Thread: Truestone blue river agate and photography question

Hi Toni

First step is to calibrate your monitor. On Windows have a look for Adobe Gamma Raw to help you do this. IF you want to get it really good buy something like Monaco Eye One which is software with a sensor to "read" the screen and produce a correct calibration.

Adobe Gamma should get it near enough if you are just sending pics on the web.

Digital cameras are really sensitive to what they call white balance. Common problems with the colour of light. Flouros for instance make this yucky green light. Tungsten is an orange colour. Sodium lights make things go blue, even daylight goes from soft blue to yellow. You can correct all of these in photoshop with the levels palate by selecting the eyedropper and clicking on the most white bit of your pic.

This is a heavy subject and there are some great seminars that cost about $400 and require a days full attention. I have been pretty light here.

Studley

I'm not sure about the model number, but you might want to see if the camera has a white balance setting you can change. The background paper, for instance, is coming out with a blue tint, so you know that the color is shifting that way to begin with. It will certainly interfere with the rest of the colors, too.

Usually there is a setting that you can either adjust for certain types of shots, or you can have it take a new white balance reading and you can lock it in there until you change backgrounds. In effect, you're telling the camera "See this? This is white. Make it look white in all the shots I take"

The reason is that the lighting can have many different colors. Sunlight at noon is what we normally consider white. But sunlight in the afternoon has a definite yellow cast to it. And fluorescent lights have a green cast, incandescent bulbs shift yellow/red etc.. Your brain filters this color out, but the camera cannot.

SO .. if you have a manual setting, let the camera see the plain white background, and have it set this as it's new 'white balance'. That should change your photos and make the background crisp and white, but I don't know if it will change the pen to purple. But you might try that first to see if eliminating one thing might give you a better idea about the rest.

Sorry I couldn't be more help..

It seems that the pen looks blue to at least 4 of us, so I'd shy away from fiddling with monitors. If your camera has Custom White Balance (different from "Automatic White Balance"), try NewLondon88's suggestion. I keep a piece of white copy paper near my lathe for WIP pix, because it's near an open door and with extra lights the light colour varies all over the lot. Also, experiment with different pre-set colour settings - easy enough with "film" so cheap. For some of my pix of completed pieces, I photograph them outdoors in shade or on the North side of the house ('twould be South side in Oz), using sunlit or cloudy setting depending on overhead conditions, for somewhat uniform illumination; also try different times of day. And take notes for future reference.

There are only 256 official colours for internet pix, but there should be a purple combination in there someplace.

Joe

Hi

One point to remember is that the human eye sees colour differently to the camera, and the female eye sees a MUCH greater range of shades of colour than the male eye.

Digital cameras also "see" infrared colours. Infrared light effects the way the camera "sees" the colours - which is different to us

(Point an infrared remote toward the lens of a digital camera and you will see the IR led illuminated in the viewfinder. This is a simple way to check for a faulty remote control )

If you have not tried it already, try taking the photo outside in daylight.

As has already been mentioned, white balance on digital cameras can have quite an effect on the resulting image, so the white balance is something that could be checked. Most cameras (that are able to set the white balance) have an auto white balance. Setting the white balance manually can be used to modify the colours in the image (for effect) as well as set them to the *correct* colours

If all else fails you could consider changing the colour in the image with some photo editing software. Paint Shop Pro X or X2 are very good but not too expensive. Purchase online from the US web site - it's cheaper than the Aus site

HTH

Hi

Originally Posted by MrFixIt

If all else fails you could consider changing the colour in the image with some photo editing software. Paint Shop Pro X or X2 are very good but not too expensive.

For (a not expert) example ...

Peter surprisingly that purple pen is much closer then my photo. Even my hubby said our camera colour is right out so it not just female eyes..LOL
TOni

Don't know if your camera has it Toni but you could just shoot in RAW format.

That way you can just correct the white balance when you prepare it for viewing with your software.

Either way the monitor should be calibrated each week as it will drift.

To try and give you an understanding of what this means. In my work as a machinist we generally measure parts we machine with a micrometer. A simple but highly precise instrument. When you take it out of it's box at the start of a job even if you only used it yesterday you check the calibration by measuring a test piece with it to check it agrees with the test piece. eg a 25mm test must measure as 25.00 mm. A piece of copy paper is about 0.1mm so we are talking about a small measure, the calibration checks that the device conforms to the standard.

Much the same thing when you calibrate your monitor you are checking that your view of the image conforms to the standard. That way when it is printed you can expect it to conform to peoples perception of colour and depth and see the things you wanted them to see.

Monitors are tougher than micrometers. Micrometers usually have to be dropped or mishandled to lose calibration. A monitor will shift over it's life just as a part of normal wear and tear. Yep just from having it on and putting out light so you can see something it's brightness and representation of colour and contrast will vary over time.

Good luck with it all. Try doing a calibration and then sending your image again.

Studley

Originally Posted by MrFixIt

Hi
For (a not expert) example ...

Good job! I was going to submit this one..

Hi

Originally Posted by lubbing5cherubs

Peter surprisingly that purple pen is much closer then my photo. Even my hubby said our camera colour is right out so it not just female eyes..LOL
TOni

I wonder if you could find/borrow another camera to see (by comparison) if YOUR camera is faulty or if the problem exists within your computer hardware/monitor/software?

In theory if both cameras are set up with the same (as close as possible) settings then the variation between the two camera images should be minimal, though I would not expect them to be exactly the same.

Alternatively perhaps you could load the purple pen image on a friends pc and see how it looks on their computer.


.

Hi Toni
The brain automatically adjust the colour the eye sees which is why digital and film cameras often come up unexpected shades. Also different materials reflect light in different ways, have trouble photographing wldflowers I do. Try using a flash or a polarizing filter or both and then adjust on pc after calibrating
Good luck
Al