Reading mode: Light Dark

Doors of perception: Color as you remember it

Go to last post
Y

YellowBudgie

Forum Enthusiast
Messages
419
Reaction score
0
Location
US
Hi All,

I was curious how do you really know what color something was when you took the photo?

With Human memory not being perfect how do you really know the sky was a certain color by the time you view the photo on your calibrated monitor? Allot can change your memory or your initial perceived memory.

Is there some type of pocket color guide? Something to hold up so the guide color is next to the color of the real object? Something to show you how close you remembered the color and how close you captured the color?

I hear people comment about their photo, at times they say "as I remember anyway"

Thanks
 
YellowBudgie said:
Hi All,
I was curious how do you really know what color something was when
you took the photo?
With Human memory not being perfect how do you really know the sky
was a certain color by the time you view the photo on your calibrated
monitor? Allot can change your memory or your initial perceived
memory.
Is there some type of pocket color guide? Something to hold up so
the guide color is next to the color of the real object? Something
to show you how close you remembered the color and how close you
captured the color?
I hear people comment about their photo, at times they say "as I
remember anyway"
Thanks
Click to expand...
Unless we took the shot for some kind of scientific project I think it doesn´t really matter for a majority of people if what we see on the monitor afterwards is exactly what we saw when we took the shot.

Reminds me on OTF poster Typeaux´s signature:

"The only test of an image is the satisfaction it gives you. There simply isn't any other test".

So even if it looks a little different compared to what we remember how it looked like when we took the shot - if we like the result I don´t really see a need to try to make it look in PP exactly the way it looked when we took it and how we remember it (unless what we remember seems having looked better to us).

We can (and do) change so much in PP, so why worry about 100% color accuracy? And even if we would achieve something like 100% color accuracy, your perception of color still might be much different compared to mine and you might see a totally different picture. I think there is nothing like a "universal truth" when it comes to color.

René
 
We don't see colour as absolute values. We see colour in a context, for example a subjective whitebalance. We infer the colour that a particular object would show under standardised conditions (artists call this the "local" colour) when we see it in conditions that depart from standard. Our eyes and brain tell us that the context is one of warm sunset, but that particular person is standing in a doorway and his white shirt looks quite blue, and the front of his shirt is lighter blue, so there is probably a bluish light source inside the doorway, and that side of his hat looks purple coloured, but not strong purple, so from prior experience of blue lighting and how colours behave, I'd estimate his hat is red.

In painting, one way to represent this (sometimes thought of as more naive) is to decide what colour hat it is, then get out some red paint, and if we are being a little more sophisticated, shade the red a little to blue in places, to mimic the effect of blue light falling onto something that we already know to be red.

Another way is to get out some purple-grey paint, and also some bluish paint for the shirt and some orangey colours for the street, to provide the same apparent colour relationships and colour balance. Then if this all done right, the bluish colours in the context of the street read as a particular character of lighting, and the purple colour in the locailsed context of the bluish colours (also the exact colour of the non-lit side of the hat) read as characteristic of a red object in that precise doorway at that moment.

In practice, the first way, you just paint what you know (or think) to be there - everything tends toward the conventional. The second way, you actually make discoveries - say, "the purpley paint I thought I needed for that hat is actually pure grey, but it is still coming across as red, when these colours surround it in this configuration". The pleasure of these discoveries is partly in the making, and partly in the viewing.

Using a camera, on the same scene, we have three choices: get rid of the sunset glow (the blue light is now ridiculously strong), get rid of the blue lighting cast (the street looks like it's on fire), or balance the overall scene to general believability - not pushing any of it too far. In all three cases, the relation of the hat colour seen, to the hat colour in the photograph, is not 100% straightforward.

We remember not only what we see, but HOW we saw it.

RP
 
This does hightlight an interesting problem when it comes to so called colour accuracy. Light can be evaluated with with various analytical techniques and using this it is possible to re-create these colours as they were recorded. However, abolute colour accuracy in these terms says very little about how we actually perceived or perceive a scene. As most know we have a sort of AWB, so although the colour temperature of the lighting may change we still perceive the colours of a given object as being the same. Likewise, the way an image is built up in the mind is very different to the way in which a camera re-creates an image. We scan a scene and our mind builds up not only a composite of this scene, but actually processes a lot of this information and then re-interprets it to how it thinks it should be. This is why we are so easily tricked by optical illusions - the mind makes assumptions (which may be wrong) and then presents us with an image of what it assumes to be there.

So there is never going to be a means of reproducing a scene as we saw it. Not least of all because different people will most probably see a scene differently. It's easy to fall into the trap of looking at a scene and thinking that what we see is what everyone else is seeing.

Colour accuracy is fine for something like product photography or certain types of technical/scientific recording. However, it is rather limited when it comes to recording normal scenes or trying to present an image as it was seen. My own personal view on this is just to adjust an image to how you think it should appear. Obviously in scenes with neutral tones it is possible to see whether a scene as a colour cast, but even with a white balance corrected scene it is not necessarily the case that the whole range of colours will either be accurate or as we remembered it.
 
Hi René,

I was always curious what other people thought about memory and their photos.

I thought about it one day looking up at the sky. The sky had almost a purple tone to it as the sun was setting. No camera at the time. I was curious if I could capture that unique look.

I like the way you look at it.

I've never tried to compare. Maybe one day as more of a interest in Psychology I'll try it.

Thanks,
 
GodSpeaks said:
Great reference card. A MUST have.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/465286-REG/Xrite_MSCCC_Original_ColorChecker_Card.html

--
The greatest of mankind's criminals are those who delude themselves
into thinking they have done 'the right thing.'
  • Rayna Butler
Click to expand...
--

I do have the card but never used it. I really should take the time one day and profile with it (Expensive card not to use) At least Lightroom is getting better these days adding camera profiles to the software.

Thanks!
 
Colors have to do more with personal perception, rather than what was really there when we took the photo.

We look at the photo on the monitor and we notice various lens inadequacies and we try to correct it closer to 'what we've seen'. However, each one of us will have a slightly different view of the same scene....some of it has to do with how we want to remember particular space in time....and that's where photogs will tweak the image via software, as they see fit (no puns intended).

Many among us have different approach and that may reflect the edited image.....and there are myriad of approaches. Some of us have a romantic view,
some have "rose color vision", some are tech oriented, some prefer color blue,

etc., etc. So, what I'm saying is that there are various psych and physical factors that alter, or should I say blur our vision.....and what we've seen .

Leswick
 
YellowBudgie said:
GodSpeaks said:
Great reference card. A MUST have.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/465286-REG/Xrite_MSCCC_Original_ColorChecker_Card.html
Click to expand...
I do have the card but never used it. I really should take the time
one day and profile with it (Expensive card not to use)
Click to expand...
I used to be horrible about using mine. But when I bought a "fresh" one about 5 years ago, I took the previous one, cut it in half on the matte cutter, made a really exotic "hinge" with a dozen holes on the edge and a spiral of string, added a pair of Velcro tabs to hold it closed, and now I have a color checker that goes in the "light modifier" compartment of my backpack along with bounce cards, diffusers, etc.
YellowBudgie said:
At least Lightroom is getting better these days adding camera profiles
to the software.
Click to expand...
Indeed.

I love the ability to make camera profiles in seconds. I've been using the Tom Fors PhotoShop action for many years, but that takes 15 minutes per profile. The DPE profiles are better and quicker.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Or buy one of these:



They do them in various sizes they are designed to be placed along flat artwork they come in pairs with a greyscale photographers in Europe have been using them for years.
I think they are a Kodak Europe product.
here is a vendor
http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1868&xSec=10384

Cheaper than the Colour checker they come with a wallet for storage I replace them Bi annually
 
YellowBudgie said:
Hi René,

I was always curious what other people thought about memory and their
photos.

I thought about it one day looking up at the sky. The sky had almost
a purple tone to it as the sun was setting. No camera at the time.
I was curious if I could capture that unique look.
Click to expand...
No, because it's magic.

You can't photograph it, and you can't paint it...
YellowBudgie said:
I like the way you look at it.
Click to expand...
There's a name for the way you look at it: "mesopic vision". You probably know that you have two kinds of vision, "day" and "night".

Day vision is called "photopic vision". It's when we see with the cone cells. Because there's three kinds of cones, we see in the three color system we call RGB (red, green, blue ;) The cone cells aren't sensitive enough to work at night, so they shut down and leave us with "night vision"...

Night vision is when we see with our rod cells. There's only one kind of rod, so night vision is monochromatic (black and white). The peak is a sort of "aqua" color around 500nm, but we still see it as B&W. The rod cells overload and shut down at daylight levels...

There is a magical light level where there's enough light to make the rods work, but not too much light to keep the cones from working. OK, the light level itself isn't technically "magic", it can be measured. It's the range from about 0.034 Lux to 3.4 Lux. But what it does to our vision is magic beyond science. In that special range of light, we don't see by just three colors, we see by four colors. The brain doesn't know what to do with that.

You saw it, and you liked it. But there isn't a name for it. Artists named all the colors during brighter lighting conditions, when the eye was only seeing three colors. Scientists devised three dimensional ways of measuring color: RGB, xyz, L*a*b. They make no provision for the fourth dimension of color, no RGAB, wxyz, or L*a*b*c.

It's like being a color blind man, only seeing by two colors, and fro 3 minutes a day, suddenly being able to see all three.

You don't have time to name the new colors, or time to measure them. You enjoy the magic for a few minutes, if you're in the right place at the right time to get those 3 minutes.

Oddly enough, it might be possible to print the magical colors. There are printers now that have more than 3 colors of ink. Epson tried adding red and blue to the traditional 4 color CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) printer years ago with the 1800. Now they have CMYK plus green and orange. Bypass the driver, control it with a rip, and we can make aqua with the green and cyan, and "tease" the rods into unnamed mesopic colors. That also means learning to talk to the printer in RGAB ot L*a*b*c.

Personally, I hope this never happens. I love science, but I also love that there is a bit of magic in the world that, beyond Purkinje measuring the light level and talking about how it "distorts" colors (without ever seeing the magic).
YellowBudgie said:
I've never tried to compare. Maybe one day as more of a interest in
Psychology I'll try it.
Click to expand...
Please don't ;)

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Mark Smith said:
Or buy one of these:



They do them in various sizes they are designed to be placed along
flat artwork
Click to expand...
Flat artwork that's printed using a CMYK process.

Paintings, pastels, product photography, petunias, and such are done with a ColorChecker. (My subconscious has been using heavy alliteration for the last few hours: I've just noticed it consciously, but I don't know if I should go out of my way to stop it, or encourage it). If I have contact permission, I check "problem colors" with the spectro.

The process tools like your chart can't handle colors seen by wideband devices like cameras. They break down if something looks orange because it's reflecting spectral orange wavelengths instead of a combination of green and red wavelengths.
Mark Smith145430 said:
they come in pairs with a greyscale photographers in
Europe have been using them for years.
I think they are a Kodak Europe product.
Click to expand...
We have them on this side of the pond, too ;)

In the US, it's called a Q-13. One of several charts I use routinely. My Q-60, R-29, and Q-13 charts all say "Made in the USA by Kodak" or "Kodak Licensed Product Made in U.S.A. by Tiffen" on the yellow envelopes.

The U.S. version has "color" spelled American style, and the chart says

"KODAK Color Control Patches (C) The Tiffen Company 2000 Kodak Licensed Product"
Mark Smith145430 said:
here is a vendor
http://shop.colourconfidence.com/product.php?xProd=1868&xSec=10384
Click to expand...
Thank you. There is a vendor 3 miles from my house in the suburbs of Detroit, called Logix. They stock all sorts of fun stuff: large format Epson printers, color measurement tools, charts that I use, and charts that I don't even know what they do...
Mark Smith145430 said:
Cheaper than the Colour checker they come with a wallet for storage I
replace them Bi annually
Click to expand...
You can't use one to generate a camera profile through Adobe DPE, PictoColor InCamera, or the Tom Fors PhotoShop action.

Cal time here at the Werks involves replacing 3 Stofen wedges, 1 Kodak wedge, the ColorChecker, the ceramic plate for the sched A densitometer, the printed plate for the sched T, having X-rite certify the spectro, and Tek certify the photometer and the calibrated light source.

My Q-13, R-29, and all the Q-60 charts are hopelessly out of date, one scanner hasn't been calibrated in years, and the other is dead. Process work, beyond what I can do with a sched-T densitometer, isn't part of my life at this time.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
They do them in various sizes they are designed to be placed along
flat artwork
Click to expand...
Flat artwork that's printed using a CMYK process.

Paintings, pastels, product photography, petunias, and such are done
with a ColorChecker.
Click to expand...
Can you confirm that? only the instructions clearly state:

a quality control device of stepped, neutral values to help the photographer compare the tone values of reflection originals with the tone values of the reproduced image, compare exposure and processing in a photographic environment so that changing conditions can be identified, measured and controlled. Balance negatives and positives in a traditional color reproduction process that requires the use of masks, separation films, and filters, and determine values for plotting tone-reproduction curves.

They also help the graphic arts camera or scanner operator identify color separation negatives and positives for color reproduction processes. They consist of RGB, CYM, black, white and grey swatches in addition to a grey scale.

Why do you say only CMYK? just about every photographer/lab I know has a set to be used with conventional materials as well. Kodaks instructions seem to contradict you.
 
I think it is time somebody pointed out that an estimated 1 in 4 white caucasian males has a colour vision failure of one degree or another.... most often in the red/green area of the spectrum, apparently. Colour blindness is at the lower rate of about 1 in 21 for the population at large, I believe.

This rather points up the fact that colour perception is a VERY individual thing indeed.....

...... there being no real way at present to test whether YOUR idea of "grass green" raises the same sensation in your brain as it does in mine... (or anybody's).
--
Regards,
Baz
 
You are right, color is something your brain perceives or interprets. It depends highly on brightness and the surrounding colors. That's why choosing the colors to paint your house can be difficult. Paint colors inside the store looks different when painted on your house. On my house, everyone thought the color of the front door was much darker than the garage door; it's the same color! I've also seen this color subject on the Internet somewhere. So memory will only make it worse.
 
Absolutely correct. How two different people perceive, let alone remember, one colour can be very different indeed and I also have to add, that very rarely is ANY object truly only one colour.

Even cars which are certainly painted one colour will change according to the light and the reflections from the paintwork and be different on different parts of the car. And I haven't even begun to mention the colour of the sky, clouds, leaves, trees, water etc. all vary from one part to the next and from one moment to the next. This makes getting the "correct" colour for a single shade and hue very difficult, and for the whole gamut in one image at the same time, impossible.

Far better to get the colours of an image the way you want them (hard enough in itself) and leave alone any questions of "accuracy" to product photographers, art reproducers and philosophers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top