Color is the human perception of light as having different hue, from reds and oranges, through yellows and greens, to blues and violets. Color is a fundamental aspect of the arts and photography.
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5answers
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Do fluorescent lighting and shutter speed create a problem with color cast?
I took a bunch of photos at my son's martial arts club using a D90 with a 50mm F1.8. The club is lit with overhead fluorescent lighting, and I was getting some weird results where some shots are ...
29
votes
8answers
4k views
What's the difference between Adobe RGB and sRGB and which should I set in my camera?
In my Canon 60D, there's a setting between Adobe RGB and sRGB. What's the difference and what should I prefer when shooting to RAW ?
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6answers
2k views
How can knowledge of human perception of color be used in photography?
How does the human vision system perceive color, and how can/should this be taken into account when taking and post-processing photographs (both in color and in black and white)?
The bit above is ...
24
votes
7answers
784 views
Is it possible to be colour-blind and still be a good photographer?
Is it possible to be colour-blind (or color-blind, in the US) and still be a good photographer?
Are there any steps one can take to mitigate the effects of colour-blindness? Can you point me to any ...
23
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3answers
2k views
What is the meaning of “white balance”?
I would like to understand the term white balance. My camera has settings for white balance with the following options:
Auto white balance
Daylight
Cloudy
Shade
Flash
Incandescent lights
White set1 ...
22
votes
3answers
2k views
Why is the blue channel the noisiest?
It is widely observed that the blue channel in digital cameras is the noisiest. I've certainly noticed that with my camera. Why is this?
Is it an artifact of some particular technology (e.g. Bayer ...
21
votes
2answers
5k views
How do I get good colors when taking pictures in the city at night?
I'm very interested in doing night time shootings.
I'm using Canon 5d3 with 85mm at f/1.2, and at iso 2000 I'm able to get exposure times around 1/150s-1/200s.
However, the lighting in my city ...
20
votes
2answers
3k views
What do Hue, Chroma, Saturation, Value, Tones, Tints, Shade, etc. mean?
I've read several online tutorials about color theory but I'm still confused about how to "visually" catch color concepts and use them efficiently. The only thing I seem to understand is "hue" which ...
20
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3answers
1k views
Is the Zone System useful with a DSLR?
The Zone System was originally used with B&W film photography. With colour digital photography, though, couldn't you get much the same results by keeping an eye on the histogram? I think I might ...
19
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7answers
1k views
Why are there no dark yellows, or bright violets?
In his book The Photographer's Eye, photographer and author Michael Freeman says:
Another consideration is relative brightness. Different hues are perceived as having different light values, with ...
15
votes
4answers
4k views
Is there an equivalent to Adobe's “Vibrance” in Gimp?
See: What's the difference between saturation and vibrance in Lightroom?
In a nutshell, Adobe's Vibrance is a "smart" color adjustment that increases saturation selectively, leaving skin tones ...
15
votes
5answers
10k views
How many colors and shades can the human eye distinguish in a single scene?
How many distinct colors, shades, hues, and tints can the average person distinguish in a single scene? In other words, what's the theoretical bit-depth required to be sure of recording a photograph ...
14
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3answers
1k views
Why not use a camera as a colorimeter?
Clearly to achieve reliable results, it is essential to calibrate key parts of the imaging pipeline - particularly the computer display on which images are edited.
Few seem to question the ...
13
votes
4answers
1k views
Does black and white photography still make sense?
I think at first it was because of a limitation of the cameras present at the time, but with the color cameras that we have available now, what do you think of black and white photos?
In other words, ...
13
votes
5answers
4k views
How can I make colorful, “saturated” photos like this example?
This may not be the best example but I liked the colors and angle. I have seen lot of similar photos. They look very colorful but not overdone (does it have any technical term) . Any suggestions for ...
13
votes
3answers
597 views
How do color spaces like sRGB and Adobe RGB overlap?
Is sRGB included in Adobe RGB, and Adobe RGB included in ProPhoto RGB? Meaning that a photo in a "lower space" will look like exactly the same in a "higher space", e.g. a sRGB photo will look like ...
13
votes
2answers
2k views
How does the colour of ambient lighting affect colour rendition?
How does the colour of ambient lighting affect colour rendition?
For example:
If I stand under a sodium-vapour (orange) streetlight and calibrate my camera's white balance, what effect would this ...
13
votes
3answers
1k views
13
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2answers
675 views
How much of a difference do different color spaces make?
How much of a difference does it make to use one of the extended colorspaces vs. the normal sRGB? And what difference does it make?
Are there situations where it is not important, and conversely are ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
How can I keep skin color from coming out too red in prints?
I've noticed lately that subjects with darker skin, especially brown hues, tend to come out with lots of red in prints.
When shooting against red or brown backgrounds, this effect is significantly ...
11
votes
4answers
311 views
What are ways of improving aerial photos?
When taking photos from a plane, what are ways of improving the quality of your photos? I've noticed two main issues:
When photographing through the plane window, you'll often get reflection and ...
11
votes
1answer
312 views
Why are the red light and its hood in my image colored different than they were in reality?
I took this image in a train station with shutter speed 1/8 second and AV mode, the aperture was chosen to be 4.5. The problem in the colors of the spotlight in the right corner of the image. In the ...
11
votes
5answers
1k views
Recommended clothing colours for portraits?
What colour of clothing do you recommend your clients wear during a portrait photo session?
I recently completed an urban photo shoot where the colour of my client's dress gave an odd cast to some of ...
11
votes
4answers
2k views
How do I get this “Washed out” effect for street photography?
I was browsing an unrelated question here and noticed this photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparth/5730541580/lightbox/
I've seen countless street-photography shots with this kind of color effect ...
10
votes
4answers
1k views
What is the major factor that makes colors in photos very vivid?
Once you have a good enough camera, what are the other major factors that makes some of the photo very vivid?
For example, looking at the following picture, the colors are vivid. If I take the same ...
9
votes
4answers
647 views
Why does the red area in this photo look very un-natural?
I was looking through some photos I took at RAF Cosford a few weeks ago, and noticed this big red area (it's a large door surround on the floor below)
In the photoshop RAW preview, it looked almost ...
9
votes
3answers
489 views
How would I go about using my SLR to measure the 'greenness' of a photo?
Background
My digital pictures can be read into a computer program like Matlab or R as a m x n x 3 matrix where m x n is the number of pixels observed by each of the three (red, green, and blue) ...
9
votes
8answers
9k views
Why is Aperture changing the color of my RAW photos?
For some strange reason, Aperture 3 seems to shift the colors of the raw images, after importing them.
For example, the reds become washed out and something not red. In the following example, the red ...
9
votes
3answers
563 views
How does color affect auto-focus?
I've noticed that the subject color seems to affect auto-focus, and am curious if I am just imagining this, or if there is a reason for it.
For instance, I shoot a lot of figure skaters, and ...
8
votes
4answers
2k views
How is the YCbCr color space represented in a JPEG image?
I know that a 24 bit image dedicates 8 bit each for R, G and B. Is it just for RGB color space. In YCbCr color space for a 24 bit JPEG image, how are the bits distributed?
8
votes
3answers
326 views
What is the significance of the word “Color” in the names of some older lenses?
This seems closely related to How does a lens affect the saturation of a picture?.
Some older lenses I've seen contain the word "Color" in the name, such as Color-Yashinon and Color-Skopar (the ...
8
votes
3answers
2k views
What is the difference between black and white film and color film?
What is the difference between black and white film and color film? How does color film record color? Is it like black and white film with something more, or is it entirely different?
8
votes
4answers
2k views
Why do my photos looked washed out when using my telephoto lens?
I own an aging Nikon D40 and recently picked up a new telephoto lens: the Nikkor 55mm-300mm f/4.5-5.6. I've noticed that when I zoom in on subjects, the color in my photos often looks washed out. Here ...
8
votes
4answers
5k views
What is the difference between halftoning and dithering?
As I understand it, halftoning is the process of taking an image with a given color range (as defined by the colorspace) and blending the colors to form an image with a smaller range of colors.
How ...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
What is the function of the tint slider in Lightroom?
In Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (c) there's a Temp slider which controls the color temperature of the photo. To the left it creates a blue, cold looking image. To the right, an orange, warm image.
This ...
8
votes
3answers
266 views
How did Matt Grum color correct the images in “Why is the Fluorescent filter for a flash green?”?
I saw in another question - "Why is the Fluorescent filter for a flash green?" - that Matt Grum had amazingly color corrected two images and would love to know how. Of course, all are invited to ...
8
votes
1answer
308 views
Is the use of coloured lighting in industrial photography a bit… Passée?
I have been asked to do some photography around an aerospace engineering company, they make parts for planes basically.
Having looked at their previous imagery stash, taken i think 2003 ish, the ...
7
votes
3answers
359 views
Are there written guides or rules of thumb for setting color saturation, clarity, vibrance, etc. in post-processing (or in general)?
This isn't another "how do I get a picture to look like such-and-such-link-inserted-here in LR" question. There's a saturation (no pun intended) of these questions here. Interesting, but not general ...
7
votes
2answers
547 views
Why are sensors less sensitive to blue light?
This is a followup question to Why is the blue channel the noisiest?. The simple answer to that question is that sensors are less sensitive to blue, and therefore require more amplification, which ...
7
votes
1answer
90 views
What affordable lights should I use for a number of large, very bright light-boxes?
I'm working on printing a number of large, very bright backlit prints.
I need lots of lights that are affordable since I'll be needing quite a number of 'em.
My other concern is color reproduction, ...
6
votes
6answers
2k views
How do pros manage to make the color green so bright in their nature photographs?
I am an amateur photographer, I had a question how do professional photographers manage to make the green color so bright in their images.
For example:
...
6
votes
4answers
822 views
What sort of color correction and effects are used in this photo?
I've seen plenty of photos like this before and I've always liked them. They're usually warmer colours and they seem to have a bit of a haze to them.
Photo by David Guenther
What sort of post ...
6
votes
6answers
765 views
How does aperture size or shutter speed affect color temperature?
With all other parameters assumed constant, does aperture size or duration of exposure have any effect on the resulting color warmth or vividness? (Even slightly.)
While answering please also ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
Why do bright red flowers end up without details?
With our DSLR, indoor flowers come out detailed. Outdoor violet and blue flowers are detailed, too.
But outdoor bright red flowers give us problems. They come out as a single flat detail-less spot. ...
6
votes
3answers
578 views
How to make the colors of an image taken under diffuse midday light more lively?
I took some macro shots of flowers in a greenhouse. I did it around midday in January, and the ceiling of the greenhouse was matted glass, so I got very diffuse light. Even in images which are exposed ...
6
votes
3answers
459 views
When shooting a scene with a LCD or Plasma TV in it, is there a way to avoid a blueish tint on the screen?
I've been searching but I can't find relevant info. I'm actually filming, but figured the problem's still there in photography. I also don't know where else to ask.
Does anyone know what can be done? ...
6
votes
3answers
323 views
What do the measurements for colour depth mean?
Colour depth is often referred to as being X bits. What does this mean and how does it effect a photograph? What scale is used, i.e. is it linear, exponential, logarithmic, etc.?
6
votes
1answer
142 views
What is Colour Rendering Index (CRI)?
From this answer on white balancing a LED light I understood there's a thing called Colour Rendering Index (CRI). I understand it has something to do with how well lights reproduce the sun's colour ...
5
votes
5answers
6k views
How can I take selective color pictures with my Canon T1i?
I want to select a certain color using my camera so only that will be recorded as color, with all the rest in gray- or b/w-scale. Meaning, only one color and its shades appear colored, and rest is ...
5
votes
5answers
678 views
Do colors always come out bland when shooting in RAW format?
I shoot all my pictures in RAW format and every time during post processing I need to tinker with the saturation because the color comes out bland. I do realize that changing camera saturation level ...
