Originally posted by ddb ...the funny thing about this painting (that's why I picked this one) is that it looks completely different under different light angles, when the sun hits my living room it has this fresh laundry lemon tangerine shine to it, during the night it turns orangy and camo green...
Hi
Welcome to the frustating world of metamerism!
Metamerism simply is a phenomenon which causes colours to change when viewed under different light sources. Ambient light with their unique wavelengths reflect differently off different surfaces, paints and inks.
You pick a colour swatch from the paint store which you think would look good in your living room. You buy the paint and start painting the living room walls. As soon as you start painting you notice the colour is not right (you say, the paint is still wet, it'll come good.) But no, the light grey you originally selected now looks much darker and a bit greenish. You turn the light on and now it looks different again. You are experiencing metamerism.
Epson had a big problem some year ago, their pigment ink was very badly affected my the Metamerism phenomenon. Under different electric light it would change differently in a dramatic way. In daylight it would change again depending on the time of day.
Epson inks are still suffering of this to a degree even today. That is why I don't use them. Some third party suppliers are much better. Modern art paints, oils and acrylics are now very much better in this regard. This is why they are so expensive.
So what is the solution.
Firstly, if the paint of your pictures badly metameris (looks like they do) you need to decide how and where you want to display them and choose the lighting under which you photograph them accordingly and stick with it. If you just want to archive them choose the most appropriate light source.
Secondly, use a neutral grey card. You can buy one on line. Then set up your lighting and do a pilot shot (RAW please !) of the picture with the grey card in it (or part of the picture.) This is important. Then when you open the picture in your RAW converter click on the colour picker (pipette symbol) move it over the grey cart part of the picture and miraculously the picture will appear colour correct. Of course this will only be the case if your graphics card and monitor sing from the same song book, in other words everything is calibrated.
In case you print I suggest using a 3500K (Kelvin) lamp shining over the printer. I find this a good compromise. Don't use Fluorescent lights they usually have a high green content at the expense of all other colours. The above mentioned incandescent 3500K light has more or less a proper ratio of green to the other colours. It gives me best results for viewing what I print.
Hope this sheds some light on it. (bad pun)