I have a color question...

l.k.madison · May 9, 2010

I hate posting two back to back posts but the second one is in reference to a question I had while editing the first one.

So for some reason, my 40D isn't liking my baby hats -- I'm not sure what's going on, but it's making the colors VERY funny. I swear I've posted this question before, I couldn't find it in my archives of posts.

So yet again, here's a question for you seasoned pros: What in the WORLD is going on with the blue on his hat? *I know the picture isn't wonderful, I can't get past the funked up blue to fix any more*

Sorry about the screen shot, I converted it to a jpeg, posted it to flickr and Flickr fixed it -who knew?- so I'm posting the screen shot of Canon Raw and the Flickr "fix". Anybody know why Flickr fixed it??

Screenshot:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/4591204040/" title="Color Question by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4067/4591204040_520bce623b.jpg" width="500" height="313" alt="Color Question" /></a>

Flickr's fix: (Which if I could guarantee it would print like this, I would edit everything BUT that and hope for the best)
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkmadison/4590564813/" title="Color question by L.K.Madison, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/4590564813_ab475ff4d9.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Color question" /></a>

Thanks, guys - all else fails, I post on DGrin.

adbsgicom · May 9, 2010

Hi. I don't have an answer, but a question. Why is the color profile on the screenshot Huey D65 G2.2 A123.86 ?
The profile on the flickr image is Adobe RGB. When I bring the images in to CS4 and allow them to keep their profiles, the screen shot has a lot of red in the blue of the hat.

If I tell the import to ignore the profile, I get a wildly vibrant hat and baby. I think you are misusing your color profile. You don't import to your color profile. The profile should be assigned to your monitor (many of the management tools do this for you), and you should work in whatever color space you want (AdobeRGB, ProPhoto, sRGB). I think best practices are to export to sRGB for web since this will look best of most display devices since it is the default color space.
lkm_screen.jpg

l.k.madison · May 9, 2010

adbsgicom wrote: »

Hi. I don't have an answer, but a question. Why is the color profile on the screenshot Huey D65 G2.2 A123.86 ?
The profile on the flickr image is Adobe RGB. When I bring the images in to CS4 and allow them to keep their profiles, the screen shot has a lot of red in the blue of the hat.

If I tell the import to ignore the profile, I get a wildly vibrant hat and baby. I think you are misusing your color profile. You don't import to your color profile. The profile should be assigned to your monitor (many of the management tools do this for you), and you should work in whatever color space you want (AdobeRGB, ProPhoto, sRGB). I think best practices are to export to sRGB for web since this will look best of most display devices since it is the default color space.
lkm_screen.jpg

We'll change the settings and see what happens. It did it on my
last baby shoot, her pink hat got messed up and we couldn't figure out what was going on.

Thanks, Andrew. Guess it's only fitting you help with Baby Andrew's pictures

ivar · May 9, 2010

Since this is not about people shots, but about technique, I moved it to the technique forum hoping you'd get more helpful replies there

JohnBiggs · May 10, 2010

Just a question.... Are you shooting under fluorescent lights? I see a funky blue green that fluorescent gives.

l.k.madison · May 10, 2010

JohnBiggs wrote: »

Just a question.... Are you shooting under fluorescent lights? I see a funky blue green that fluorescent gives.

Yes, the light was flourescent, WalMart bulbs in a softbox.

I'm not so worried about the color, that's fixable for the most part.

I tried playing with the color profile a bit trying to fix it, it seems to fix itself when it's a jpeg, but I need to find out how to fix it in camera or camera raw so I don't get the weird coloring anymore.

adbsgicom · May 10, 2010

Did you get anywhere by having your monitor's profile properly set, and using a standard profile in your work flow?

l.k.madison · May 10, 2010

adbsgicom wrote: »

Did you get anywhere by having your monitor's profile properly set, and using a standard profile in your work flow?

It's not the monitor, it's the actual photo, I played in CS4 and changed the color profile of it around and got rid of the glow enough to edit it.

I fixed it -for now- but I'd like to know what's going on so I don't have to play with color profiles every time I use that hat.

Here's the final (along with the rest of the set) for comparison purposes:
http://www.madisonsquared.com/proofing/Andrew/large-9.html

adbsgicom · May 10, 2010

Very lovely image!

What I have is
Spyder3 calibration tool loads profile for drivers on PC (called right monitor and left monitor).
I run LR2/CS4 using ProPhotoRGB as the profile
When I export from LR to jpeg I convert to sRGB.
When I print to a file for a printer, I print using the profile for the destination printer.

JohnBiggs · May 11, 2010

Great final. You should just shoot a gray card and custom balance off of it. However standard CFLs have color issues that can't be 100% corrected.

Here is some information: http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp028.htm

I've never cared for CFL/FL for photo lighting.

l.k.madison · May 17, 2010

JohnBiggs wrote: »

Great final. You should just shoot a gray card and custom balance off of it. However standard CFLs have color issues that can't be 100% corrected.

Here is some information: http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp028.htm

I've never cared for CFL/FL for photo lighting.

I brought up the color question today at my higher end photography store today and they seemed just as baffled as we are. Of course, I pulled up my Flickr from my phone and it didn't do the picture justice, but it was still obvious what I was talking about. The lab tech said to print a test shot and see if it printed like that, which doesn't *fix* the problem, it just covers it up.

I don't think it's the white balance issue, on the Mac, the blue in the tassels seems to "glow" but on the PC, I don't have a problem with it at all, so I know it's not that.

Also, I don't think it's the monitor as previously mentioned, I calibrate before every major editing session, so it's not that, especially since the jpeg looks just fine and the RAW doesn't.

I think it's something the 40D is doing, I see the glowing in the LCD and I'm thinking saving it as a jpeg is correcting it while RAW, is exactly that, just a raw image. I'm going to restore my camera to factory settings and see what happens, hopefully that's all that's wrong.

Of course, while trying to figure out what's wrong, my husband keeps saying "My Nikon doesn't do that". Yes, there's even a Battle of the Brands in our house, too.

EatMyShot · May 19, 2010

I am pretty sure it's a white ballance issue. Your flickr image was on the blue / green side.
As john suggested use a grey card. It's the best $3 investment you'll ever make. Just place grey card it in front of your subject in the begining of your session, then in post production in RAW use white ballance picker to take reading off the grey card, then apply wite ballance setting to all the captures.
Here is your shot with wite balance corrected

Now if this doesn't look right on your screen then the next step would be to callibrate your screen. Use spider or other type of callibrator.
Hope this helped.

Pure Energy · April 22, 2012

Ok, what gives? The part of the hat that gets tied and is draped over the kids right arm...

If viewed on my computer setup from:

Firefox - has rich dark blues in post #2. In post #12 it appears purple.
Internet Explorer - post #2 matches what it looks like in Firefox, post #12 is a more bright navy blue.
Photoshop - WTH, it seems really complicated to make it look blue.

ziggy53 · April 23, 2012

Pure Energy wrote: »

Ok, what gives? The part of the hat that gets tied and is draped over the kids right arm...

If viewed on my computer setup from:
Firefox - has rich dark blues in post #2. In post #12 it appears purple.

Internet Explorer - post #2 matches what it looks like in Firefox, post #12 is a more bright navy blue.

Photoshop - WTH, it seems really complicated to make it look blue.

The quick answer is that Internet browsers are mostly not color managed. Trusting a browser window for accurate color is by-and-large a bad idea.

As far as Photoshop goes, that's where you need to concentrate on producing accurate and predictable colors.

Have you turned on color management profiles for Photoshop? What happens if you turn them off?

What operating system?

Have you tried to color calibrate your display? If so, by what method?

At very least I recommend turning off color management profiles on Photoshop until you gain basic control over the general appearance of standard images on your display. If you don't use color calibration hardware, at least use standardized gamma and print/screen color targets to get your system close to accurate.

It's also "extremely" important to be able to work colors "by the numbers". In other words, you should know how to use the color sampler in Photoshop to determine proper numeric values so that:

Whites and grays are truly color neutral, as are true blacks.
Flesh tones conform to acceptable values.
Pure color tones retain their purity through your color management process.

Gamma target that I like for Windows machines:

http://www.w4zt.com/screen/target.jpg

Print/monitor calibration targets:

http://outbackprint.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi048/550_PrinterEvaluationTarget.jpg

http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/TaggedsRGB.jpg

http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/monitor_check_calibration.jpg

http://www.koren-design.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/mire1024x768.jpg

http://www.chromix.com/downloadarea/testimages/frontier_color57s.jpg

http://uofgts.com/PS-P2Site/images/PrinterTest.jpg

http://www.lustrecolor.com/downloads/MonitorCalibration/7_10_MonCal.jpg

http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00R/00RtFE-100279584.jpg

http://www.smugmug.com/img/help/calibration-print-1400-2.jpg

http://www.colour-science.com/quality%20test%20tools/test%20files/Reference%20Print%20printer%202362x3543pixel.jpg

Print off some of these through a professional printer without using any Photoshop adjustments, and then use the prints to try to adjust the display to match. You can also use the calibration images as a visual guide since human sight is very sensitive to "comparative" colors. When you can match known or desired tones of your images to the standard images, you should be very close to accurate.

Finally, your display/monitor may not be up to the task. If you cannot adjust the computer and monitor sufficiently, it may be time to consider a new monitor and one with technology conducive to photographic intent.

zoomer · April 23, 2012

I didn't read all the responses so disregard if this is already fixed.
Looks like a combo white balance/dark exposure issue to me.

Increase the exposure to where the histogram tells you it should be, then if it still looks weird....click on one of the white elements in the photo with the Levels white eyedropper.

rsquared · April 23, 2012

This conversation is from May 2011, and the OP hasn't posted on this board since November...

Pure Energy · April 23, 2012

rsquared wrote: »

This conversation is from May 2011, and the OP hasn't posted on this board since November...

Ya, it would be nice if the original OP could comment as to whether the hat should be blue or purple. Heck, which one is blue or purple for you? Are they both? none?

I can live with having to view my photos from a certain browser but should the colors be wildly different if viewed from the same browser? Should the medium sized image be different from the thumbnail on SM when viewed from the same browser?

I have problems with a similar photo that I think should have blue elements in it... but they are showing up as purple in Photoshop. I did just discover another way to make the photo blue in photoshop though:

Jpeg shot with Adobe RGB profile
Jpeg opened up in Photoshop CS3, I get a dialog box and I convert it to sRGB.
Once opened, I Assign profile Adobe RGB

Now, it's not exactly the blue I'm aiming for, but it's much bluer with fringes and tints of purple in areas more noticeable to the picky eye. Then if I convert it to sRGB before uploading to SM, it looks better than when originally converted... but it's still slightly too much purple and more noticeable then when viewed with Adobe RGB assigned as above.

The only other way to view the image as blue is by changing View>Proof Setup to Monitor RGB and then making sure there is a checkmark beside View>Proof Colors. It's perhaps too bright of a blue compared to everything else... but it more resembles what color blue is seen when viewing the photo through Windows Fax & Photo viewer... or when viewed on another computer. Should what I be viewing in Photoshop be matching how it looks in the Photoshop browser that opens up when I click on Browse in Photoshop? Or vice-versa? Go figure.

To paraphrase a response I got from SM was... I can upload it to them in Adobe RGB and let them convert it. That doesn't solve the problems I could cause trusting the colors in Photoshop when they are wrong... and seriously? I should be fine with not doing the conversion?

Pure Energy · April 23, 2012

Added in post above:

Should what I be viewing in Photoshop be matching how it looks in the Photoshop browser that opens up when I click on Browse in Photoshop? Or vice-versa?

I have a color question...

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