What You See Is What
You’d Like To Really Get
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full size Gretag
Macbeth color checker chart |
new pocket sized
Gretag Macbeth color checker chart |
New pocket sized
Gretag Macbeth Gray Scale Balance Card |
Click here to order the GretagMacbeth
Color Checker Chart at pictureline.com
In the March (http://www.pictureline.com/newsletter/2004/march/index.html)
and July (www.pictureline.com/newsletter/2004/july/index.html)
2004 newsletters I have written about the
need for quality system color calibration. Software
solutions I have mentioned include Color
Vision’s Spyder and Gretag Macbeth’s
Eye One system. If you have been totally
baffled or at least partially stymied attempting
to achieve perfectly correct color utilizing
only Photoshop, you can’t.
We are in the literal beginnings of the
digital photo explosion. I have heard
the moaning of many trying to make the transition
to digital smoothly. It is a tough
road since the standard is still a moving
target. Everyday, literally, I see
or hear about some new wunderkind that will
solve all of my problems. I have a
basement full of them and they haven’t. When
I signed up to go digital I guess I didn’t
realize how steep the learning curve would
be. I surely did not expect straight
up. Since I had been a twenty-plus
year veteran photographer I figured it would
be a cakewalk. Now I know when you
think digital, think CHANGE. If you
look at it that way, your life will be a
lot easier.
In a recent article in the June/July 2004
issue of Camera Arts magazine, Mr. George
DeWolfe offered the prudent advice to keep
your digital workflow system as simple as
possible. He recounts that most real
learning begins with abject frustration. So
I am now certain that I am finally learning
something. In researching the subject
of color input and control for his new book,
he said, “I realized that getting precise
color is not Photoshop’s problem or
function.” Correct color must
first come from the input device, such as
the camera or scanner. Once the color
is imported correctly, only then can it be
successfully managed within the software
realm.
In the good old days (last October) we used
to check the color characteristic of a film
or the process by photographing a Macbeth
color checker chart and reviewing it. That
will work as a digital solution as well. It
is more time consuming than it needs to be,
attempting to balance out twenty-four tones. Gretag
Macbeth is listening to the plight of the
digital photographer, so they have made a
new pocket sized edition of the checker chart
that can be used more easily on location. The
small chart can be photographed under the
lighting conditions of the moment and then
compared and corrected back at the computer.
As Mr. DeWolfe points out in his article,
the easier and more efficient procedure is
to balance for mid-gray and all other colors
will fall into place. The course of
action is to use the digital camera’s
white balance control and procedure while
reading the new pocket sized Gretag Macbeth
Gray Scale Balance Card. Setting a
custom white balance on the camera only requires
ten to twenty seconds, so it can be done
every time you change light conditions. This
will make the hair pulling experience of
color balance back at the computer a thing
of the past, or at least simplified.
CLICK
HERE FOR AN INTERACTIVE DEMONSTRATION
OF THE COLOR CHART
Stop into pictureline and pick one up during
regular business hours or order one on line
from http://www.pictureline.com/,
twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week
for your convenience.
