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Sony a7S III gets S-Cinetone color profile with new 2.00 firmware update

25 Feb

Earlier this week, Sony Nordic accidentally sent out a newsletter with details of the next firmware update for its a7S III mirrorless camera. Now, firmware version 2.00 for the a7S III is live and ready to download for all.

As mentioned in our initial coverage, firmware version 2.00 now includes Sony’s S-Cinetone color profile, first seen in its F6X Cinema Line camera and ‘inspired by the color science used in Sony’s flagship VENICE cinema camera.’

The color profile, which Sony says ‘delivers natural mid-tones, plus soft colors and gorgeous highlights’ can be used for monitoring only or as a ‘baked-in’ look so the footage is graded for less work in post-production. The update also improves Active Mode with 5-axis optical in-body image stabilization.

You can download firmware version 2.00 for the Sony a7S III on Sony’s support website. Sony notes macOS Big Sur is not supported at this time.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Video: Brendan Barry makes 20″ x 24″ wildflower image using camera obscura and color reversal process

12 Feb

UK-based photographer Brendan Barry has used his lockdown to grow closer to nature. He’s been taking regular neighborhood walks with his daughter and learning more about the area surrounding their home in Exeter and the city’s surprising nature. They have regularly picked wildflowers on the journey, which Barry has been photographing using a color reversal process he has been developing over the last few years.

Barry’s process is ‘long and laborious and the photographs hard to achieve.’ He tells us that it can take up to eight hours to create a successful exposure, and due to the nature of the toxic chemicals he uses, he often shoots at night to protect his toddler daughter. Plus, as he says, ‘it is so peaceful and quiet then.’

Barry shoots directly to 20″ x 24″ photographic paper using a camera obscura. He has been using a color reversal process that he’s developed over the last few years to make his images.

In a project commissioned by Maketank and filmed by Chen Liu (Lynd), we go behind the scenes with Brendan Barry as he creates a 20″ x 24″ color still life of wildflowers captured directly to photographic paper. Barry uses a camera obscura and his color reversal process, which he has been working on for the last few years. The image is from his series, ‘Wildflowers picked on walks with Bea.’

The ongoing photo series is a very personal project for Barry. The subjects are collected during walks with his daughter, and the images are time-consuming and difficult to make. The images are also a reflection of the times. The lockdown is very difficult for many, and the ongoing pandemic is even more challenging in and of itself. With that said, the lockdown has also given people like Brendan Barry the chance to connected differently with their neighborhoods.

Brendan Barry carefully arranges wildflowers for a new image. Each shot can take upwards of eight hours to create from start to finish.

For Barry, he feels it is ‘vital to capture and appreciate what is here, to remind ourselves of what we have all around us, literally on our doorsteps, in the hope that we may seek to retain some of this when normality, whatever form that will take, returns.’

If Brendan Barry’s name sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. He has created many fascinating cameras and photographic projects over the years, many of which we have featured. Last October, we shared how Barry was commissioned by the Exeter Canal and Quay Trust to convert an entire room into a camera obscura. If you’d like to learn how to do that, we also covered a tutorial from Barry about this topic last spring.

During the lockdown, Barry converted his backyard shed into a camera and darkroom, which he has used as part of his wildflower series.

In 2019, Barry transformed the 46th floor of the 101 Park Avenue skyscraper in New York City into a massive camera obscura. That same year, he also converted a shipping container into a camera, which he called ‘the world’s biggest, slowest, and most impractical Polaroid camera.’

If you’d like to see more of Brendan Barry’s work, visit his website and follow him on Instagram. He’s always up to something awesome.

Image credits: All images used with kind permission from Brendan Barry.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results

04 Dec

The post How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate Color and Tone Wheels

Color editing is an essential part of nearly every great photo.

Unfortunately, adjusting the colors in most post-processing programs is difficult – or downright impossible.

One impressive exception to this, however, is ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, which offers two powerful tools for color editing:

The Color Wheel
The Tone Wheels

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 Tone Wheels

And that’s what this article is all about. I’m going to show you how to use the Color Wheel and Tone Wheels to apply gorgeous color adjustments to your photos. You’ll discover how the Wheels work, what they can do, and how to get a professional look in your own images.

Let’s dive right in.

The Color and Tone Wheels: overview

The Color and Tone Wheels come as part of Photo Studio Ultimate 2021, a recently updated, all-in-one photo editor that you can grab on ACDSee’s website for $ 8.90/month (you also have the option to purchase a lifetime license for $ 149.99).

While Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 offers a lot of upgrades over its predecessor (including some major speed improvements that you’ll want to see for yourself), one of the biggest features for amateur and professional photographers is the set of color editing tools: the Color Wheel and the Tone Wheels.

Here’s a quick peek at the Color Wheel:

And here is the Tone Wheels panel:

Together, these two tools can revolutionize your photo editing workflow.

And here’s why:

With the Color and Tone Wheels, you can make both broad and targeted adjustments to the colors in your images. You can shift, brighten, and saturate colors selectively, you can push colors into the shadows, highlights, and midtones separately, and so much more – all with a few easy-to-use wheels and sliders.

As someone who’s a bit color-obsessed, I’ve used quite a few color adjustment tools in many different post-processing programs. But I can honestly say that Photo Studio Ultimate’s version is one of the best implementations I’ve ever seen (if not the best). Yes, the wheels are amazingly powerful, and they should offer any amateur or professional all the color adjustment power they need. But they’re also just so fun and intuitive to work with, which is what’s really sold me on this program.

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021 sample

Now let’s take a look at how you can actually use the Color and Tone Wheels for great results (and if you’re feeling intimidated, don’t be – I’ll give you simple, easy-to-follow instructions!).

How to use the Color Wheel to selectively adjust colors in your photos

You’ll find the Color Wheel in Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Develop mode, which you can select in the top-right corner of the screen:

the Develop mode in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021

Then open the Color Wheel panel on the left-hand side, and you’ll see a color wheel with a series of sliders below it:

Here’s what you need to know:

The color wheel itself lets you select the colors you’re targeting in the photo.

And the sliders below it allow you to adjust the targeted colors.

So once you have your Color Wheel panel open, here’s what I recommend you do:

Step 1: Select the colors you want to adjust

Selecting the colors you’d like to adjust pretty easy, and there are a couple of methods you can use.

First, you can simply hover your cursor over different parts of your photo, and watch as it turns into a dropper icon:

Then, by clicking once on the photo, you’ll select that color for adjustment.

So if you click on a pinkish-purple part of your photo, you’ll select all the pink-purple colors:

And if you click on a yellow part of your photo, you’ll select all the yellow colors:

Now, as soon as you click on a part of your photo, you’ll see the color wheel change. This is to show you the color range you’ve selected.

You can also use the display on the color wheel to either select colors (instead of the eyedropper), or to refine your color selection.

To select colors, just click on the relevant part of the wheel:

And to fine-tune the color selection, just narrow the range of colors on the color wheel – by dragging the edges of the selection inward or outward. That way, the adjustments you make via the sliders will affect a narrower or broader range of colors in your photo.

Here, I’ve narrowed the color selection:

And here I’ve broadened it:

Also, if you want to get really picky with your selection, you can drag your color range upward from the center of the wheel:

And this will ensure you only select the more saturated colors.

You can also drag downward from the rim of the wheel to select only the less-saturated colors:

By the way, if you want to see the areas you’ve selected displayed on your photo, just hit the Auto preview the selected range checkbox:

Your selected colors will be highlighted on the image, while everything else will be grayed out:

Cool, right?

Step 2: Adjust the colors using the sliders

Now comes the fun part:

Actually adjusting the colors.

While there are a number of sliders, I recommend you focus on three key options:

Hue.

Saturation.

And Brightness.

These are the main adjustments you’ll want to make (I use them on almost every photo I edit).

By shifting the Hue slider, you shift the hue of your selected color range. So if I select the pink colors in this flower photo and want to make them more purple, I can just push the Hue slider to the left:

I can also make them more red by pushing the Hue slider to the right:

Speaking more generally, the Hue slider is useful for situations where you want to separate colors to create contrast, or where you want to make colors more similar to add harmony.

(How do you know what creates contrast and what creates harmony? Look at the color wheel! Colors that are opposite one another are contrasting/complementary colors, whereas colors next to one another are analogous colors.)

While color contrast will generally create a more powerful, in-your-face photo, analogous colors can result in a more peaceful final image.

Anyway, once you’ve adjusted the hue, I recommend turning to the Saturation slider. This works the way it sounds: It lets you selectively boost or reduce the saturation of your selected color range.

So by selecting the yellows in the image below, then adjusting the Saturation slider, you can boost the yellow intensity:

Or you can dial it back:

In general, boosting the saturation of your main colors looks pretty good, as long as you don’t overdo it. That way, a few colors in your photo will stand out and keep the viewer interested.

However, it can also be helpful to reduce the saturation of colors that distract from the main subject. So if your photo includes a red “Exit” sign in the background, you might reduce the saturation of those reds to keep the viewer focused on the foreground.

Finally, I recommend experimenting with the Brightness slider. This allows you to adjust the brightness of your selected color range. So you can brighten up your selection to make it pop:

Or you can darken the selection down to make it less impactful:

Step 3: Create additional color wheels for further adjustments

While one color adjustment may sometimes be enough, you also have the option to create more.

Simply click the Plus icon:

Then follow the previous steps all over again!

Also, to toggle the effects of the color wheels on and off, you can just check and uncheck the box above each color wheel icon:

How to use the Tone Wheels to produce beautiful color grading

The Tone Wheels panel is located just below the Color Wheel panel in the Develop mode of Photo Studio Ultimate 2021:

using the tone wheels in ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021

Now, unlike the Color Wheel panel, you cannot select individual colors to adjust.

Instead, each of the three wheels corresponds to a different tonal range of your photo:

The top wheel corresponds to the highlights (the brightest tones)
The middle wheel corresponds to the midtones (the middle tones)
The bottom wheel corresponds to the shadows (the darkest tones)

And by adjusting the tone wheels, you change the color in the corresponding area of the image.

So by setting the Highlights wheel to yellow, your photo’s highlights will be tinted yellow:

And by setting the Shadows wheel to green, your photo’s shadows will be tinted green:

This is a fantastic way to add different looks to your images. For instance, you can create blue shadows and yellow highlights, which is a popular look on Instagram. Or you can make the highlights orange and the shadows teal, for a cinematic, movie-type result.

Now, the tone wheels themselves only allow you to select the hue and saturation of the color you’d like to add.

But by shifting the Brightness slider – found to the right of each wheel – you can also make the highlights, midtones, and shadows brighter or darker.

So how do you get great results using the Color Wheel panel? How should you approach this color adjustment tool?

Here’s what I recommend:

Step 1: Adjust the shadows

I like to start by adjusting the shadows in my images.

Now, you can choose your shadow color a few different ways:

One method is to select the Shadows eyedropper:

Then you can click on a part of your photo and the Shadows wheel will select its hue:

Alternatively, you can click around the wheel to select different colors:

And you can further fine-tune the saturation with the left-hand slider:

Plus you can change the brightness of the shadows with the right-hand slider:

Personally, my favorite way to select colors is to use the wheel, but start by pushing the Saturation slider all the way up:

saturation pushed all the way to its maximum

That way, you can clearly see the effects of your color grade – and once you’ve chosen the right color, you can dial it back.

Also, while it’s always a good idea to experiment, the best shadow colors are generally cool – blues, greens, and purples.

I’d also recommend paying careful attention to the colors already present in your shadows – by matching the shadow color with already-existing colors, you can unify the darker parts of your photo and make it even stronger.

For this flower photo, I like blue-green shadows:

Step 2: Adjust the highlights

Selecting a color for the Highlights wheel is just like selecting a color for the Shadows wheel.

You can use the eyedropper tool:

Or you can click on the wheel directly.

Of course, you can also fine-tune with the Saturation slider and the Brightness slider:

Generally, you’ll want a warmer color for the highlights: an orange, yellow, or red.

It’s also a good idea to pay attention to your existing highlight colors. For instance, if your photo has a lot of warm sunlight, such as in the shot of the Black-eyed Susan flowers, you might want to accentuate the yellows with some nice golden highlights:

I’d also recommend looking at your shadow colors even when adjusting the Highlights wheel. For a nice result, you might choose a color that contrasts with the shadows to create a complementary color pair (as I discussed in the Color Wheel section, above).

Step 3: Adjust the midtones

Adjusting the midtones is a bit less common than adjusting the highlights and the shadows.

For one, if you adjust the midtones, your photo will often take on a more obvious tinted look, because we humans expect midtones to be more neutral compared to colder shadows and warmer highlights.

Plus, the midtones can correspond to skin tones, which you (generally) want to keep as natural as possible.

So I recommend you be careful when experimenting with the Midtones color wheel. If you do decide you want to make changes, I’d recommend keeping things closely aligned with the highlights, because too many colors in your scene will start to look messy.

Make sense?

As you’d expect, adjusting the midtones is just like adjusting the highlights and shadows. You have the Midtone color wheel that you can click on:

Plus your eyedropper:

Which you can use to give your midtones a slight color grade!

ACDSee’s Color and Tone Wheels: the next steps

Now that you’ve finished this article, you know how to make pro-level color adjustments.

And with Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color Wheel and Tone Wheels tools, you have everything you need to take your color editing to the next level.

So make sure you grab ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2021. It’s currently available for just $ 8.90 per month, or you can get a lifetime license for $ 149.99. And if you’re just interested in trying out the software, you can get a free trial right here.

ACDSee is a paid partner of dPS.

The post How to Use Photo Studio Ultimate 2021’s Color and Tone Wheels for Amazing Results appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

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Lightroom Color Grading: An Easy Way to Supercharge Your Photos

25 Nov

The post Lightroom Color Grading: An Easy Way to Supercharge Your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

The October 2020 update to Lightroom Classic introduced a feature called Color Grading, which puts an advanced color-correction tool in the hands of everyone who uses Lightroom.

For newcomers who have never tried this technique, it can feel a bit overwhelming.

But with a bit of practice, you’ll get the hang of Lightroom color grading in no time at all. And you’ll be able to give your photos the Hollywood treatment you never knew you could achieve!

young man portrait — Nikon D7100 | Nikon 85mm f/1.8G | 85mm | 1/2000s | f/1.8 | ISO 200

What is color grading?

While color grading is often associated with film productions, it applies to photography just as easily.

Color grading refers to the process of changing global attributes of an image to give it a specific look or feel. It’s a subjective, stylistic process that can involve many different types of edits, but generally involves changing the appearance of the highlights, shadows, and midtones of a picture. This allows a photographer to create a mood or tone, and convey a certain emotion to the viewer.

In a strict sense, any stylistic adjustments to an image could be considered color grading. Adjusting the HSL/Color panel or tweaking the tone curve are both valid color grading techniques.

However, when most editors talk about color grading, they are referring to the way a specific tint is applied to the shadows, highlights, and midtones.

A common color grading technique in movies, for instance, involves giving shadows a teal color and making midtones more orange. This gives a more intense, cinematic feel to films and the same is true for photos.

kids walking without color grading — Nikon D750 | 200mm | f/2.8 | 1/250s | f/2.8 | ISO 220. Ungraded.

kids walking with color grading — The same image as above, but with color grading applied in Lightroom. The shadows are slightly more teal, the highlights are slightly more yellow, and the midtones are just a bit more orange.

Color grading vs split toning

The Color Grading tool replaces a tool called Split Toning, which was available as its own panel in the Develop module in earlier versions of Lightroom.

Split Toning was like a beta version of Color Grading, in that it let users adjust the tint of shadows and highlights, but not the midtones. While this was certainly useful, the omission of midtone editing was a frustrating sore spot that dramatically limited the value of the tool.

Lightroom color grading split toning — The Lightroom Split Toning panel, which let users adjust the hue and saturation of only the highlights and shadows. The Color Grading tool does everything that Split Toning did and much more.

Color Grading contains all the functionality of Split Toning – and much more. In fact, any photos that were edited using Split Toning will have their adjustments completely intact thanks to the Color Grading tool.

In addition to midtone editing, the Color Grading tool introduces the vastly more useful color wheels in place of linear sliders:

The Lightroom Color Grading tool: a step by step guide

While the color grading tool has incredible depth, accessing it and getting started could hardly be easier.

Open Lightroom and click on the Develop module.

Then open the Color Grading panel on the right side, and you’re all set.

The Lightroom Color Grading panel consists of three color wheels in the middle, a line of icons at the top, and two sliders at the bottom. Each of the color wheels lets you change the tint of its respective range: midtones, shadows, and highlights.

Click and drag anywhere on one of the color wheels and you will immediately see the edit applied to your image. As you drag the slider, note that the distance from the center adjusts the saturation of the color grade, while the position of the slider around the circle adjusts its hue.

You can also click and drag the inner circle to adjust only the saturation and use the outer circle to adjust the hue. The slider at the bottom can be used to change the overall luminance of the midtones, shadows, or highlights, depending on which color wheel you are using.

Click and hold the eye icon just below and to the right of a color wheel to temporarily remove the tint adjustment, and then release the mouse button to re-engage the adjustment. Double-click anywhere inside a color wheel to reset the tint if you want to start over.

The Blending slider at the bottom of the Color Grading panel lets you adjust how much the midtones, shadows, and highlights blend together.

The Balance slider lets you customize the overall balance of highlights and shadows; values greater than 0 make the highlight edits more pronounced, while values less than 0 increase the presence of the shadow edits.

Lightroom Color Grading blending balance — Move Blending to the left to keep your shadows, midtones, and highlights separate from each other. Move Blending to the right to make your edits blend in with one another. Slide Balance to the left to make your edits to the shadows apply to more of the image. Slide it to the right to make your highlight edits more prominent. Or just leave these sliders alone and you’ll probably be just fine.

Look closely at the top of the Color Grading panel and you will see a strange-looking row of circular icons. The first appears to be some kind of alien hieroglyph, while the rest look like circles with different shading patterns. These switch between the different modes within the Color Grading panel.

The first icon, with three small circles, shows all three editing options at once: Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows. The others let you adjust a single parameter at a time. The final icon is a global Hue/Saturation/Luminance adjustment.

If you want more fine-tuned adjustments, you can click on one of the icons that show a much larger version of any of the three adjustment parameters. This can help you select your adjustments with pinpoint accuracy and give you greater control over precisely how your edits are implemented.

How to use the Color Grading tool for great results

As you make adjustments, keep in mind that there is no one correct way to use the Color Grading panel. It’s merely another tool in your arsenal to help you get your images looking the way you want.

That being said, if you want to get your feet wet but aren’t sure how to start, let’s walk through a color grading edit so you can see firsthand how it can be used to give your pictures an extra bit of punch and visual impact.

kids running in an alley with no color grading — Nikon D7100 | Nikon 50mm f/1.8G | 50mm | 1/180s | f/4.0 | ISO 1250. Original photo without any color grading applied.

For a scene like the one above, with a lot of tonal variety, I like to start by editing the shadows first. Rather than using the all-in-one adjustment option with all three circles showing, I prefer to use the larger circles to edit each parameter individually. I like the fine-grained control this gives me.

I recommend you start by adjusting the Luminance slider, which will make the darkest portions of the image even darker when pushed to the left, or brighter when pushed to the right. For this example, I’m going to make shadows punchier by decreasing the luminance.

Then click and drag on the color wheel to add a teal tint to the shadows; this will start to give the photo a more cinematic feel. Your shot might look a little weird with only the shadows adjusted, but it will come together after you customize the highlights and midtones.

kids running in an alley — Color grading applied to the shadows.

Next, click the Highlights option and adjust the Luminance slider to make the brightest portions of the photo lighter or darker. Some people prefer to adjust the Luminance before doing any color editing, but this is up to you.

Once you have the Luminance adjusted, click on the wheel to add a bit of orange. This will make the brightest portions of the image really stand out from the darkest portions of the image, since teal and orange are on opposite sides of the color wheel.

At this point, the example image is starting to come together. It has a grittier, cinematic feel compared to the original, thanks to a touch of teal in the shadows and orange in the highlights.

After the highlights and shadows are edited, head to the Midtones wheel to give your image a warmer or cooler feel overall. Instead of changing the appearance of the brightest or darkest portions of your image, the Midtones wheel affects everything between those two extremes.

Midtone adjustments are useful for giving your entire picture more of a warm or cool feeling. Adjust the Luminance slider, then click and drag the dot to orange or red to make your photo warmer, or blue to make it cooler.

At this point, the image is nearing completion, and you can see the results below. It’s a far cry from the original, which feels flat and boring by comparison.

Lightroom Color Grading kids running alley — The shadows, highlights, and midtones have been adjusted. But the image isn’t quite done yet.

After editing the shadows, highlights, and midtones, it’s time to tweak the Blending and Balance sliders.

As I explained above, blending refers to how much each of the three parameters stays within its own range. It has a default value of 50, which results in a relatively smooth color grade overall.

Sliding Blending to the left means the edits to shadows are confined almost exclusively to the darkest portions of the shot, and the edits to the highlights are confined almost exclusively to the lightest portions of the shot. A balance of 0 essentially makes each of the edits stay in its own lane and not affect the rest of the picture. And bringing the Balance slider to the right will increase how much each tonal area overlaps with one another. The result is often quite subtle, but can have a noticeable impact when applied carefully.

Now, the Balance slider determines how much of the picture is treated as shadows and how much is treated as highlights. Moving the slider to the left takes whatever adjustments you made to the shadows and applies them to more of the picture overall. The same happens to the highlight edits when you move the slider to the right.

If you have applied a certain tint to the shadows but want that tint to affect more of the picture, move the Balance slider to the left. Likewise, if you want your highlight adjustment to apply to more than just the brightest portions, adjust the Balance slider to the right.

Tips and tricks for Lightroom color grading

The key to color grading is to remember that there is no one magic solution. Don’t think of color grading as a search for the right way to adjust your image, but as a doorway to infinite possibilities that can be used however you see fit.

The best way to learn about color grading is to click around on the color wheels and experiment on your own. Lightroom is non-destructive, so you can always revert back to your earlier image. And in the meantime, you just might find a new way to edit your pictures that you never thought of before.

sunset on a lake without color grading — Fujifilm X100F | 23mm | 77 seconds | f/16 | ISO 200. Edited, but not color graded.

That being said, these tips will send you on your way to improving your color grading skills:

Edit your image to have an even exposure prior to using the Lightroom Color Grading tool. Use the Basic panel for highlights/shadows adjustments.
Give your shadows a richer look by adjusting them to be teal, blue, or purple
Contrast the highlights with the shadows by making them yellow, orange, or red
Adjust the midtones a little, but not too much. The midtones should complement the highlights and shadows, not compete by standing out.
For subtle tweaks, use the Blending slider to control how your graded colors meld together
Click the eye icon next to one of the color wheels to toggle between a before and after view

Sunset on a lake with color grading — The same image as above, but color graded. The shadows are blue, the highlights are orange, and the midtones are yellow-orange.

Lightroom color grading: conclusion

You should now have enough to get started with Lightroom color grading. Just remember that the goal here is the same as it is with most editing: You want to end up with an image you like! Color grading is just another tool you can use to make that happen.

Lightroom is a non-destructive editor. That means you can always undo your changes, so experiment with color grading as much as you want. And feel free to share your before and after images in the comments below!

The post Lightroom Color Grading: An Easy Way to Supercharge Your Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.

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A photo history quiz tests the impact of color on guessing when images were captured

29 Oct

Does how we place an image in history depend upon its presentation? A new quiz (and experiment) by Matt Daniels and Jan Diehm aims to test this question. The quiz, published on The Pudding, shows users a series of five images captured in the United States during the last century and asks you to estimate the year the photo was taken.

We recommend taking the quiz before reading the rest of this article to preserve the integrity of the data results.

The quiz shows some images in color, and others in black and white. In some cases, the black and white image has been digitally altered from its original color presentation. Daniels and Diehm want to know if users estimate the age of the same image in black and white as being older than that image in color.

The pair were inspired to construct the experiment after reading this tweet from Hannah Beachler, Academy Award Winning production designer. In her tweet, Beachler shared a series of color photos from the Civil Rights movement and posited that showing this important period in American History as digitally altered black and white images leads people to believe it took place longer ago than it did, which may very well impact the general societal conception of the movement, particularly among a younger generation.

Daniels and Diehm write, ‘How we view history is largely defined by the aesthetics we associate with each period. When you were dating the photos, you probably looked for context clues — what people were wearing, if there were any familiar buildings, and if you recognized any faces. You were probably also looking at color…we wanted to test how color does or does not warp our perception of time.’

On the results page, you see the five photos you were shown again, this time with the color original and black and white versions. You then see how your guess compares against the average guesses for both the color and black and white versions. For example, one of the images I was shown in color was captured in 1987. In this case, users shown the same photo in black and white guessed that it is seven years older than it is. This same gap was present in another photo I was shown in color.

You can also view an additional series of images others saw when they took the quiz. In some cases, users guessed that the black and white versions were upwards of 14 years older than the same image in color. In the case of every image, participants guessed that the black and white version was older.

The photo, typically visible to the left in color (top) and black and white (bottom) has been removed. Here we can see that the average guess when presented the black and white version of the image is seven years older than the same image in color. While the difference varies, this pattern is consistent.

Color photography has been around for a long time, since the 19th century in fact, but its mainstream adoption lagged far behind for decades. While The Milwaukee Journal first printed a color image in 1891, many newspapers were very slow to follow suit. Even in 1993, when The New York Times wrote ‘newspapers’ adoption of color nearly complete,’ there were still newspapers in North America printing exclusively in black and white.

Given the results of the quiz, it appears that the presentation of an image does impact how users place the photograph in historical context. Further study, repeated testing and peer review are needed to produce definitive conclusions, but Daniels and Diehm intend to build analysis in the future.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Color Management in Affinity Photo: The Ultimate Guide

28 Oct

The post Color Management in Affinity Photo: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

In terms of color management, no photo software is more complete than Adobe Photoshop. It’s easy to take this for granted until you switch programs (which you might do to escape subscription costs).

That’s why this article looks at color management in Affinity Photo, a popular standalone alternative to Photoshop.

Affinity Photo welcome screen color management in Affinity Photo — Affinity Photo welcome screen.

Choosing a working color space in Affinity (Photo Persona)

The working color space you use in an editing program is a bit like a box of crayons. You are defining how big a box you use to describe your photos. Even if you can’t see all the colors inside that “box” on your screen, sometimes there is good reason to use them.

Choose your working space based on the likely output for your images. For example:

sRGB = publishing and printing online
Adobe RGB = CMYK/inkjet printing
ProPhoto RGB = archiving and top-quality workflows

Each choice has its own pros and cons.

The ability to make this choice seems mundane until it’s taken away. Some programs force you to use sRGB as the working space, for instance, which means you forfeit many of the colors digital cameras can capture.

So what does Affinity give us here?

Setting the working color space in Affinity is simple, though it’s not labeled a “working space” as such. You simply go to Preferences>Color>RGB Color Profile. By default, this is set to sRGB. You can change it to suit your photography and the purpose of your photos, as detailed above. Do the same with the 32bit RGB Color Profile setting.

Color management in Affinity photo - color preferences — Color preferences in Affinity Photo.

Other color preferences

For most of us, the color preference settings in Affinity can be left alone, except perhaps for the RGB Color Profile option at the top.

That said, you’ll generally want black point compensation switched on. You also won’t want the software to convert all open files to the working color space. And it’s better to be warned if a photo without an embedded profile is being assigned the working profile. This gives you a heads-up that the color may display incorrectly.

Note that each of the above options can be ticked on and off in the Color Preferences window.

Monitor profile

Affinity Photo accesses the default monitor profile assigned in your operating system. Unlike Photoshop CC (but like Lightroom), I don’t believe you can confirm the prevailing profile via Affinity itself. Past and present monitor profiles appear in drop-down menus, but you should never select these; the monitor profile is automatically applied.

Your monitor profile is a key component of color management in Affinity Photo.

Windows color management display settings. (You wouldn’t want to use sRGB as a display profile except for diagnostic purposes.)

Soft proofing (Photo Persona)

Soft proofing lets you preview the output color of your photos, whether the output is an inkjet printer, an RGB printer like those often used in minilabs, or even a specific audience (e.g., color-blind individuals). Soft proofing is available in Photoshop CC and Lightroom, but isn’t offered by many other programs. What about Affinity Photo?

In Affinity Photo, soft proofing comes in the form of an adjustment layer. You won’t find it among the menus at the top of the screen like in Photoshop. This is quite handy, because it’s so easy to flick layers on and off to see the effect of soft proofing and edits.

Color management in Affinity photo - soft proofing — Soft proofing using a photo lab’s profile.

Color blindness settings in Affinity are located among the built-in LUT adjustment layers. The LUTs help you visualize colors as seen by three types of dichromats: protanopes, deuteranopes, and tritanopes.

Affinity Photo color blindness LUTs color management in Affinity Photo — Tritanope LUT for visualizing a type of color blindness.

Simulating dynamic range

The simulate paper color option you get in Photoshop is already applied in Affinity. You can’t switch it off.

But you do have the option of switching on black point compensation. This reduces the dynamic range of your screen image to mimic the look of paper and ink. It makes the on-screen photo look duller. That’s why professional photographers sometimes avoid showing clients the comparison.

Affinity photo black point compensation color management in Affinity Photo — Blocked shadows caused by a lack of black point compensation (BPC). Usually, the effect is less drastic than with this Newsprint profile. Note that BPC has more effect with a relative colorimetric rendering intent. It has less of an effect or no effect with other rendering intents.

Gamut differences

The Gamut Check option in Affinity Photo shows you which colors are not reproducible with any given output. You can fiddle with the color of the photo until all color is in gamut, but you’ll often do more harm than good.

It’s better to rely on the rendering intent setting if you want colors to be as close as possible to the original. The relative colorimetric rendering intent keeps colors looking relatively accurate and shifts non-reproducible colors back into gamut, but you’re free to pick the rendering intent that looks best to you.

Affinity Photo gamut warning color management in Affinity Photo — The gray area tells me which area of red will be out of gamut (i.e., not reproducible on output). This is the *Gamut Check* option in Affinity soft proofing. Its practical use is somewhat limited, since you’ll often do more harm than good by trying to edit colors into gamut.

Creating a duplicate

When soft proofing, you may want to work on duplicate images side by side, so you can reference the original color and tone. In that case, create a duplicate image in Affinity by hitting Select All>Copy>New from Clipboard.

You can make adjustments to the soft-proofed image by adding extra adjustment layers to the background layer.

Duplicate images in Affinity photo side by side — Having a duplicate image is useful if you want to get your output looking similar. A relative colorimetric rendering intent does most of this work for you.

Convert and assign ICC profile settings

As with Photoshop, color management in Affinity Photo includes the ability to assign or convert ICC profiles. The distinction between these two is important. You’d assign a profile if the photo you open has no embedded profile; you give it one that looks okay. This only becomes permanent if you save changes to the image.

By assigning the wrong profile to this image, I’ve oversaturated the color and started to lose textural detail.

When you convert from one profile to the other and know what color space the image is in, use Convert ICC Profile. One way of confirming the current profile is to look for it in the drop-down list. It should be highlighted:

The highlighted profile in the Convert ICC Profile window is the one currently embedded in the image.

The choice of rendering intents when converting between ProPhoto RGB, Adobe RGB, and sRGB working color spaces is usually moot. By default, these matrix profiles use a relative colorimetric rendering intent. The same situation exists in Photoshop.

Embedding profiles

The process of embedding ICC profiles is uncomplicated: You just check a checkbox. This is true whether you’re using Save As in Photoshop or exporting files from Affinity. In Affinity Photo, the Embed ICC Profile option is under the More heading when exporting. It’s checked by default.

There aren’t many instances when you’d deliberately leave the ICC profile out of images. Ironically, photo libraries and gallery websites might do this because the profile adds a couple of kilobytes to each file. In those instances, it’s an economical choice. In the past, photographers removed profiles to avoid confusing minilab printer drivers.

Embedding ICC profiles into images color management in Affinity Photo — Photos in large color spaces generally look okay in browsers as long as the profile is embedded. In Affinity, just as in Photoshop, embedding a profile is merely a matter of checking a box. Or not unchecking it.

Many people’s color woes when publishing photos online stem from not embedding the profile. This is less critical when publishing sRGB images, but photos in larger color spaces will often look dull unless the profile is present.

Simple features, such as the ability to embed or remove ICC profiles, are often absent in photo-editing programs. But here, Affinity keeps pace with Adobe.

Affinity RAW processing color (Develop Persona)

The Affinity Photo Develop Persona assigns the ROMM RGB color space to RAW files. ROMM RGB is the original name for ProPhoto RGB. This color space encompasses the output of a digital sensor, whereas smaller spaces such as Adobe RGB and sRGB do not.

Histogram comparison

In Lightroom, the histogram is in Adobe’s proprietary “Melissa RGB” space. This is the same as the Affinity histogram, but with an sRGB tone response curve applied, which adds slightly more editing headroom in the shadows. Extra marks to Adobe for cleverness.

The Affinity RAW histogram is more akin to that of Adobe Camera RAW. If you convert to ProPhoto RGB or ROMM RGB in Affinity, the histogram should stay the same.

Affinity histogram - Develop Persona — The sRGB profile here has pushed magenta hues off the left side of the RAW histogram. This is one reason to use larger color spaces when creating inkjet prints.

Recent versions of Lightroom enable users to preview the output histogram by turning on soft proofing. In other words, you’ll see which colors will be clipped, if any, in your destination color space. This might influence the edits you make prior to converting the file or even the color space you select. Does Affinity allow this?

If you select an output profile in Affinity Photo’s Basic panel, the histogram changes accordingly. With certain colors, you’ll see sRGB pixels move to the edges of the histogram. This tells you they are nearly or completely clipped. Running the cursor along the histogram shows you how many pixels are present at any level. ROMM or ProPhoto RGB is especially useful for preserving detail in bright yellows.

color management in Affinity Photo — Neither sRGB nor Adobe RGB can contain the yellows in a photo like this.

A common misconception

You needn’t convert RAW files to the same profile as your working RGB space in the Photo Persona. This is a common misconception. Affinity can open and handle images in any color space, just like Photoshop. The working space only represents your most commonly-used color container.

Color management in Affinity Photo: Conclusion

I’ve used many photo-editing programs, and some are more frustrating than others in terms of their color preferences and controls.

Color management in Affinity Photo differs from that in Photoshop, but it doesn’t cut any major corners that I’ve found. So use it with confidence!

And if you have any questions at all, be sure to leave them in the comments section!

The post Color Management in Affinity Photo: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Glenn Harper.

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Adobe Lightroom Classic 10.0 released, includes Color Grading and more

19 Oct

Adobe has released Lightroom Classic version 10.0, ushering in a variety of performance improvements and new features, including new controlled color grading adjustments for shadows, midtones and highlights.

With Lightroom Classic’s new color grading tool, users can control the color separately in midtones, shadows and highlights, or adjust the color of your entire image with a global control. The Color Grading panel replaces Split Toning and offers additional control overall color. Within Color Grading, you can adjust hue, saturation and luminance by moving the point in each color wheel. When making adjustments, if you hold the Shift key or Command key, you restrict wheel movement for Saturation or Hue adjustments, respectively.

Image credit: Adobe

The Color Grading panel also includes Blending and Balance sliders. The Blending slider ‘adjusts the amount of overlap between the shadows and highlights.’ The Balance slider balances the effect of sliders between highlights, midtones and shadows. If the value is greater than zero, the effect of highlights will be increased. A value below zero increases the effect of the shadows. If you want to recreate the effect of the old Split Toning effect, set the Blending slider to 100.

A few weeks ago, Adobe showed a sneak peek at the new Color Grading feature. You can view the early look at the feature below.

Lightroom Classic version 10 includes performance improvements as well. Adobe promises faster editing when using brushes and gradients when GPU acceleration is enabled. Further, the new version delivers faster scrolling through the Library Grid, Folders and Collections, particularly for users with large catalogs.

When using the Loupe, Compare and Reference views in Lightroom, there is improved control over zoom levels with new Scrubby zoom and Box zoom options. Scrubby Zoom can be used while dragging your move left or right while pressing the Shift key. This is only available when GPU acceleration is enabled. The Box Zoom is available in Library and Develop modules by pressing Ctrl on Windows or Command on macOS while drawing a box with your cursor. The Navigator panel has been updated as well, it now offers Fit/Fill, 100% and Zoom percent options (ranging from 6% to 1600%).

A summary of Lightroom Classic version 10.0’s new features. Click to enlarge. Image credit: Adobe

For Canon camera users, you can see what you are shooting in real-time when tethered to Lightroom Classic version 10. Your connected camera’s live view will appear in a new, resizable window with orientation options. The tether bar includes focus control buttons and an autofocus button. To learn more about this feature, check out this article.

In addition to new tethered support, Lightroom Classic 10.0 includes new camera and lens profile support. The Fujifilm X-S10, Panasonic Lumix S5, Sony A7C and Sony A7S Mark III are all now supported. A variety of Sigma lenses and Voigtlander lenses have new support in Lightroom Classic 10.0. You can view the full list of supported cameras and lenses via the following links: Supported cameras and supported lenses.

When you update Lightroom Classic to the latest version, you will be prompted to upgrade your catalog. When doing so, a new feature will allow you to control the name of your catalog. To learn more about the new features in Adobe Lightroom Classic version 10.0, click here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Camera Color Guide – Why Cameras Are Black

08 Oct

What color is your camera? Have you ever paid attention to the color of DSLR cameras? Peek in a wedding photographer’s bag, or check out the sea of photographers at a press conference or sporting event and you’ll notice that most (or all of) their cameras are one color — black. Keep looking and you’ll notice that most of their Continue Reading

The post Camera Color Guide – Why Cameras Are Black appeared first on Photodoto.

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Video: Adobe teases Advance Color Grading tool coming to ACR, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic

28 Sep

Adobe has announced a new Advanced Color Grading feature will soon be available inside Adobe Camera Raw, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic.

The new Color Grading panel is inspired by the Lumetri Color panel used in Adobe’s Premiere Pro video editing software and replaces the previous Split Toning panel. Unlike Split Toning, which only allows you to adjust the highlights and shadows, the new Color Grading panel takes it one step further, allowing you to also adjust the coloring of the midtones.

In addition to adding midtones, the panel is also redesigned. It now uses a three-wheel system, not unlike the color wheels often seen in professional video editing programs. Each wheel works alongside a slider to provide complete HSL control for highlights, midtones and shadows. There’s also a global color wheel for more general adjustments, as well as a blending slider to help boost or reduce your adjustments, depending on the look you’re going for.

Adobe doesn’t mention when we can expect to see this filter in Adobe Camera Raw, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Lightroom Classic, but does say it’ll be showing off more of this new panel at this year’s virtual Adobe Max conference, which is taking place on October 20–22.

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Datacolor launches lower cost ColorReader EZ for color measurement and matching

18 Sep

Color calibration and measurement specialist Datacolor has introduced a low cost portable color measuring device to its ColorReader range that allows users to take samples and record the exact color of reflective surfaces. ColorReader EZ is said to be 85% accurate and can describe colors in CIE Lab, RGB or HEX languages.

The ColorReader devices are designed to make matching paint colors easier, and the ColorReader EZ can give you the three closest matches from most paint brands, but also is able to give users a match for studio backdrops from Savage Universal.

Photographers shooting products or fashion will be able to measure the color of the subject to ensure it is accurately matched in the final images. The app also shows other colors that are close to the measured subject so that palettes can be created to match a mood or to produce harmonious scenes.

The ColorReader EZ differs from the ColorReader and ColorReader Pro as it uses only one LED to light the subject, it doesn’t use a lens and it doesn’t have its own display – relying on its smartphone app to communicate with the user. The device also uses a button battery instead of rechargeable lithium-ion, doesn’t support as many color formats and is slightly less accurate at 85% instead of 92%. At $ 59/€67/£65 though, it also costs about half the price of the standard ColorReader. For more information see the Datacolor website.

Press release:

New! Datacolor® ColorReader EZ – The Portable Tool that Simplifies Matching, Selecting and Coordinating Colours

Datacolor®, a global leader in colour management solutions, announces the launch of ColorReader EZ, the latest addition to the company’s ColorReader family of products that includes ColorReader and ColorReader Pro. The recommended retail price is £65 including VAT.

The affordable new device incorporates the company’s advanced colour technology in an easy-to-use tool that simplifies the often challenging and time-consuming process of colour matching and colour coordination both in the paint colour selection and digital workflow processes used by photographers and digital designers.

The portable, Bluetooth® connected ColorReader EZ device works in conjunction with the ColorReader mobile app (available for both iPhone and Android). The ColorReader app displays the exact measurement data in CIELAB, Hex and RGB as well as the three closest paint colour matches from the most popular paint brands. In addition to the RAL and NCS colour standards, the app includes colour fan decks from Farrow & Ball, Sikkens and also the colour set of Savage Universal who specialise in photography backgrounds, which makes ColorReader EZ especially interesting for portrait and studio photographers. In total, up to 20,000 colours are available for convenient access.

Along with their matched colours, users can build and organize colour palettes by project as well as create signature colour palettes that they can quickly share with anyone. The greater level of colour confidence afforded by ColorReader EZ saves users time and money on reworks due to colour error. ColorReader EZ is a must-have tool for anyone whose work or lifestyle includes colour decisions.

“The colour selection process can be a challenge for all of us, since so many factors can affect how we view colour. We wanted to bring a level of ease and colour-confidence to consumers with an affordable product that they would use whenever they needed to make a decision about colour. ColorReader EZ takes the guesswork out of selecting and coordinating colours. It lets you capture colour inspiration where you find it, with an accuracy you can’t get from a smartphone image. It’s easy to then bring that colour inspiration into your own work.” said Stefan Zrenner, Director of Sales & Marketing, Consumer Solutions, for Datacolor.

To learn more about ColorReader EZ, visit ColorReader.Datacolor.com

Disclaimer: The use of third-party trademarks is for identification purposes only and does not connote any affiliation with, or sponsorship or endorsement by, the respective trademark holders.

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