FIT Foundations of Color

A4: Achromatic Still Life

Assigned: Week #6 3/7/12

* To be shot in class Week #7 *

Image(s) Due Date: Week #8 3/14/12

Print(s) Due Date: Week #9 3/21/12

Images Due: 3 Final Images (Prints due 3/23/11)

Details: To be shot digitally, RAW file format, Custom White Balance setting (you set the appropriate color temperature). Please submit the RAW file as well.

The purpose of this exercise is to notice slight shifts in color temperature when shooting digitally. By shooting achromatic hue-less objects, you should be able to see even the slightest shift in white balance, which can be much harder to detect when shooting skin tone or everyday color scenes! However, as we’ve already learned this semester, our eyes can deceive us! We can get used to the slight color imbalance on our camera and computer screen resulting in our eye/brain convincing us it is a neutral image. Therefore we will continue this project discussion the following week in the digital lab by applying our technical knowledge of the RGB digital numbers while learning to properly process a digital RAW file.

IN CLASS SHOOTING EXERCISE (performed in groups of 2):
Using various "hue-less" objects (black, white, gray and clear objects) create still life images using the case lights and white, black or gray backgrounds of your choice. Pay special attention to the white balance and use the color meter if you would like to specify the exact color temperature of the light source. Shoot a series of digital images in color of pleasing still life compositions.

Next week we will be processing our digital files and producing an 8x10 final print for homework.

Week #6: 3/7/12 Critique A3

"A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture."
- Andreas Feininger

Critique Assignment #3: Color Temperature Divergence Test

Pair up and prep for shooting A4 next week in class!


© Laura Letinsky (repped by Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Week #5: 2/29/11 Filters

"There is nothing worse than a brilliant image of a fuzzy concept." - Ansel Adams

"'Available light' means any light that's available." - Arnold Newman

Gregory Crewdson Aperture article

Light Balancing Filters (LB: usually used for warming/cooling or tungsten/daylight shifts) or Color Correction Filters (CC: usually used for magenta-green shifts) can be used on lens to correct for subtle color temperature shifts in your light source, or to correct for more drastic imbalances of film/camera color temperatures to the light source. For example, if you are shooting outside under daylight color temperatures with tungsten balanced film, you could use an 85B filter on lens to warm the daylight to more closely match the tungsten film's color temperature. CC filters are typically used when it is critical to balance the color temperature of a light source to the film. For example, still life photographers would use a color meter to help figure out what CC filters would balance the light for accurate color results in the products they were shooting.

(LB) Light Balancing Filters

Color correction gels, such as CTB and CTO, "Color Temperature Blue", and "Color Temperature Orange" are larger sheets of gels that are put over light sources to alter or "correct" the color temperature of a light to more closely match the color temperature of a film negative, or chrome, or the white balance of a digital camera.

These gels can also be used in a creative way! Use over your speedlight flash to add color and mood to the background as in the example below:

To be shot in teams of 2 in class:

Shot Outside:

Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚, + 85B LB filter over lens (as if you were using Tungsten film outside with a correcting LB filter for daylight use)

Shot Outside:

Daylight shot with WB @ 5000˚K (or Daylight Preset)
Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K (or Tungsten Preset)
Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, shot down -2 stops
Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, speedlight reading +2 from camera setting (still at -2 so FG is proper exposure, but BG is -2)
Daylight shot with WB @ 3200˚K, speedlight +2 (or more) with Full CTO on strobe

Shot Inside:

Fluorescent shot with WB @ 5000˚K
Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset
Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset and Speedlight +1
Fluorescent shot with WB @ Fluorescent preset and Speedlight +1 with Full +1 Green CC Gel (Rosco #3304)

Color Correction Filter/Gel List for use over Lights:

Lee Filters:

201 Full CTB (Color Temperature Blue)
202 Half CTB
203 Quarter CTB
218 Eighth CTB
204 Full CTO (Color Temperature Orange)
205 Half CTO
206 Quarter CTO
223 Eighth CTO
241 Fluorescent 5700K
242 Fluorescent 4300K

Rosco Filters:

3202 Full CTB (Color Temperature Blue); 3200K to 5500K
3204 Half CTB; 3200K to 4100K
3208 Quarter CTB; 3200K to 3500K
3216 Eighth CTB; 3200K to 3300K
3407 Full CTO (Color Temperature Orange); 5500K to 2900K
3411 3/4 CTO; 5500K to 3200K
3408 Half CTO; 5500K to 3800K
3409 Quarter CTO; 5500K to 4500K
3410 Eighth CTO; 5500K to 4900K
3304 Full Plus Green; to balance daylight sources to cool white fluorescent
3315 1/2 Plus Green; partial green to balance with fluorescents

*Can be purchased at Set Shop

Color Correction Filter Pack for Speedlights at HoneyGrids.com

Shape+Colour - Fun reading list of books related to color by subject or otherwise! Rather interesting - check it out as well as the rest of his site.

Minolta IIIF Color Meter Manual

A3: Color Temperature

Assigned: Week #4 2/2211

Due Date: Week #6 3/7/11

Images Due: 8 Digital Images

Details: Set your digital camera to Daylight White Balance Preset or Manually to 5000-5500˚K, Raw image capture, and a color profile of Adobe RGB. If you retouch, also provide the unretouched file!

For this assignment, you are going to explore color temperatures using your digital camera as your tool.

Part A - Color Temperatures (edited to 4 final shots):

I would like you to shoot subjects of your choice (people, landscapes, still lifes, etc.) illuminated by light sources that each have their own unique color temperatures. Shoot multiple images lit by different types of light sources such as fluorescent, tungsten, floodlamp, neon, mercury or sodium vapor (streetlights), etc. *Explore subjects illuminated by multiple light sources in the same shot to further understand the concepts of white balance.

Keep in mind that you should be shooting outdoors at night, dusk, dawn, or indoors in order to have a majority of your scene illuminated by artificial sources. Therefore, I highly recommend shooting with a high ISO (so your image sensor is more sensitive to the light) and using a tripod (because you may be shooting with very slow shutter speeds!).

Part B - Time of Day (edited to 4 final shots):

To further illustrate the concepts of color temperature, you are going to shoot your subject illuminated during specific times of the day. To more accurately demonstrate light and color changes, shoot outside with only daylight on a relatively clear day(s) at sunrise and/or sunset (6:41am and 5:39pm). Start on this as soon as you can, because if you wait until the last minute, I’m sure the weather will stink and your grade will reflect your results!

*The Catch!...

To add a bit of creativity to this concept you will be exploring a simple “divergence test”. Divergence tests are best for measuring one’s imagination. You will attempt to take your mind in as many different directions as possible to conceptually solve the assignment. Bottom line: Divergence tests are a great measurement of creativity.

Here’s your assignment: Write down as many uses as possible that you can think of for a brick and then a blanket. There are no wrong answers, but be creative as possible. Then, illustrate these concepts utilizing the lighting guidelines of Part A and Part B above. You may use all brick answers, or brick ideas for Part A only, or 2 brick ideas for each Part A and B, or… it is up to you. Be creative and have fun!

Submit all 8 digital files (at least!) in class week #6 labeled appropriately.

Example File Naming = “A3_Name_A_Tungsten.CR2” or “A3_Name_B_6:30am.CR2”

Week #4: 2/22/12 Perceptual Color + HSL

The difficulty with color is to go beyond the fact that it's color – to have it be not just a colorful picture but really be a picture about something. It's difficult. So often color gets caught up in color, and it becomes merely decorative. Some photographers use [ it ] brilliantly to make visual statements combining color and content; otherwise it is empty. - Mary Ellen Mark, “Mary Ellen Mark: 25 Years” by Marianne Fulton, ISBN: 0821218387, Page: 5


© Antony Crossfield

Munsell Color System

Color consists of 3 basic elements:

Hue (or color) - valued between 0˚ and 360˚
Saturation (or chroma) - vividness or purity of a color valued from 0 to 100
Luminance (or lightness/brightness) - lightness or darkness in a color valued from 0 to 100

Perceptual Color

We see colors in relationship to other colors in our field of vision.

The appearance of any one color is modified by the presence of other colors.

Two colors, side by side, interact with one another and change our perception accordingly. The effect of this interaction is called simultaneous contrast.

Lightness shift: By far the best example of simultaneous contrast since value dominates our visual experience. Want to make a color appear lighter? Make it lighter or make surrounding colors darker.

Lightness Shift

Saturation shift: The next strongest visual effect. Want to make a color appear more saturated? Make it more saturated or make surrounding colors less saturated.

Saturation Shift

Hue shift: Want to make a color appear cooler? Make it cooler or make surrounding colors warmer.

Hue Shift

Color Afterimages

Lilac Chaser (Magenta dot blinking in a circle with the complimentary green dots appearing as temporary afterimages).

Week #3: 2/15/11 Technical Color

“..Why would anyone want to photograph an indisputably colourful world in monochrome? If colour film had been invented first, would anybody even contemplate photographing in black and white?” - Russell Miller , Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History by Russell Miller , ISBN: 0802116310 , Page: 4

Color Temperature and White Balance

The color temperature of a light source is measured in degrees Kelvin and it describes its color exactly. The lower the color temperature, the more “warm” red wavelengths are in the light. Higher color temperatures have more “cool” blue wavelengths.

Cool = above 5500˚K (like shade at 6000˚K)

Neutral = 5000-5500˚K (like midday daylight)

Warm = Below 5000˚K (like Tungsten at 3200˚K)

In a digital camera, white balance is a setting that compensates for the differences in color temperature of the surrounding light. The white balance must be adjusted to ensure that all colors in the scene will be represented faithfully. It can be adjusted automatically by the camera or manually, by selecting presets (tungsten, fluorescent, etc.), or by aiming the lens at a totally white surface (the white card) and selecting "lock white balance." Alternatively, a gray card with 18% gray is sometimes used and can be clicked on in post-production (processing a RAW file or using a color adjustment such as Curves in Photoshop) to adjust the white balance to a neutral point.

White Balance Presets and Color Temperature Scale

Shot with Manual White Balance Settings. Notice it's the opposite of what you would think - 3000˚K is Cool - It's more like adding a color filter to adjust for the color temperature the camera thinks it is capturing!

Click here to see a fun example of how a Photoshop version of white balance really changes a scene's mood!

Kodachrome article