[normhead]

Well, looks like everybody is having a good time...I'll leave you at it

Seriously though, I made need some endorphins if my wrist doesn't get used to this thing

In the meantime, I'm going to attempt to break the 200 shutter count barrier and will post the best (or worst depending on how they are received) of my efforts soon...

Charlton

Don't be too concerned with how they are received. I've post images that I really liked that got no likes or any perceivable appreciation, but I get a notice somebody liked it, and I go back 2 months later and it's got 5 likes (which is the forum equivalent of about 100 facebook "likes". I always assume, if an image isn't appreciated, maybe it's just the right people haven't seen it yet.

[Charlie70]

My system to get accurate color and brightness from shoot to print in to set a custom white balance with a grey card and keep my monitor calibrated with the Spyder 5 pro. I shoot mostly weddings. The two photographers that work with me and myself have used the same calibration tools for the last two years with very accurate results. One of us can edit and one can print with the same accuracy as if the same person edited and printed. Simple system that gets accurate results.

Shooting raw?

[macman24054]

Shooting raw?

Yes shooting raw

[photoptimist]

Well the fact that I thought what I saw using my own eyeballs and brain was pleasing is why I took the image.

And even then, a slightly different white balance may make that even better, as compared to what i saw.

I don't hunt for technical colour accuracy. I hunt for endorphins.

If there's one thing I've learned later in life, endorphins kill pain, endorphins make you sleep better, endorphins make you a happier person. It's all about the endorphins.

Photographers don't need maximum colour accuracy in an image, they need maximum endorphin production.

Indeed! And perhaps you and Charlie70 would like to replicate those endorphins by replicating those eye-perceived colors. But what colors did your brain think that your eye saw?

I had a cataract fixed in one eye and now my left and right eye have different color balances!

[CarlJF]

The first thing to do is to make sure your screen is properly calibrated. Many monitors, if not most, are way off by default. This can be done with a probe (Spyder, Colormunki...) and software that will make and apply a standard profile for your graphic card/screen combo.

Without a calibrated screen, it’s impossible to know if the color cast you observe is from the camera or the screen...

[normhead]

Indeed! And perhaps you and Charlie70 would like to replicate those endorphins by replicating those eye-perceived colors. But what colors did your brain think that your eye saw?

I had a cataract fixed in one eye and now my left and right eye have different color balances!

When I had mine done I discovered everything was brighter than I thought it was, indoors and out, and there was more noise in my images than I realized.

And perhaps you and Charlie70 would like to replicate those endorphins by replicating those eye-perceived colors.

There's no "would like to", that's what I do.I'm not going through that song and dance where I calibrate everything to get truly accurate colour, but I don't like the final image.

The first thing to do is to make sure your screen is properly calibrated. Many monitors, if not most, are way off by default. This can be done with a probe (Spyder, Colormunki...) and software that will make and apply a standard profile for your graphic card/screen combo.

Without a calibrated screen, it’s impossible to know if the color cast you observe is from the camera or the screen...

If you view the image on the same uncalibrated screen you post process on, you're colour will be correct on your screen but possibly not on anyone else's, so your statement is only true if you are producing work for unknown output devices. In a situation as noted above where different people are part of the same workflow then it becomes crucial. But for the average guy, it's not essential. I always use the Apple built in calibrations software found in the control panel when I first buy a system. I've never seen a need to go beyond that.

Proper calibration is only meaningful to others who employ the same calibration. Otherwise, if you're like me and it looks good on my HD TV, further calibration beyond that is of no benefit to me. If others want me to calibrate for other devices, well, you gotta pay me to do that. It goes beyond my personal needs.

I don't care where the colour cast is coming from, I only care that I can get what I want displayed on my output device of choice. Maybe sometimes proper calibration helps. I have no references on that topic, one way or the other. All I know is my computer has a Samsung monitor and my 4k TV is a Samsung TV, and what my computer screen looks like is also what my TV screen looks like, except the TV is more contrasty. The great unasked question here is, can every calibrated output device produce the same colour. I think different systems have different capabilities, and the calibration will not produce exactly the same results no matter what you do. But hey, that's just a suspicion. Calibration is only real, if you calibrate the input device to match the idiosyncrasies of the output device. And since you have to do that for every output device likely to be used for it's display, it's probably next to pointless. If you calibrate for your own devices at least you know it's good on those devices. If you don't, you don't know it's good anywhere.

I have no doubt some professionals need it. I'm not one of them. Recognizing that saves me a lot of mucking about. My advice would be do as much as you can with as little effort as possible, and live with it, unless you are working pro. And certainly don't waste money on stuff. If you are selling your output it may be different, but even in that case, not necessarily. You might possibly end up with colour balance problems, but I suspect it would rarely make much difference to final output.

[texandrews]

Ah, then you don't actually want accurate colors. You want to replicate the white balance and colors of your own eyeballs and brain.

Exactly. I am shooting now for a major museum, although not yet the repro stuff. The lengths our previous photographer went to to get color accuracy would not be worth it to anyone not doing professional fine arts repro photography or product photography for catalogs. And she was not the most advanced photographer in our system, technically (although she was pretty brilliant). For the rest of it, fahgeddaboudit. Even high fashion photography often doesn't go for complete color accuracy.

Absolute color accuracy is next to impossible. Close to absolute color accuracy is really challenging.

[photoptimist]

Exactly. I am shooting now for a major museum, although not yet the repro stuff. The lengths our previous photographer went to to get color accuracy would not be worth it to anyone not doing professional fine arts repro photography or product photography for catalogs. And she was not the most advanced photographer in our system, technically (although she was pretty brilliant). For the rest of it, fahgeddaboudit. Even high fashion photography often doesn't go for complete color accuracy.

Absolute color accuracy is next to impossible. Close to absolute color accuracy is really challenging.

Indeed!

There's the lumpy color spectra of most light sources.
There's the lumpy color spectra of most pigments & dyes, and materials.
There's the lumpy color spectra of the RGB color filters of the sensor.
There's the lumpy color spectra of the output media (monitors or prints).
There's the lumpy color spectra of the rods and cones of the human eye.

Put 'em all together and what a ya get..... not a snow ball's chance in Hades of accuracy.

The hard core scientist would use a multi-band spectrophotometer with a calibrated light source to measure reflectance at each wavelength. That's the only way to accurately assess the "color" of some important object such as a museum piece, mineral specimen, biological tidbit, etc.

That said, a good color checker test target, calibrated monitor, and careful post processing can get fairly close but there will always be weird objects that look one color to the human eye and a slightly different color to the camera's eye.

[lakeshore]

Considering how bloody bitingly bright and contrasty most images on social medias these days are, most people would never know a difference between a theoretical "100% accurate colours" and "90% accurate colours".

Slightly off topic but still about colour - I'm sure others on this forum have noticed this trend to bright colours and very dark images with a lot of contrast not just in social media but also on photography sites and newspaper websites.


What are your opinions regarding this trend? Do you like it?

How are these results created? Is it all done in post-processing?

[normhead]

Slightly off topic but still about colour - I'm sure others on this forum have noticed this trend to bright colours and very dark images with a lot of contrast not just in social media but also on photography sites and newspaper websites.


What are your opinions regarding this trend? Do you like it?

How are these results created? Is it all done in post-processing?

There were two photgraphy teachers in our school. My experience was in art photogrpahy, my co-workers experience was in commercial product photography. My preference was towards high contrast, his was a more muted no artifacts or lost detail philosophy. Which of us was right depended completely on whether you asked him or me.

[RonHendriks1966]

Well first start would be to have your white balance in order before taking an image. You can use the help of things like ExpoDisc or many other solutions.

ExpoDisc and whitebalance with K-5. - PentaxForums.com

[Apet-Sure]

Believe it or not, I do not post to social media

I don't post pictures to social media either. Oh, wait. Pentax Forums is social media!

[stevebrot]

So I'm looking for advice on how to achieve this with the K-70. I've been playing around with the various white balance options and custom image modes, but I wonder if there's some kind of magic formula that others are using?

As noted above, you have a number of options:

• Let the camera do all the work and suck up the occasional off-color image. Use "Auto" mode or various methods of "choose from selection" processing to a pleasing result.
• Do much of the work yourself with the aim being color that is pleasing to you, with intent being to publish to the Web or print. Essentially, this is tweaking default processing using your tool of choice, usually from a RAW capture. Mastery of this usually requires some effort, but is worth it, in my opinion.
• Go to considerable effort towards absolute accuracy with intent to publish to print, the Web being a lost cause due to the variety of viewing devices and limited gamut/color depth. To this end, RAW capture is the norm, as is a color-calibrated work flow and careful attention to capture spectra. The best examples might be fine art reproductions and fashion photography.

My advice is to gain experience with the understanding that there is no quick path to WOW and that there are plenty of variables not under our control. I would also suggest that accuracy is highly overrated. Have fun!


Steve

[The Squirrel Mafia]

Be sure your "scene selection" is set to "natural", and the mode switch on anything other than "auto". Read up on how to get your white-balance set correctly for the shot you plan to take.

This is probably the easiest thing to do with the closest results. If you use PDCU5, selecting the Natural color tone will do the same for your RAW files. If processing with another program, use the Natural DCP file from either the 645Z, K-1, K-1 Mark II, or the K-3II that you'll find in the Adobe DNG Converter. You'll have to figure out the settings in your RAW program to use them.

[texandrews]

Indeed!

There's the lumpy color spectra of most light sources.
There's the lumpy color spectra of most pigments & dyes, and materials.
There's the lumpy color spectra of the RGB color filters of the sensor.
There's the lumpy color spectra of the output media (monitors or prints).
There's the lumpy color spectra of the rods and cones of the human eye.

Put 'em all together and what a ya get..... not a snow ball's chance in Hades of accuracy.

The hard core scientist would use a multi-band spectrophotometer with a calibrated light source to measure reflectance at each wavelength. That's the only way to accurately assess the "color" of some important object such as a museum piece, mineral specimen, biological tidbit, etc.

That said, a good color checker test target, calibrated monitor, and careful post processing can get fairly close but there will always be weird objects that look one color to the human eye and a slightly different color to the camera's eye.

Glad we "see" "eye to eye" ! And just as something I thought you might find interesting:

For archival repro shots and catalogs, we have to color match to prints. This means shooting an artwork and then printing the shot, and then scrutinizing the print against the actual artwork. One thing I saw my former colleague do (and she had decades of experience shooting for major artists and museums in NYC) was use a Pantone color fan to match colors she knew were likely to be a problem against the artwork. This way when she was color matching with prints she could go back to her notes and tweak accordingly. The Macbeth color chart and Color Checker Passport were not enough, nor was standard white balancing or camera profiling. Very old school, very effective.

But, pursuant to your comments, I also came away convinced that excellent fine arts repro photographers were a lot like sommeliers---not just any old soul can do it at the highest level. I like my wine, and my palate isn't crude, but I'm no sommelier.