If you’ve taken any art course you would have learned all the colors of your palette will result in black, no colors on your canvas equal a white canvas. Not so on your digital canvas i.e. computer (CRT or LCD) full electronic signal is white the least signal is black. Pick an image fill that is primarily white say something with lots of snow and pick an equal resolution (megapixel) image that is let’s say a night scene that is primarily black and compare the file sizes of the two. The file with more black will be smaller than the one that is mostly white.
You may have come across a term referring to additive and subtractive color, not only does this refer to your post-processing of an image (look at the histogram 0-255 Black-White), but also an on screen image and a computer print-out. Computer printers are CMYK (Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black) while computer monitors are RGB (Red/Green/Blue), printers subtractive to achieve white, monitors additive to achieve white. Of course this is the simplified explanation.
Please feel free to take part sharing your perceptions on this topic through your experience, insights and/or questions.
Yes, trying to get "exact" color with digital technology can be a challenge. And, yes, it can be chaotic, particularly when trying to match screen to print...or print to screen. And especially when trying to represent "natural" color on screen and printers. But technology, hardware and software (and experience with technology), has much improved since we began this digital transformation back in the 80s. I clearly recall struggling with (trying) matching Pantone colors on screen and with inkjet and early laser printers.
Ron, thanks for joining in good to hear from you.
Yes I totally hear you and agree to a point. I believe through your and my work we both have peer passion for the photographic image both online and the hardcopy Print. As to the exactness of color in the field work I and others do is a little more subjective to human/personal perception, trace visual memory from the field to computer, and of course artistic licensing. I my workflow I have found the histogram indispensable especially when it comes to colors. I keep one eye fixed to it and the other on the screen. Trusting the info from the histogram verbatim as long as I didn’t screw up something in the field.
As to screen to print, after going through the gamut of ICC profiles, printer and software profile setting and checking them twice, yes it’s not just Santa and carpenters who do that ;-). Then come the test prints, yes kind of like the darkroom days. I generally start with one inches selections of an image either horizontal or vertical my aim is to include as full a spectrum of color from highlights to shadows within these selections and print them on the different grades of paper I might use for a full image print. I will look at them right a way but usually save critical evaluations for an hour or two, either in ambient room light, daylight balance bulb lighting, or midday outdoor light both in shade and full light.
Once again Ron, thank you for your time, food for thoughts and participation. Keep up your superb portfolio.
Quite an interesting topic here, Paul. The very idea of "color" in photography is miraculous in my opinion and on some levels, rendering colors to any degree of realism via a digital sensor (or film for that matter) can edge over into the realm of existentialism.
After all, what is color? As you mention in your OP, color as we humans perceive it is the absence or presence of certain wavelengths of light. These wavelengths bounce off the world around us and into our eyes, then the brain transcribes that information into what we call color.
So really, color itself only exists as a product of electrical signals in the brain and nowhere else. To that end, I find the idea of color accuracy has been and will remain perpetually subjective just as you mentioned in your response to Mr. Welch.
Over the course of my career I have reviewed dozens of cameras and lenses across the board and one thing that would always be brought up either by commenters or viewers concerning the color rendition was whether I used this or that software and if I didn't use the "right combination" of editing software and settings and ect ect ect, then I'm obviously never going to get "accurate" colors, which I always found humorous really. Even if we can somehow manage to standardize EVERYTHING from the sensor of the camera, all optics, all computing, all the way to the screen or paper the final photo ends up, we can never standardize individual eyesight, and we will never be able to comprehend exactly how other people view color. This is a point that I feel is overlooked at times whenever we discuss the idea of achieving the most accurate colors possible in our photos.
At this point I've already typed out way too much so I'll end it here by saying again very interesting post with far reaching implications.