I hope others are reading this because I'm spending a lot of time not writing help sections to do this for a guy who doesn't order prints.
This is a lovely shot and I'm disadvantaged because I don't know her. Having seen so many of these go through and and a few just like it be returned, my guess is 49 of 50 customers would accept it.
For one thing, she's not fair-skinned and it's fair-skinned caucasians who generate most returns. But her face is on the red side, something everyone is usually hyper allergic to, and saturation is high. We didn't shoot Fuji Velvia films for people for a good reason. When magenta saturation gets to 50%, you're flirting with the nuclear zone.
i2e, of course, would take no risks with this shot because commercial labs don't want risks, so it would reduce skin saturation especially in the magenta. It takes away some of the character of the shot, but this one will never come back from the client (unless it was a fine-art photographer who did the buying, and they would choose true color and get the deeper saturations).
To your eye, it will no doubt look sallow but if she was the buyer, she would probably consider it more flattering.
The main thing I don't like is it took the red out of her lips.
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited April 15, 2005
I can't check this thread anymore today because stuff is piling up on my list, but you still have to explain why, it it were a white balance issue with the man Andy shot, your adjustment has skin so out of range.
The definition of white balance is the white is balanced, which it is. The T-shirt is white.
i2e also made the shirt white but didn't kill the skin:
This thread has made a very compelling case for the dangers of true color.
I hope others are reading this because I'm spending a lot of time not writing help sections to do this for a guy who doesn't order prints.
This is a lovely shot and I'm disadvantaged because I don't know her. Having seen so many of these go through and and a few just like it be returned, my guess is 49 of 50 customers would accept it.
For one thing, she's not fair-skinned and it's fair-skinned caucasians who generate most returns. But her face is on the red side, something everyone is usually hyper allergic to, and saturation is high. We didn't shoot Fuji Velvia films for people for a good reason. When magenta saturation gets to 50%, you're flirting with the nuclear zone.
i2e, of course, would take no risks with this shot because commercial labs don't want risks, so it would reduce skin saturation especially in the magenta. It takes away some of the character of the shot, but this one will never come back from the client (unless it was a fine-art photographer who did the buying, and they would choose true color and get the deeper saturations).
To your eye, it will no doubt look sallow but if she was the buyer, she would probably consider it more flattering.
I hope people are reading this thread too. This gal at one time was one of the hottest young fiddle players in the nation for the all girls act out of Nashville called Mustang Sally. She was very tan and had a ton of makeup on her face and in real life she looked a little sun basted (reddish) in the face. These two prints were sold to her and her mother and they just loved them as I even got an extra card in the mail thanking me on these two.
Yup, this one is not a fair skinned example. I have posted many of those as streetshots later in the thread. I say without being there when the shot was taken, a third party has no real clue as to what the actual skin color and skin tone was like and to him it is only a guess as to what the real tones are supposed to be. So the third party editor then sets up the image to colors and tones that he prefers and not to how the image or person really looked when the image was captured.
BTW, from the looks of it, a few people are following this thread.
First I want to say...Your guy over at SM are awsome.
The new cart looks great and works as well as it looks, I've already ordered some prints. Among the prints I ordered was the 8X10 Calibration print, if your going to do something might as well try and do it right.
My monitor is calibrated, color space for any images destined to be uploaded to SM are in sRGB, and I download and installed the ICC for ezprint. So far so good.
Ok so what should I do with the ICC. I seem to remember SM removes the ICC from the .JPG file for the thumbnail (I believe). Should I still imbed the ezprint ICC into the .JPG file or is the ICC only for proofing?
Ok...I'm going to jump back in here.
First I want to say...Your guy over at SM are awsome.
The new cart looks great and works as well as it looks, I've already ordered some prints. Among the prints I ordered was the 8X10 Calibration print, if your going to do something might as well try and do it right.
My monitor is calibrated, color space for any images destined to be uploaded to SM are in sRGB, and I download and installed the ICC for ezprint. So far so good.
Ok so what should I do with the ICC. I seem to remember SM removes the ICC from the .JPG file for the thumbnail (I believe). Should I still imbed the ezprint ICC into the .JPG file or is the ICC only for proofing?
Thanks
[font="]Mitch [/font]
No don't embed it. Just use the ezprints profile to soft proof with and then convert the image to srgb and send it up and you will be good with one notable exception. Smugmug peeps (as do some other experts) say you should do some CMYK proof work on heavy fleshtone scenes to avoid nuking the faces. Other than that just use the exprints profile to soft proof with.
I can't check this thread anymore today because stuff is piling up on my list, but you still have to explain why, it it were a white balance issue with the man Andy shot, your adjustment has skin so out of range.
The definition of white balance is the white is balanced, which it is. The T-shirt is white.
i2e also made the shirt white but didn't kill the skin:
This thread has made a very compelling case for the dangers of true color.
#1 First off I told you a few times already the monitor I used on the edit was whacked. I don't know why you keep referring to that example?
#2 the original is so far from a good capture that, well you know what I mean...auto does work on some images best, especially ones where you don't have clue as to where to start, some images are just are that bad
#3 YUp, I agree most people should not use true color, as one kink in the editing chain may cause major errors.
#4 I still don't have my ps box recalibrated again yet. I will take another editing wack at it later.
#5 I am no skintone guru by any means, I rely on the capture to get things right when it comes to people shots. I can do some editing on somethings but people are not my favorite by any means. Luckilly, I can usually print people shots straight up with no substantial edits, other than maybe a clone or a heal and a slight levels boost. I tend to underexpose things, so I am pretty used to my processes on this stuff. My point here is, with autocolor it is easy to get something in range, but it won't neccesarily be an accurate reflection of what reality was or what you or anyone else saw on that day.
#6 You have to remember that almost everyones monitor looks different calibrated or not. The key is to get the white balance/color temperature and exposure correct in the field and all of this editing stuff becomes mute. At least on properly expoosed natural light outdoor shots, that is.
#7 Again, true color isn't for everyone and someone who thinks it is may be might be asking for trouble. However, I say it is the best way to go about processing ones own images when done correctly.
-don
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Among the prints I ordered was the 8X10 Calibration print, if your going to do something might as well try and do it right.
My monitor is calibrated, color space for any images destined to be uploaded to SM are in sRGB, and I download and installed the ICC for ezprint. So far so good.
Great, Mitch!
From the more-than-you-may-want-to-know department, here's a great reference on getting prints and monitors to match:
1. You're seeing reflected lights from the prints but transmitted from the monitor. Are your customers opening their prints at work (fluorescent = green), home (tungsten = yellow), or inside during the day (sunlight = more blue).
2. The monitor tends to look brighter, depending on the ambient light, because monitors are getting brigther all the time. At work, maybe not.
3. The words of death: "it looked good on my calibrated monitor."
A critical point is you can't calibrate your eyes. They are self-calibrating, meaning they remove color casts. Stare at a lone photo on your screen for 20 seconds and you lose the ability to see its color cast.
That's why I was placing photos side-by-side in the thread above.
Not so in a room where you view prints. You have your hands, other reference points, etc.
You quickly learn to ignore what people think they see on the monitor. It's what you measure with the eyedropper tool that matters.
But calibration prints have a massively useful function because it gives you a qualitative feel for how monitors translate into what a customer is really going to hold in their hands. Try as we'd like to make it an exact science, I'm afraid that understanding how people's eyes really work is far more important.
For example, on large prints they'll believe they are more saturated. It's the paint chip effect.
When their blood sugar's highest, they'll see the most vibrant colors.
Pinkish fair skinned caucasians don't want to look like they really are. They want to look like Indiana Jones.
It's a people business and just like the like certain poses and smiles which you quickly learn from experience, they have tastes in how they should look in print.
The normal tastes are undersharpened skin but sharp eyes and lips, possibly hair. Undersaturated skin.
More than you wanted to know? It's intersting to me, anyway, to check out pro galleries that do a high volume of print sales without returns. They tend to look like this:
I had one of my shots printed directly onto canvas yesterday.. some type of printing machine handles the material ...just a thought if anyone at SM wanted to see the result i can take a shot of it & post it.
Looks great. Feels like an oil painting...quite hard to tell its not.
I had one of my shots printed directly onto canvas yesterday.. some type of printing machine handles the material ...just a thought if anyone at SM wanted to see the result i can take a shot of it & post it.
Looks great. Feels like an oil painting...quite hard to tell its not.
Many people are having good success printing to canvas, that's great.
Ok Baldy, I tweaked that junk monitor a bit and in a very quick minute or two came up with this. Top is andy's shot, your autofix is in the middle, and my edit on the bottom.
Many people are having good success printing to canvas, that's great.
Ok Baldy, I tweaked that junk monitor a bit and in a very quick minute or two came up with this. Top is andy's shot, your autofix is in the middle, and my edit on the bottom.
I've found this thread to be vastly interesting, but I have some concerns about that bottom shot.
- the trees in the background are bright yellow, rather than green/yellow as they should be
- the skin tone looks like death warmed over.
- lots of detail loss in the background, entire trees are missing
- the black smugmug writing now looks green
Maybe there's some sort of colorspace mismatch going on or something? Certainly doesn't look well-calibrated from where I sit - Andy's version looks more accurate, even.
I've found this thread to be vastly interesting, but I have some concerns about that bottom shot.
- the trees in the background are bright yellow, rather than green/yellow as they should be
- the skin tone looks like death warmed over.
- lots of detail loss in the background, entire trees are missing
- the black smugmug writing now looks green
Maybe there's some sort of colorspace mismatch going on or something? Certainly doesn't look well-calibrated from where I sit - Andy's version looks more accurate, even.
Don
the interesting part, is, the shot of "that man" is totally unprocessed... i dumped 'em off to you guys and that was that....
I've found this thread to be vastly interesting, but I have some concerns about that bottom shot.
- the trees in the background are bright yellow, rather than green/yellow as they should be
- the skin tone looks like death warmed over.
- lots of detail loss in the background, entire trees are missing
- the black smugmug writing now looks green
Maybe there's some sort of colorspace mismatch going on or something? Certainly doesn't look well-calibrated from where I sit - Andy's version looks more accurate, even.
Don
I'll be back later.
Trees are not missing, they were quiclky removed as they were distracting as were other parts of the image. Andy's image is not even presentable as it is terrible as it is. Baldy's auto fix has bad shadow detail and the eyes look terrible. And no, the monitor is nort dead on. I'll be back....
Trees are not missing, they were quiclky removed as they were distracting as were other parts of the image. Andy's image is not even presentable as it is terrible as it is.
well, smugmug tried to get you, but evidently you weren't available, so they settled for the "second-rate photographer..."
Yeah, it's been mentioned in this thread before, but let's be clear: Andy's an excellent photographer and truly excellent at color correction, too.
This is a completely unprocessed shot right of the camera, and thus, perfect for these comparisons and the near-infrared problem.
Don
I would like to see you prove this is a special case of a near-infrared problem. I'm betting it's not anything any more special than a regular old run-of-the-mill difficult exposure like some of us encounter every day.
It was just tough exposure for the camera/operator, and was improperly white balanced it looks like to me. I never, ever, have seen anything like this from my digitals when I am shooting outdoors and properly set-up. Properly balanced and reasonably exposed outdoor shots will not look like that example with any lens that I know of.
1. You're seeing reflected lights from the prints but transmitted from the monitor. Are your customers opening their prints at work (fluorescent = green), home (tungsten = yellow), or inside during the day (sunlight = more blue).
2. The monitor tends to look brighter, depending on the ambient light, because monitors are getting brigther all the time. At work, maybe not.
3. The words of death: "it looked good on my calibrated monitor."
A critical point is you can't calibrate your eyes. They are self-calibrating, meaning they remove color casts. Stare at a lone photo on your screen for 20 seconds and you lose the ability to see its color cast.
That's why I was placing photos side-by-side in the thread above.
Not so in a room where you view prints. You have your hands, other reference points, etc.
You quickly learn to ignore what people think they see on the monitor. It's what you measure with the eyedropper tool that matters.
But calibration prints have a massively useful function because it gives you a qualitative feel for how monitors translate into what a customer is really going to hold in their hands. Try as we'd like to make it an exact science, I'm afraid that understanding how people's eyes really work is far more important.
For example, on large prints they'll believe they are more saturated. It's the paint chip effect.
When their blood sugar's highest, they'll see the most vibrant colors.
Pinkish fair skinned caucasians don't want to look like they really are. They want to look like Indiana Jones.
It's a people business and just like the like certain poses and smiles which you quickly learn from experience, they have tastes in how they should look in print.
The normal tastes are undersharpened skin but sharp eyes and lips, possibly hair. Undersaturated skin.
More than you wanted to know? It's intersting to me, anyway, to check out pro galleries that do a high volume of print sales without returns. They tend to look like this:
Thanks Baldy for the info. May be more than I want to know but I would bet it is something I may need to know. But I am having a little trouble with the link, will try again when I get home.
Most of the prints I have sold so far have been finished prints. I do understand most of the short falls of displaying images on the internet, so I am going to do all that has been suggested plus I will be purchasing a samplings of the images I post just so I can see what the purchaser will be getting.
I'm known locally as "da wintel zealot"..
Don't do macs, sorry..
Kick me in the head then, oooops : I still use 98se around here.
It sounded like a gamma setting issue to me. Those bottom two pix are light but not really, really washed out. I got mine a little lighter than I wanted to, but for the sake of quick fixes I did not redo. This also caused me to lose a bit of contrast and skintown that I could have had, but don't. I dont think many people are seeing those images as really washed out (other than the blown sky and a trace of forhead), but I could be wrong. And if they are, it would mean smugmug has a big problem with the new autocolor rig and I have a big problem here as well. The are just sorta low contrast on the 4 cheap rigs I have here. In my opinion neither correction is that good, but passable I suppose. It is strange that you are seeing them as completely blown out. Must be gamma, anyone else?? I assume you have a fairly good contrast/brightness setup?
Kick me in the head then, oooops I still use 98 all around. :uhoh
It sounded like a gamma setting issue to me. Those bottom two pix are light but not really washed out. I got mine a little lighter than I wanted to but for the sake of quick fixes I did not redo. This also caused me to lose a bit of contrast and skintown that I could have had but don't. I dont think many people are seeing those images as really washed out, but I could be wrong. There just sorta low contrast on the 4 cheap rigs I have here. In my opinion neither correction is that good, but passable I suppose. It is strange that you are seeing them as completely blown out. Must be gamma, anyone else?? I assume you have a fairly good contrast/brightness setup?
Thanks
-don
It's been discussed heavily here recently.. Safari/Mac honors ICC profiles, IE/Win ignores it and assumes sRGB.
My monitor setup is relatively fresh (bought it this January), so far I did not have any reason to think it's way off. And that print of yours that I did last nite came out pretty close to what I see on the LCD (as close as you can expect on a cheapo HP Deskjet 6800 and a plain paper:-), so I guess it's more-or-less OK..
Comments
This is a lovely shot and I'm disadvantaged because I don't know her. Having seen so many of these go through and and a few just like it be returned, my guess is 49 of 50 customers would accept it.
For one thing, she's not fair-skinned and it's fair-skinned caucasians who generate most returns. But her face is on the red side, something everyone is usually hyper allergic to, and saturation is high. We didn't shoot Fuji Velvia films for people for a good reason. When magenta saturation gets to 50%, you're flirting with the nuclear zone.
i2e, of course, would take no risks with this shot because commercial labs don't want risks, so it would reduce skin saturation especially in the magenta. It takes away some of the character of the shot, but this one will never come back from the client (unless it was a fine-art photographer who did the buying, and they would choose true color and get the deeper saturations).
To your eye, it will no doubt look sallow but if she was the buyer, she would probably consider it more flattering.
The main thing I don't like is it took the red out of her lips.
The definition of white balance is the white is balanced, which it is. The T-shirt is white.
i2e also made the shirt white but didn't kill the skin:
This thread has made a very compelling case for the dangers of true color.
Yup, this one is not a fair skinned example. I have posted many of those as streetshots later in the thread. I say without being there when the shot was taken, a third party has no real clue as to what the actual skin color and skin tone was like and to him it is only a guess as to what the real tones are supposed to be. So the third party editor then sets up the image to colors and tones that he prefers and not to how the image or person really looked when the image was captured.
BTW, from the looks of it, a few people are following this thread.
Cheers
-don
Note to self: Don't ever take pictures of people! Especially fair-skinned ones!
Ok...I'm going to jump back in here.
First I want to say...Your guy over at SM are awsome
The new cart looks great and works as well as it looks, I've already ordered some prints. Among the prints I ordered was the 8X10 Calibration print, if your going to do something might as well try and do it right.
My monitor is calibrated, color space for any images destined to be uploaded to SM are in sRGB, and I download and installed the ICC for ezprint. So far so good.
Ok so what should I do with the ICC. I seem to remember SM removes the ICC from the .JPG file for the thumbnail (I believe). Should I still imbed the ezprint ICC into the .JPG file or is the ICC only for proofing?
Thanks
[font="]Mitch [/font]
-don
#2 the original is so far from a good capture that, well you know what I mean...auto does work on some images best, especially ones where you don't have clue as to where to start, some images are just are that bad
#3 YUp, I agree most people should not use true color, as one kink in the editing chain may cause major errors.
#4 I still don't have my ps box recalibrated again yet. I will take another editing wack at it later.
#5 I am no skintone guru by any means, I rely on the capture to get things right when it comes to people shots. I can do some editing on somethings but people are not my favorite by any means. Luckilly, I can usually print people shots straight up with no substantial edits, other than maybe a clone or a heal and a slight levels boost. I tend to underexpose things, so I am pretty used to my processes on this stuff. My point here is, with autocolor it is easy to get something in range, but it won't neccesarily be an accurate reflection of what reality was or what you or anyone else saw on that day.
#6 You have to remember that almost everyones monitor looks different calibrated or not. The key is to get the white balance/color temperature and exposure correct in the field and all of this editing stuff becomes mute. At least on properly expoosed natural light outdoor shots, that is.
#7 Again, true color isn't for everyone and someone who thinks it is may be might be asking for trouble. However, I say it is the best way to go about processing ones own images when done correctly.
-don
From the more-than-you-may-want-to-know department, here's a great reference on getting prints and monitors to match:
http://hutchcolor.com/PDF/Soft_Proofing_tips6.pdf
There are 3 big problems with doing it:
1. You're seeing reflected lights from the prints but transmitted from the monitor. Are your customers opening their prints at work (fluorescent = green), home (tungsten = yellow), or inside during the day (sunlight = more blue).
2. The monitor tends to look brighter, depending on the ambient light, because monitors are getting brigther all the time. At work, maybe not.
3. The words of death: "it looked good on my calibrated monitor."
A critical point is you can't calibrate your eyes. They are self-calibrating, meaning they remove color casts. Stare at a lone photo on your screen for 20 seconds and you lose the ability to see its color cast.
That's why I was placing photos side-by-side in the thread above.
Not so in a room where you view prints. You have your hands, other reference points, etc.
You quickly learn to ignore what people think they see on the monitor. It's what you measure with the eyedropper tool that matters.
But calibration prints have a massively useful function because it gives you a qualitative feel for how monitors translate into what a customer is really going to hold in their hands. Try as we'd like to make it an exact science, I'm afraid that understanding how people's eyes really work is far more important.
For example, on large prints they'll believe they are more saturated. It's the paint chip effect.
When their blood sugar's highest, they'll see the most vibrant colors.
Pinkish fair skinned caucasians don't want to look like they really are. They want to look like Indiana Jones.
It's a people business and just like the like certain poses and smiles which you quickly learn from experience, they have tastes in how they should look in print.
The normal tastes are undersharpened skin but sharp eyes and lips, possibly hair. Undersaturated skin.
More than you wanted to know? It's intersting to me, anyway, to check out pro galleries that do a high volume of print sales without returns. They tend to look like this:
http://erikolsenphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/124050/2/5217155/Large
Looks great. Feels like an oil painting...quite hard to tell its not.
was it a velvet elvis?
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naw yer thinking of dogs playing poker:
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Ok Baldy, I tweaked that junk monitor a bit and in a very quick minute or two came up with this. Top is andy's shot, your autofix is in the middle, and my edit on the bottom.
##2 & 3 are plain washed out...:-(
Again, I may not have a good monitor, but it does look washed out on all 4 I have access to (21" nokia crt, 20" dell WS LCD, two 19" ELOs).
Baldy's face may be less red, but at this point who cares about the skin if you can't see 25% of his face..
I've found this thread to be vastly interesting, but I have some concerns about that bottom shot.
- the trees in the background are bright yellow, rather than green/yellow as they should be
- the skin tone looks like death warmed over.
- lots of detail loss in the background, entire trees are missing
- the black smugmug writing now looks green
Maybe there's some sort of colorspace mismatch going on or something? Certainly doesn't look well-calibrated from where I sit - Andy's version looks more accurate, even.
Don
the interesting part, is, the shot of "that man" is totally unprocessed... i dumped 'em off to you guys and that was that....
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Trees are not missing, they were quiclky removed as they were distracting as were other parts of the image. Andy's image is not even presentable as it is terrible as it is. Baldy's auto fix has bad shadow detail and the eyes look terrible. And no, the monitor is nort dead on. I'll be back....
Ouch, that means both Baldy's auto correct and my hack job...
interesting....
well, smugmug tried to get you, but evidently you weren't available, so they settled for the "second-rate photographer..."
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Yeah, it's been mentioned in this thread before, but let's be clear: Andy's an excellent photographer and truly excellent at color correction, too.
This is a completely unprocessed shot right of the camera, and thus, perfect for these comparisons and the near-infrared problem.
Don
It was just tough exposure for the camera/operator, and was improperly white balanced it looks like to me. I never, ever, have seen anything like this from my digitals when I am shooting outdoors and properly set-up. Properly balanced and reasonably exposed outdoor shots will not look like that example with any lens that I know of.
-don
And to think this all started because I asked what I thought was a simple question
Thanks for the info
Mitch
Interesting, Nik.
Are you on a Mac?
-don
Most of the prints I have sold so far have been finished prints. I do understand most of the short falls of displaying images on the internet, so I am going to do all that has been suggested plus I will be purchasing a samplings of the images I post just so I can see what the purchaser will be getting.
Thanks again
Mitch
-don
I'm known locally as "da wintel zealot"..
Don't do macs, sorry..
It sounded like a gamma setting issue to me. Those bottom two pix are light but not really, really washed out. I got mine a little lighter than I wanted to, but for the sake of quick fixes I did not redo. This also caused me to lose a bit of contrast and skintown that I could have had, but don't. I dont think many people are seeing those images as really washed out (other than the blown sky and a trace of forhead), but I could be wrong. And if they are, it would mean smugmug has a big problem with the new autocolor rig and I have a big problem here as well. The are just sorta low contrast on the 4 cheap rigs I have here. In my opinion neither correction is that good, but passable I suppose. It is strange that you are seeing them as completely blown out. Must be gamma, anyone else?? I assume you have a fairly good contrast/brightness setup?
Thanks
-don
It's been discussed heavily here recently.. Safari/Mac honors ICC profiles, IE/Win ignores it and assumes sRGB.
My monitor setup is relatively fresh (bought it this January), so far I did not have any reason to think it's way off. And that print of yours that I did last nite came out pretty close to what I see on the LCD (as close as you can expect on a cheapo HP Deskjet 6800 and a plain paper:-), so I guess it's more-or-less OK..