, but they often can sense it. Something snaps into place which defines quality.
You know, based on this thread, I think that I should teach a workshop on color.
PE
Magenta would be covered fully in great detail! I would probably give it at GEH. IDK, is there really interest? I was half kidding.
PE
Will magenta be on the exam?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?