My biggest challenge with photography is being color blind.

PeterPP · 07-25-2009, 08:52 AM

I love photography and even bought myself my very first dSLR Pentax k-7 this month but my biggest challenge is me having severe color deficiency, red and green and all the colors related to red and green. How do photogs who are color blind deal with it? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

StarDust · 07-25-2009, 09:45 AM

How about black and white photography? Colors can sometimes be in the way when you want to show shapes and patterns. Black and white can enhance just that.
If you want to solve this in a more technical way, you could look at the channels (red, green and blue split up into three separate photos) in Photoshop and see where the different colors are saturated. After some training, this could perhaps be a way around color blindness.
Just a thought...

krypticide · 07-25-2009, 10:23 AM

I use my girlfriend to double check my colors...

However, I usually find myself gravitating toward black and white images. I haven't made a full transition though, because I guess I'm just a bit frightened about dumping color data. Not all my shots are worth keeping the RAW images for...

Ratmagiclady · 07-25-2009, 12:45 PM

I suppose much depends on whether or not you're getting what you want to be seeing: after all, the camera isn't color-blind, even if you're shooting color for an audience that distinguishes a couple more than you do, it's not that much different from life, I'd think.

On the other hand, you could also do some fun things with some of the 'special effects:' there are functions to actually shoot monochrome, except leaving in only a color or maybe two: maybe you could find a way to share a view of the world more as you see it, say, by actually letting the computer remove the colors you can't distinguish.

(I've actually had kind of similar ideas about dealing with my general sun-sensitivity: what's a 'nice day' to most folks tends to look like a kind-of-washed out Kodachrome slide about two stops overexposed, to me. (At least from where I feel comfy standing for very long.

) I haven't gotten around to dealing with it too much, since I like monochrome anyway, and tend to be shooting-half-blindly into such conditions to begin with, but I've contemplated just making some of my digital work in the bright look like things do to me through my favorite types of dark brown shades, (which makes the brighter parts of the world look pretty cool to me) ... maybe with the digital equivalent of stacking a couple of 85B filters on there.

)

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 07-25-2009 at 01:10 PM.

StarDust · 07-25-2009, 01:53 PM

I'm near-sighted, maybe I should take picture OOF, the way I would see the world without glasses

ryan s · 07-25-2009, 05:32 PM

LOL I could do macros from about 4-6" in front of my nose but I'd rather use my glasses

My roommate in college was colorblind. He'd see brown as green and vise versa...blue as purple and vise versa...etc. He could usually guess what color something was by thinking about what it SHOULD be...like grass is green in the summer even though it looked brown.

Is something like that possible? Are you able to "infer" colors?

squarerigger · 07-26-2009, 11:40 AM

I am also red/green color blind. I use Aperture as a processing software package and find I am pretty good at getting the colors to be correct. Being red/green color blind we can see true red and true green, it is the shades of red and green that we have trouble with. I find I can correct the colors to a good green/red the rest takes care of itself. If I start experimenting, I get into trouble very quickly. So I go for vibrant green and vibrant red and let the shades fall in line. I always ask the wife and she seems to think the photos look good - no people with green faces yet! I guess each of us "color blind" folks have more or less deterioration than others. Play with the primary colors and get feed back. Good luck!!

HGMonaro · 07-26-2009, 09:50 PM

I'm not colour blind so take this for what it's worth... why not just accept what the camera gives you? why do you need to alter colours? Actually, that's more questions than advice

GerryL · 07-28-2009, 08:31 AM

You can always go by the histogram of the camera.
It shows you the colors and where it is gravitated.

krypticide · 07-28-2009, 01:14 PM

It's mostly an issue (for me) of white balance and messing around with colors when post processing. Also, it's hard for me to tell if people's faces are too red, etc.

MJB DIGITAL · 07-28-2009, 02:47 PM

I have red/green vision. If this is your first DSLR, just give it time. I went from (as a student doing free/cheap clients) hearing "you made my baby GREEN!!"...then taking it back to photoshop and when I show the client again I hear "NOW SHES RED!!!!" hahahaha I still laugh at that every time I think about it.

Anyway I went from that to understanding that I CAN identify a slight magenta cast and that I can apply a slightly green filter to fix it.
I went from the WHITEBALANCE NIGHTMARE to "hmmm...I think I need to bump the whitebalance about 500K and presto..."

I did have an uncle who was almost seeing monochrome. I'm not as bad as him, but I have my moments.

Photography, I feel, has 'cured' me of colorblindness in that now I can IDENTIFY colors. Now, colorblindness is my secret.

NO ONE TELL MY CLIENTS!!!

8)

Now you can go look at my flickr pics and see if my colors are doing ok.

Have fun!!

GerryL · 07-28-2009, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by MJB DIGITAL

Now, colorblindness is my secret.

NO ONE TELL MY CLIENTS!!!

LOL!!!

Your secret is safe with us..as long as you clients are not a member of the Pentax forums too!

PeterPP · 07-29-2009, 08:29 AM

Thanks for all the replies! I want my photos to show the true colors as much as possible and that is where I have the biggest problem when I have to correct the colors, lighting etc on my computer using PS. I take a lot of flower shots and I want the photos to display the true colors.

mischivo · 07-29-2009, 09:54 AM

A number of posters at rangefinderforum.com (which is a very film-centric forum, for obvious reasons: the lack of affordable digital range finders) have written how being colour blind gives them an advantage when shooting monochrome film, as they're more capable of focusing their attention on the tonality and composition of a scene, without being distracted by pretty colours. Perhaps as suggested above, you should focus your energies on monochrome photography, as you'll always see that how everyone else sees it. You'll simply have an advantage over colour shooters to pick out what is typically considered important in monochrome.

Pentaxor · 07-29-2009, 10:01 AM

I need to undergo LASIK. I have this corneal eye abrasion on my dominant eye for a long time. and it affected my not just my focus on the camera, but focus or peripheral vision in general day to day life. it's really bothersome since I also play pool, which requires a huge amount of focal concentration.

07-25-2009, 08:52 AM	#1
PeterPP Banned Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: US Posts: 57	My biggest challenge with photography is being color blind. I love photography and even bought myself my very first dSLR Pentax k-7 this month but my biggest challenge is me having severe color deficiency, red and green and all the colors related to red and green. How do photogs who are color blind deal with it? I'm sure I'm not the only one.

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07-25-2009, 09:45 AM	#2
StarDust Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Uppsala, Sweden Posts: 400	How about black and white photography? Colors can sometimes be in the way when you want to show shapes and patterns. Black and white can enhance just that. If you want to solve this in a more technical way, you could look at the channels (red, green and blue split up into three separate photos) in Photoshop and see where the different colors are saturated. After some training, this could perhaps be a way around color blindness. Just a thought...

07-25-2009, 10:23 AM	#3
krypticide Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,079	I use my girlfriend to double check my colors... However, I usually find myself gravitating toward black and white images. I haven't made a full transition though, because I guess I'm just a bit frightened about dumping color data. Not all my shots are worth keeping the RAW images for...

07-25-2009, 12:45 PM	#4
Ratmagiclady Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: GA Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 13,563	I suppose much depends on whether or not you're getting what you want to be seeing: after all, the camera isn't color-blind, even if you're shooting color for an audience that distinguishes a couple more than you do, it's not that much different from life, I'd think. On the other hand, you could also do some fun things with some of the 'special effects:' there are functions to actually shoot monochrome, except leaving in only a color or maybe two: maybe you could find a way to share a view of the world more as you see it, say, by actually letting the computer remove the colors you can't distinguish. (I've actually had kind of similar ideas about dealing with my general sun-sensitivity: what's a 'nice day' to most folks tends to look like a kind-of-washed out Kodachrome slide about two stops overexposed, to me. (At least from where I feel comfy standing for very long. ) I haven't gotten around to dealing with it too much, since I like monochrome anyway, and tend to be shooting-half-blindly into such conditions to begin with, but I've contemplated just making some of my digital work in the bright look like things do to me through my favorite types of dark brown shades, (which makes the brighter parts of the world look pretty cool to me) ... maybe with the digital equivalent of stacking a couple of 85B filters on there. ) Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 07-25-2009 at 01:10 PM.

07-25-2009, 01:53 PM	#5
StarDust Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Uppsala, Sweden Posts: 400	I'm near-sighted, maybe I should take picture OOF, the way I would see the world without glasses

07-25-2009, 05:32 PM	#6
ryan s Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Madison, WI Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,383	LOL I could do macros from about 4-6" in front of my nose but I'd rather use my glasses My roommate in college was colorblind. He'd see brown as green and vise versa...blue as purple and vise versa...etc. He could usually guess what color something was by thinking about what it SHOULD be...like grass is green in the summer even though it looked brown. Is something like that possible? Are you able to "infer" colors?

07-26-2009, 11:40 AM	#7
squarerigger Inactive Account Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: James City County, Virginia Photos: Gallery Posts: 322	I am also red/green color blind. I use Aperture as a processing software package and find I am pretty good at getting the colors to be correct. Being red/green color blind we can see true red and true green, it is the shades of red and green that we have trouble with. I find I can correct the colors to a good green/red the rest takes care of itself. If I start experimenting, I get into trouble very quickly. So I go for vibrant green and vibrant red and let the shades fall in line. I always ask the wife and she seems to think the photos look good - no people with green faces yet! I guess each of us "color blind" folks have more or less deterioration than others. Play with the primary colors and get feed back. Good luck!!

07-26-2009, 09:50 PM	#8
HGMonaro Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Melb. Aust Posts: 840	I'm not colour blind so take this for what it's worth... why not just accept what the camera gives you? why do you need to alter colours? Actually, that's more questions than advice

07-28-2009, 08:31 AM	#9
GerryL Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: CA Posts: 2,731	You can always go by the histogram of the camera. It shows you the colors and where it is gravitated.

07-28-2009, 01:14 PM	#10
krypticide Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,079	It's mostly an issue (for me) of white balance and messing around with colors when post processing. Also, it's hard for me to tell if people's faces are too red, etc.

07-28-2009, 02:47 PM	#11
MJB DIGITAL Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: st. louis Posts: 1,170	I have red/green vision. If this is your first DSLR, just give it time. I went from (as a student doing free/cheap clients) hearing "you made my baby GREEN!!"...then taking it back to photoshop and when I show the client again I hear "NOW SHES RED!!!!" hahahaha I still laugh at that every time I think about it. Anyway I went from that to understanding that I CAN identify a slight magenta cast and that I can apply a slightly green filter to fix it. I went from the WHITEBALANCE NIGHTMARE to "hmmm...I think I need to bump the whitebalance about 500K and presto..." I did have an uncle who was almost seeing monochrome. I'm not as bad as him, but I have my moments. Photography, I feel, has 'cured' me of colorblindness in that now I can IDENTIFY colors. Now, colorblindness is my secret. NO ONE TELL MY CLIENTS!!! 8) Now you can go look at my flickr pics and see if my colors are doing ok. Have fun!!

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07-28-2009, 05:27 PM	#12
GerryL Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: CA Posts: 2,731	Originally posted by MJB DIGITAL Now, colorblindness is my secret. NO ONE TELL MY CLIENTS!!! LOL!!! Your secret is safe with us..as long as you clients are not a member of the Pentax forums too!

07-29-2009, 08:29 AM	#13
PeterPP Banned Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: US Posts: 57 Original Poster	Thanks for all the replies! I want my photos to show the true colors as much as possible and that is where I have the biggest problem when I have to correct the colors, lighting etc on my computer using PS. I take a lot of flower shots and I want the photos to display the true colors.

07-29-2009, 09:54 AM	#14
mischivo Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Toronto Posts: 397	A number of posters at rangefinderforum.com (which is a very film-centric forum, for obvious reasons: the lack of affordable digital range finders) have written how being colour blind gives them an advantage when shooting monochrome film, as they're more capable of focusing their attention on the tonality and composition of a scene, without being distracted by pretty colours. Perhaps as suggested above, you should focus your energies on monochrome photography, as you'll always see that how everyone else sees it. You'll simply have an advantage over colour shooters to pick out what is typically considered important in monochrome.

07-29-2009, 10:01 AM	#15
Pentaxor Veteran Member Join Date: May 2009 Location: Vancouver, B.C. Photos: Gallery Posts: 6,513	I need to undergo LASIK. I have this corneal eye abrasion on my dominant eye for a long time. and it affected my not just my focus on the camera, but focus or peripheral vision in general day to day life. it's really bothersome since I also play pool, which requires a huge amount of focal concentration.