Absolutely true. Every color pressman knows this for a fact. There is a very good reason why this is true. And unfortunately, there’s not much anybody can do to change it!

Here is a little known fact outside the printing industry. Full-color printing (commonly referred to as process color) doesn’t print Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks as opaque inks. It can’t! If these process colors were opaque, each of the colors would dominate and not mix. Process inks must be remain translucent. Because of this simple fact alone, the black ink used in four-color printing (referred to as halftone black to printers) is also translucent. So what does that matter?

A whole bunch! Since translucent inks are designed to pass other colors beneath (and on top of) them, process black by nature allows the white of the paper color to show through the ink. This means that process black is not technically black in the truest sense of the word, it’s dark gray! When one or more other process colors are printed together, process black appears to be opaque black.

If process inks were opaque, these colors would not blend to give the optical illusion of all other colors. Remember, magenta and yellow create red, cyan and yellow create green, and magenta and cyan create blue, and so on. If these CMY colors were opaque, there would be no red, green, or blue, or millions of other colors created. These opposing colors form the primary basis of color separation- red opposes cyan, green opposes magenta, and blue opposes yellow on the color wheel. When RGB colors are inverted they (pretty much) produce CMY. Black (being not technically a color in RGB mode) is added to the CMY colors for definition and contrast/tonality.

Laser printers use opaque inks but utilize special angles and multiple frequencies (screen sizes) to purposely avoid the deliberate overlapping dots. Inkjet printers print with translucent colors but overcome this problem by adding a second (and sometimes third) shade of black inks to create depth and contrast.

Over the years printing ink rotation (the order in which the inks are applied to the paper) has changed significantly.

When I first started printing process color on a single-color Heidelberg K-series, I laid yellow ink down on the blank sheet first. After a thorough washup, I followed with either cyan or magenta, and last, printed the black. For a single-color pressman running a four-color job, this was a major challenge. Not only was accurate registration of multiple passes through the press a problem, printing the precise amount of each color, and just being able to visibly see the yellow ink at all was difficult. I actually used the light-cancelling effect of (47b) blue Wratten filters (borrowed from the camera department) mounted in an eyeglass frame to enable me to see the yellow ink as it appeared on the white sheet! Who says pressmen can’t be creative? Hm-mm, I got paid way too little.

When today’s presses print process colors, most printers use a different ink rotation, sometimes putting black ink down first. They then overlay the black with the other process colors. With this rotation, if process black were not translucent, any other overprinting colors would not be seen. Therefore- printing projects that include contrast-oriented halftones and not requiring process color should be printed with an opaque black ink commonly known as job black.

This series is a small excerpt from my soon to be released book titled The Digital Image: From Capture to Presentation and Everywhere In-between. If you find this series helpful, think seriously about getting the full book.

That’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. If you saw this post listed on a LI group page, add a comment to the listing in that group! Thanks for joining me. If you like this blog, let me know and tell your friends.

If you have an iPad, you can learn more about color and the color separation process from my iBook entitled “The Colors of the Color Wheel.”

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-colors-of-the-color-wheel/id537258927?mt=11

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

Click the Follow button at the top of the page so you don’t miss any future posts.

This shot was taken in Fairbanks Alaska on December 28th at 10PM, and captured the surreal lighting that occurs up there at this time of year. The cool shadows that are evident in the foreground are typical of moonlight reflecting off the snow. Setting the camera’s color mode to Daylight, allowing the tungsten lamplight to show warm lighting amidst the cold snow captured exactly what I saw. On the right, the camera’s white balance was set to AWB, assuming that this “automatic” setting would capture the colors of the image faithfully. Oops! AWB actually lost the shivering cold lighting altogether.

In both of the above cases, when white/neutral balance routines were employed, all the ambiance of both scenes was dutifully destroyed. By forcing each unique lighting to be neutralized, both the warmth of the Sun and the frigid look of the night snow were lost.

There is no single, always-right color balance setting on a camera. In fairness, most times, the AWB setting in the camera and gray balance in the editing stage work out very nicely. But occasionally the stupid camera and the powerful editing software needs smarter input. From you.

This series is a small excerpt from my soon to be released book titled The Digital Image: From Capture to Presentation and Everywhere In-between. If you find this series helpful, imagine what the book will do for you.

That’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. Thanks for joining me this time. If you learned a little something, let me know and tell your friends. Sign up now to have these posts automatically sent to your email address (top right of this page).

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

PS. if you have an iPad and are interested in learning about more about the fundamentals of color, light, and digital photography, I suggest that you take a look at my Accurate Color iBook in the iTunes Store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

Before we move on to the middle tone adjustments, allow me to restate and review just a little of the hist-related issues we’ve covered so far. I know for some this will be an unnecessary rehash, but for some that have just joined, it will help them get acclimated.

Here’s some image-editing terminology I’d like you to familiarize yourself with. There are three definable Tone Range Points and three Internal Contrast Regions to be recognized. The Shadow point, the three-quarter tones, the middle tones, the Midtone point, the quarter tones, and Highlight point. Dividing the tone range like this will help you understand how to control the ranges using two powerful tool dialogs found both in Photoshop and Lightroom. The two main tone adjustment dialogs in Photoshop are Levels and Shadows/Highlights. I’ll present the tonal range as these two adjustment dialogs address it.

The Levels Panel offers controls over specific individual  Range Points; the Black slider affects the Shadow Point placement, the Gamma slider affects the Midtone point, and the White slider affects the Highlight Point placement.

Both the Black and the White sliders influence the value of the Shadow and Highlight Points respectively. Note that these triangle adjustment sliders are not the Shadow, Midtone, and Highlight points, but they are the tools you will use to adjust and set those points. This is a very important distinction to be remembered. Only if either of the sliders intrude into the graph do they actually set those points to Black or White.

The difference a midtone move can make is obvious here. Scene averaging metering in the camera resulted in a serious underexposure of the mid and three-quarter tones. The picture on the right was the result of midtone adjustment. Notice that the shadow point and the highlight point were undisturbed with this midtone adjustment.

The Gamma “pointer” points to the desired placement of the 50% value point in the image. It determines where the 50% value will fall in an image- regardless of where the Highlight and Shadow points are located. If the Gamma slider is moved to the left, the middle tones will get shifted toward the right side, resulting in a lightening of the middle tones. Conversely, if the Gamma slider is moved to the right, the middle tones will be shifted toward the three-quarter tones, resulting in the middle tones getting darker. In effect, the midtone point (50%) will be moved within the tonal range. The original value of the Gamma point (1.00) will change when the slider is moved, though the number that appears in the Gamma field is (for most non-mathematicians) of little relevance. What is important to remember is that the new location of this slider will become an absolute 50% value. Note that this value is not the middle of the tonal range, but the location of the 50% value. The next time the Levels Adjustment panel is opened, the Gamma value will once again be 1.00.

The Expanded Middle Tone Range. 

Obviously, an image’s middle tones are located in the “middle” of the image, not the geometric middle, but the middle of the tonal range. Tonal controls (in the Levels dialog box) provide only highlight, midtone, and shadow sliders. In order to fully control tonality, three internal contrast regions should be added.

I’ll divide the histogram information into three tone range points and three internal contrast regions. These three tonal regions (quarter-tones, midtones, and three-quarter tones) make up what I call “the expanded middle tone range,” and includes everything between the Shadow Point and Highlight Point. This range plays a huge role in the overall tonal balance and the clarity of every digital image. There are several tools in Adobe Photoshop that address and adjust this expanded middle region.

Measuring Light and Managing the Middle 

The image sensors in a digital camera capture light in what is referred to as “linear” fashion. This means that light values are recorded in a purely mathematical fashion; as twice the light passes onto the sensor, twice the voltage is applied to each CMOS/CCD photo cell element. Image sensor devices convert light energy to electrical signals whose numerical values are stored on the camera’s memory card.

The human eye interprets light logarithmically. We humans see better in the dark than most cameras. Most of the light-capturing capability of a digital camera sensor is geared toward the bright side of the tonal scale, recording a lot of detail in the lightest areas of the picture. Unfortunately, the middle and three-quarter tones in a scene don’t get recorded with as much accuracy. There just isn’t enough light in those areas to make as much impact on the image sensor. What this means is that pictures taken in medium-to-low lighting situations often appear dark and lacking in detail. This phenomenon is not widely known, or understood when folks print their pictures. Many people simply print their pictures as they appear, right out of the camera, assuming the camera has taken care of that all this technical stuff. O, were it only that simple!

Here’s the simple truth. Unless your photographs are taken under controlled lighting, the darker parts of your pictures will not record the detail that was evident to your eye when you took the picture. To compensate for this problem you must make some simple adjustments to your images before publishing them either in print or display.

To be fair, when digital cameras save files in JPEG format they force images to adapt to a pre-determined adjustment curve in the process. Incidentally, even when files are captured in raw format the camera records the current JPEG-based file settings which get displayed as a “first guess” display in the raw interpreter software. This JPEG setting applies a curve that attempts to boost the middle tones and take a guess as to what the picture really ought to look like.

When a picture was taken under sufficient light this usually works out well. But when the picture was taken in either low light or very strong light (creating a high contrast photograph), these JPEG curves don’t correct the problem. The JPEG solution to lighting correction works about as consistently as buying one-size-fits-all clothing; occasionally both behaviors work out acceptably, but neither should really become a habit.

The next post in this series will address the all-important internal contrast areas of the Three-quarter and Quarter tones in your image. Stay tuned.

This series is a small excerpt from my soon to be released book titled The Digital Image: From Capture to Presentation and Everywhere In-between. If you find this series helpful, imagine what the book will do for you.

That’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. If you saw this post listed on a LI group page, add a comment to the listing in that group! Thanks for joining me. If you like this blog, let me know and tell your friends.

This is the fourth entry of the spooky series called Image Tonality and the Histogram. This series is open to the public but I highly recommend that you join the followers of this blog to keep the flow intact. Sign in now as a follower (top right of this page). This does not insinuate that you are a sheep in need of a shepherd! Follow is just a term.

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

Click the Follow button at the top of the page so you don’t miss any future posts.

PS. if you have an iPad and are interested in learning about more about the fundamentals of digital photography, I suggest that you take a look at my Accurate Color iBook in the iTunes Store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

The Input Gives and the Output Takes Away

If you’ve wondered what the Output Levels are all about, here’s some insights. While the Input Black slider makes the Shadow Point darker and the White slider makes the Highlight Point lighter, their counterpart Output sliders (located below them in the Levels Adjustment panel) do just the opposite. The Output Black slider always makes all dark tones lighter and the Output White slider only makes all light tones darker.

The Input sliders build contrast while the Output sliders flatten contrast. The only obvious purpose in using the Output sliders is to lighten the Shadow Point and three-quarter tones and/or to darken the Highlight Point and quarter tones. While these Output sliders do change the Shadow Point and Highlight Point, they also adversely affect the internal contrast in a quite inarticulate and clumsy manner. To my view they are for the most part useless, as there are much more effective ways to shape an image’s internal contrast ; case in point, the Shadows/Highlights panel.

The Shadows/Highlights Panel-

The Shadows/Highlights panel (Image/Adjustments/Shadows/Highlights…) adjusts the tonal range from an internal contrast perspective. The Shadows/Highlights panel does not alter the Shadow or Highlight Points; it rearranges the values in three-quarter tones and quartones respectively. The multi-adjustment sliders in this tool actually affect the three ranges of an image; three-quarter tones, midtones, and quarter tones, and they do so in a totally interactive manner.

Moving the Highlights/Amount slider to the right, for example, affects the internal contrast within the quarter tones without changing the Highlight point itself. This adjustment separates the Shadow point from the next darkest tones in the image. In the same way, the Shadows/Amount slider lightens the three-quarter tones without changing the actual Shadow point itself. This slider establishes the internal contrast in the darkest tones of the image.

The Midtone Contrast slider shifts the tones darker or lighter around the midtone point.

The Shadows/Highlights panel is one of the most powerful tools in the entire software editing arsenal because it affords control over all three critical areas of the tonal range that determine detail and clarity. The visual choreography of these adjustments gives you amazing lattitude in shaping the overall internal contrast of the image. When the Shadows/Highlights controls are coordinated with the three control points of the Levels dialog, the tonal reproduction range is under your control.

The interaction between the Levels panel and the Shadows/Highlights panel control the entire tonal range of the image.

The sixth (and last) post in this series will address the integration and interaction of all three tone range points and all three internal contrast regions. Stay tuned.

This series is a small excerpt from my soon to be released book titled The Digital Image: From Capture to Presentation and Everywhere In-between. If you find this series helpful, I encourage you to watch for the more comprehensive book.

Anyway, that’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. If you saw this post listed on a LI group page, add a comment to the listing in that group! Thanks for joining me. If you like this blog, let me know and tell your friends.

This is the fifth entry of the spooky series called Image Tonality and the Histogram. This series is open to the public but I highly recommend that you join the followers of this blog to keep the flow intact. Sign in now as a follower (top right of this page).

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

Click the Follow button at the top of the page so you don’t miss any future posts.

PS. if you have an iPad and are interested in learning about more about the fundamentals of digital photography, I suggest that you take a look at my Accurate Color iBook in the iTunes Store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

In Greek mythology the Pheonix is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn from apparent oblivion. In this sense, any digital image capture that is apparently “dead” by all appearance can have life breathed into it by powerful image editing software.

Original Image Histogram

Such is the case with this image captured during an overcast day in Kailua Hawaii. Absolutely no detail can be seen in this JPEG image; all appears hopeless. A reject, right?

Not so fast, quickdraw! We’re here to raise the dead, remember? While nothing can replace the correct exposure, don’t throw in the towel on an image that looks too dark until you’ve tried this magic collection of tone tools.

Whether the image is captured in jpeg, tiff, or raw format, it can be opened in either of Adobe’s raw interpreter packages, Adobe Camera Raw or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Within either of these packages, both chrominance and luminance controls are provided that allow the user to rearrange tones and shape images extensively.

To open a tiff or jpeg file in Camera Raw, you must first locate the file in Adobe Bridge, right click on the file and choose “Open in Camera Raw…” You can open these files in Lightroom either internally or by dragging the file onto the LR icon in the dock.

The image pictured above was seriously underexposed and appeared to be hoplessly dark. But when the image was opened in both CR and LR software packages, and the same adjustments were made, identical results were achieved.

Note: the histogram in the CR panel (left) show the results of the Basic dialog adjustments while the histogram in the LR panel (right) shows the result of Basic and Tone Curve adjustments.

Notice that both software packages offer virtually identical tools to shape and reconstruct the image.

Yep, this is the same JPEG image pictured above after the adjustments to all three tone range points and all three internal contrast ranges. Keep in mind that this was a very overcast day, and I intended to keep it that way! One of the biggest mistakes made in image adjustments is to assume that all images look best when the highlights and middle tones are automatically brightened up. That’s a rookie mistake. You’re no rookie.

Your challenge in image editing is to make the image portray the emotion of the scene the way your eyes saw it. Mood is a wonderful expression that shouldn’t be sacrificed to an Auto-anything button! Save the image but don’t loose the mood in the process. Hrrumph!

I go into seriously more detail on how this was done and the interplay between the tools that affect the six tone regions and points in the Digital Image book, but you get the idea.

This series has been a small excerpt from my soon to be released book titled The Digital Image: From Capture to Presentation and Everywhere In-between. If you find this series helpful, you’ll love the book.

That’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. If you saw this post listed on a LI group page, add a comment to the listing in that group! Thanks for joining me. If you like this blog, let me know and tell your friends.

This is the last entry of the spooky series called Image Tonality and the Histogram. I hope you’ve learned a little something extra about the mystogram. I highly recommend that you join the followers of this blog to learn more about imaging. Sign in now as a follower (top right of this page). Don’t forget, good followers usually make great leaders.

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

PS. if you have an iPad and are interested in learning about more about the fundamentals of digital photography, I suggest that you take a look at my Accurate Color iBook in the iTunes Store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

The setting in the image capture and editing processes known as White Balance is a curious one indeed. The human light perception system is so complex, and so intuitive,  that we don’t totally understand how it even works. All human color correction happens so automatically that we sometimes don’t appreciate how worry-free it really is.

As photographers this natural phenomenon becomes more apparent when we deal with the limitations of our cameras to capture and sort out the variety of lighting conditions that occur constantly. Our cameras cannot deal with nature’s lighting changes subjectively, and intuitively like our minds can. This is because camera image processors are machines, and they can only record light objectively. And the white balance controls in both our cameras and our editing software are built purely upon broad assumptions. Therein lies the problem. We assume that our cameras can see light the same intuitive fashion that our eyes do. But that’s a bad assumption.

Your eyes adapt to color temperature changes constantly. To prove this just put on sunglasses that have a slight color tint. While this tint is noticeable for a moment, in just a few seconds the color processor in your visual cortex will recalibrate the scene and completely eliminate the color cast. Any object that your mind recognizes as typically white will appear white even if the color of the light reflecting from it has a color cast.

This is because your eyes and your brain enjoy what we call Memory Colors. Memory Colors are colors that you have seen so often that they are registered in your brain in some form of human reference system. Even if the lighting on an object is less than optimal, your memory colors automatically remove the color cast in your mind.

When the camera sees a color cast it records that color cast quite objectively. Golden hour photographs exhibit a warm cast and as long as our camera’s white balance is set to Daylight, that warm color cast will seem natural. But at the same time, Daylight WB photographs shot in overcast situations will exhibit a slight blue cast that will appear cool and unnatural. To record colors that appear natural, we must set the camera’s WB to Cloudy, which tunes out the bluish cast. If images are captured in the shadow under overcast lighting, the appearance will be even more blue unless we set the WB to Shade. Now that ain’t natural!

Thank you Lord for the gifts of Memory Colors and true Auto White Balance. Remember, you gotta be smart because your camera is capable, but it really isn’t smart! Coming soon: The GottaKnow Video Series. The online video series that will make you bright about light and color savvy. Get Smart. Your camera is depending on it.

That’s the way eye sees it. Feel free to leave a comment and keep the conversation going. If you saw this post listed on a LI group page, add a comment to the listing in that group! Thanks for joining me. If you like this blog, let me know and tell your friends.

See you next time, Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

http://imageprep.net

PS. if you have an iPad and are interested in learning about more about the fundamentals of digital photography, I suggest that you take a look at my Accurate Color iBook in the iTunes Store

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

Pardon my absence for the two weeks or so, I’ve been doin’ some personal rearranging. This started by engaging in some personal reflection. Always revealing, but somewhat dangerous. Please don’t get offended at this silliness. It just lets me grasp the historical players.

When I was in the litho industry shooting photos and mechanicals/pasteups into pre-press negatives, assembling film, burning plates, and running printing presses I learned quickly the difference between the printing industry and the art community.

Those of us who followed the strict disciplines of the engraving and printing trades dealt with the harsh realities of the physical world. Those who designed logos, dealt with color swatches, and produced art lived by concepts and ideas, but had no earthly idea what was required to turn those fluffy design concepts into printed reality.

For easy reference I labeled the two symbiotic camps with simple descriptors: the dreamers and the mechanics. The dreamers created new and impossible out-of-the-box projects to purposely torture we mechanics.  No amount of explaining the physical limits of the trade seemed to mellow their imagination though, God bless them. They kept life interesting.

Propeller Heads

When the desktop revolution erupted in the mid-eighties a whole new breed of un-humans appeared who had no concept of, or respect for, either the mechanics or the dreamers. These geeky propeller-heads were totally bent on changing all the rules of both camps. All the sudden the dreamers and the mechanics found something in common: they didn’t want to have anything to do with the propeller heads.

These geeky weirdos developed boxes called computers that were based on a whole new expression system. One designed around mathematics. Math had little to do with printing and absolutely nothing to do with design. It was a whole new weird way of life.

The litho group didn’t like them because their silly software was based on a grid system that totally violated the principles of halftone production and their math-based resolution clashed with known screen rulings and angles; 133lpi screens were now calculated at 124.624dpi to accommodate the new film generators called imagesetters. Attempts by the graphic arts community to adapt to this new system created violent problems on press. Moires abounded and type placed on screen tints always had light leaks. Early color separations were based on slide-rule formulas that didn’t account for some of printing’s simple laws of physics- like the fact that paper stretches on press and that equal parts of cyan magenta and yellow don’t produce neutral gray; they actually produce a muddy brown. Professional trade printers (the mechanics) started refusing to accept work produced by the desktop yearlings. The projects they submitted sometimes cost more money to accommodate and correct than the printing job was worth.

The design community were just a dismayed at the choke-hold restrictions of grid-based designing. The free fluid flow of design suddenly had to be forced into geometric pixel arrays. The dreamers didn’t have any idea of what a pixel or an array even was let alone how to draw a smooth curve with tiny jagged square blocks. For a while the geeks were satisfied to print dot-matrix flyers and newsletters. Neither the design community nor the printing industry took the desktop crowd seriously because the “work” they produced was too amateur to consider a threat. But it was an uneasy peace. The winds of war were blowing.

This new geek nation was on a mission to change the world and that included the graphic arts. The obvious next step was to replace the old-school design community and dinosaur printing industry with design geeks. And so it was.

As momentum for the movement picked up and the technology improved, the design geeks started churning out computer-looking printed projects. As more wannabe designers joined the ranks, an entire culture of look-alike publishing projects flowed from laser printers by the ream. Sensing the financial opportunity on the horizon, publications sprung up supporting and promoting these new designers and publishers.

Enter the Pundits

Every movement has its media pundits and this new desktop movement was no exception. Writers and pundits filled the magazines with fresh new ideas about desktop publishing. Regular trade shows on both coasts promoted this phenom rage. As the ranks swelled in the desktop movement, the pundits became the authorities on all things publishing. The articles in the publications were written by the new designers and service bureau workers encouraging more folks to join the publishing revolution.

It took a while for the three camps to hold hands, and a lot of traditional professionals got swept away in the process. But now the circle is pretty-much redrawn as the desktop folks actually started learning good design and the printing industry (those who survived the carnage of the revolution) redefined itself and licked its wounds.

I remember this process well because I played a part in all three camps, and I survived (I think). Life doesn’t necessarily get easier as time goes on, but it does present rewards to those who remain mentally flexible enough to keep reinventing themselves.

Here’s my latest mutation. I invite you to scoot over to http://gottaknowvideos.com/keyfactor.html and take a look at my newest incarnation. It kinda sums up what I’ve learned over the years and want to pass along to the new breed of photographer/publisher.

And that’s the way eye sees it.

If you enjoyed this little rant, pass it along. See you next time.

Herb

http://imageprep.net

If you have an iPad and want to learn more about how your eye buys into the camera’s insidious lies, check this out:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/accurate-color-audio-video/id509451372?mt=11

Title sounds ominous enough.

My first attempts to produce “snappy” pictures in print started in my sophomore year in college. I was the production manager for our college magazine and was determined to make the images in the the next issue pop off the page-

I just had no earthly idea what that required. I didn’t understand the reproduction game at the time. I remember accompanying the school photographer on assignments and asking him to shoot “high contrast pictures.” A little vague in direction, but my intent was pure.

I had just seen way too many images in print that looked flat and lacking in detail and figured that the photographer needed to pick up his game. I thought that if he just shot the picture with more contrast, the image would print with greater clarity. Made sense.

At that time I was working my way through college in the reproduction department of Tropical Gas Company in Miami Florida, running forms and reports and an occasional newsletter. When I ran a photo in our company newsletter, the halftone images that emerged from my Multilith 1250 duplicator usually printed flat, and I figured the fault had to be the photographer’s. That was my early approach to QC in photographic images. I understood absolutely nothing about the photo/lithographic process at the time. Though that was about to change big time.

What I came to realize was that there were several VERY significant steps between the camera shot and the images coming out of the duplicator. Lighting on the scene was important, but it was only the first move in the reproduction ballet. In between were the critical steps of film development, photographic enlargement (the print) and the halftone conversion process. The lights began to turn on. Over the next few years I began my quest for image clarity.

I determined to learn and take control over all the steps in the process, starting with the photography, developing my own films, enlarging my own prints, and shooting my own halftone images. The quest now had a plan. The kid was in control.

Funny how life unfolds. Here I am nearly fifty years later and I’m still on that quest. After investing a bunch of time in the lithographic and photographic industries, I’m still on track. Digital film instead of emulsion, digital development instead of rocking canisters and trays, editing on a digital display instead of dodging and burning on an enlarger easel, and printing on ink jets and displaying on the Internet instead of spitting paper out of a small quick-copy duplicator. But the challenge remains. An eternal quest for image clarity. Same challenge, just a different landscape. No matter where you are in this visual journey, keep learning. It’s an honorable quest!

That’s the way I sees it.

Check out my latest video asking you the question: “What’s the Key Factor in All of Photography?” You might be surprised at my summation. It’s six minutes long- take the time!

http://www.gottaknowvideos.com/keyfactor.html

Drop me a note. I’d like to hear your thots. Let’s learn together.

See you next time.

Herb

Anyway, that’s the way I sees it. 

Join me next time when we look into the way digital cameras deal with black and white images. In the mean time, please take five (actually more like six) minutes to watch a shameless plug about my new video series at http://gottaknowvideos.com/keyfactor.html This is stuff you just gotta know in order to shoot like a pro.

See you next time. Herb

hpaynter@imageprep.net

Edited with BlogPad Pro

hpaynter@imageprep.net

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Lately, I’ve come to the uncomfortable reality that perhaps my obsession with delivering clarity and definition in the digital photographs is much more important to me than it is to many in the Internet (and even print) publishing community. From the opinions I’ve heard recently, it would seem that people really just don’t care. Could that be true?

I recently decided to investigate high-end (1.5-14 million dollar) real estate listing photos to see how the Real Estate Master Salesmen represent their clients’ properties. What I discovered was a bit disturbing. While most of the multiple (sometimes up to twenty-five) scenes presented in these listings were very well captured by the photographer, the post production preparation; delivering what I think of as “The Big 3″ imaging issues (tonality, color, and clarity) was glaringly absent.

Images are the visual vehicles that whisk viewers away on an emotional journey. If you want your viewer to take this ride, you must make your vehicle attractive and easy to enter. Look at the images below, and see if you get what I mean. The image on the left is the current listing image, the one on the right, my attempt to correct the screen capture of the Internet image. I only wish I’d had access to the original images!

My question (to anyone who would like to comment) is “if you were representing a client’s home and had a choice of how that image would be viewed by potential buyers, why would you not choose to optimize these image(s) before you listed them?” Question number two must follow: “don’t you not think that your prospects would benefit from the difference?”

Once again the image above is the current listing and my “fixed” version of the image.

Put yourself in the place of a potential buyer. Would the optimized version of each scene not make it easier to picture yourself in that room? Would the level of visual appeal feed your prospect’s desire, or would this attention to detail make no difference at all?

To keep this issue in perspective, keep in mind that I spent the first seven years of my young career running very large and very noisy printing presses. I got worn out trying to make the color pictures look better by tweaking the controls on the press. Realizing that this was not the answer to great images in print, I refocused my career path back into the image preparation side of the shop. I apprenticed and learn the secret to producing great images on press was to prepare them properly before they made their way into the pressroom. I actually spent a three year stint shooting my own litho films, plating them myself, and then running the press that printed them. Wow, what a difference it made.

Like most journeys in life, I learned to begin with the end in mind. I knew the press’ appetite and I started feeding it what it could digest. That started a very long romance with producing stellar images, whether they are destined for the press or the Internet. Here’s a big hint… one image doesn’t satisfy all needs. Each output needs unique preparation. This is a generally ignored concept, but an absolutely true one.

Now I find myself a member of a group of ex-photoengravers who know the secrets of image preparation but are somewhat disillusioned by the fact that visual quality might not mean that much anymore. What a shame. What a loss.

Many of these specialist fraternity members of color separators and photoengravers were summarily dismissed by the desktop publishing revolution but still hold the keys to the kingdom.

Let me know what you think about this.

For those who want to produce the very best results from digital images, I suggest you learn about the key issues of color and light as it affects digital photography. A good place to start might be to watch my online Gotta-Know Video series. It will fill in a lot of the blanks and disclose many of the mysteries left by the departure of the color separators and photoengravers. Whether you learn this from me or from somewhere else, please learn how to shape your images before you unleash them on the public. You’ll see a difference.

Watch this free introduction to my video series on light and color. http://www.gottaknowvideos.com/keyfactor.html

See you next time,

Herb

I’m toying with a new idea, and it all has to do with photo quality. In particular, the real estate photo listings. On my last post I noted that it seems that few people actually care about the quality of real estate pictures listed on the internet (see “Does It Really Matter Anymore?“). The somewhat surprising number of detailed responses to that question compelled me to investigate this issue more.

I’ve done a number interviews with agents and done some deep digging into the blasé attitude that a large number of real estate agents, brokers, and agencies currently have about their images. The prevailing opinion is somewhere between “our clients don’t pay any attention to pictures, they expect them to look bad” and “property pictures are only useful for a short period of time, they’re not worth the effort,” and even “I have to pay for them out of my own pocket, the cost involved is just not in my budget.”

Really?!

It just seems astonishing to me that exquisite product photography is employed to promote everything from energy drinks to baby diapers while sub-quality images are used to entice people to buy multimillion-dollar houses. Yeah, that makes sense- not.

So- I’ve decided to offer real estate image optimization services to agents who understand that quality sells quality and that garbage doesn’t. I put together a couple of videos presenting my case for spiffing up lackluster images. Since I’ve picked up a couple of tricks in my 45 years of photography, digital color and image reproduction, and I’m quite confident that I can significantly improve the appearance of the majority of real estate images I have seen on the Internet. BTW, I don’t hype images, I present them in their best light ever- I figure I get all spiffed up to go to a fancy restaurant… just makes sense to me.

While putting this service model together I’ve encountered a number of people that have been so underwhelmed with the pictures associated with a given property that they decided not to even visit it. One of these folks actually purchased another home (attracted by the well done images), only to find out that the ugly-picture house was an amazing property; one that they perhaps would have purchased instead.

So, let it be hereby known that the real estate image optimization service known as ImageOpt is open for business. Two things you should take a look at… 1) the “Mythbuster” video I put together as a promo (http://www.imageprep.net/real-estate-mythbuster-video.html), and 2) the website for the service that includes tutorial movies on how to gather and submit images for optimization (http://www.imageprep.net/imageopt.html).

To make this service a little more attractive, I’m offering a quite unusual pricing structure for the four different types of services I’m offering: Basic Optimization (stills), Optimization and Transition (video), Grayscale Zoom to Color (video), and StillMotion with Text and Music (soundtracked video). The agents pay only 60% of the fee with their submission and don’t pay the balance for 60 days– nutz right?

What?  It’s called incentive!

I’ll get a feel for the interest in this venture from the little survey I’m including here. This should be fun. And it should be an eye-opener for both the agents and for myself. We’ll see. Take the Poll. Let me hear what you think. You can check more than one, or you can offer another opinion. If you have friends who are in real estate, ask them what they think.

That’s the Way Eye Sees It anyhow.

See you next time.

Herb

Uncovering Hidden Details In the Shadows. There are usually significant details hidden under the weight of the darkest parts of an image. These darker details are very rich and revealing, and to some extent they are recoverable, but they must be carefully extrapolated. The reason why these details are hiding has to do with the default linear tone mapping that takes place in the camera when the image is being captured. While image sensors see light linearly, the human eye doesn’t!

Notice the illustration below. The reason the top gradation stripe looks “natural” is because that’s the way your eye registers light; pretty evenly distributed across the range. The bottom strip is how your camera parses that same volume of light.

Compared to human eyesight, digital camera sensors are biased in the way they capture light. It is a known fact that over half the luminance range captured by digital cameras favors the lightest tones in the picture while the darkest tones are quite slighted. When an image is opened in an image editing application, the highlight and quarter-tone detail is lavishly represented while the shadow/three-quarter tones are scantly recorded. Put simply, the image sensor is designed to dynamically record light. The brighter the light, the more information is recorded. Where I come from, this is called blatant discrimination!

It is for this reason that capture saved in RAW format can be a bit overexposed (when looking at the on-camera histogram). There is always more information present in the image than the histogram can reveal. Truth be known, the beloved histogram only displays the relative values of just 128 tones. Considering the fact that normal 24-bit color photos can display over 16,000,000 colored tones, there are more than enough tones to spread around without encountering objectionable “posterizing” effects.

Above, you see a published example of an image significantly lacking in shadow detail. To the left you see the histogram of that image. Notice that the shadow side of the histogram is not slammed up against the left side. This is a good sign. There is still room for adjustment.

Above you see that same image after the shadow tones have been moved into the middle tones, resulting in the whole image brightening and showing more detail. Notice the histogram to the left. In spite of this image being a second generation JPEG, there was ample detail in the shadow region that just needed to be opened.

Also notice that this shift of the shadow tones didn’t affect the quarter-tones and highlights. Remember, detail is a product of internal contrast. If you want to see shadow detail, you’ll have to “expose” the internal contrast within the shadow tones. The key to good photo interpretation is balance, and balance is governed by the type of lighting in the scene (high key, normal, low key, etc.) Learn to interpret the effective light range (either at exposure or during editing) and take bold steps to deliver both smooth transitions and visual detail.

What to do? Because of this “weighted” light range reality, three imperatives become evident for editing digital images. First, capture your  images in your camera’s RAW format (perhaps in conjunction with a high-level JPEG format. Second, slightly overexpose your images. Remember, your camera is capturing vast levels of quarter tones and highlight detail. And third, get serious about spreading out the lower end of the contrast range in RAW Interpreter software like Camera Raw or Lightroom. The editing tools present in these nearly identical toolsets allows for significant internal contrast adjustments with absolutely no loss of detail.

Shadow detail is not nearly as fragile as some would purport. The lower range of the tonal range is quite visually robust. Don’t be afraid to push some of those three-quarter tones north toward the middle tones. Your images will thank you. One more note about shadow details; they actually need to be separated to display properly. Separate those tones and watch the details jump out.

If you really want to understand what makes color work, you need to understand how light behaves. And here’s where I can help you. I’ve created a very entertaining and easy-to-understand video series that will teach you these fundamentals and get you on track to capture and produce amazing color.  http://gottaknowvideos.com

Here’s a serious question… who should be preparing your photos?

Typically, the three folks (in descending order) generally charged with overseeing the quality of publication photos are: the photographer, the publication’s production department, and the printer’s pre-press department.

Collectively, there’s a pretty good chance that essential color, depth, and detail are unwittingly getting left out in the process.

Before you dismiss this as an inflammatory statement, please hear my reasoning. Having spent many years of my career in each of these three positions, I am certainly not about to criticize any of them. Actually, it is precisely because I have handled digital images in these three positions AND as a pressman that I dare to make such a statement. Allow me to explain. There is a critical though not-so-obvious truth behind what I’m about to say.

First, professional photographers certainly know their way around cameras and software (Lightroom or Photoshop) and understand color, tonality, and sharpening well enough to produce great looking prints. They understand color correction, color spaces, and color printing, and they are the first (and perhaps the last) in the production line to adjust the images.

Next, the production department receives the images and determines if they are ready for prime-time. If an image doesn’t look stellar, they’ll try adjusting it to make it look a little better before dropping it into their page makeup application and generating the PDF file that gets sent to the printer.

Finally, the pre-press department at the printing company checks the images for proper resolution, color space, and highlight/shadow settings before dispatching the file to the platesetter. Generally, the printers do NOT want the responsibility for “editing” images.

So what could possibly get overlooked with all this oversight? A whole bunch. And it all starts with the photographer. The photo is his/her responsibility. And herein lies the problem. While photographers understand fine art prints and image editing software, very few professional photographers see their photos through the eyes of a pressmen. But they should!

There is a quantum difference between preparing photos for ink jet printers and preparing images for publication presses. It’s an RGB-vs-CMYK thing that differs significantly in color space, color saturation and tonal reproduction. Actually, it’s a communications issue that can be quite easily cleared up once it is addressed.

In the beginning. When an image is captured with today’s digital cameras, it initially possesses more than 4000 tones per (RGB) color. Do the math, that’s a whole bunch of possible colors. Considering the fact that JPG conversion drastically reduces that number to only 256 tones per RGB color, the initial tone and color shaping of the camera image is super-critical! Simply put, how the photographer shapes that data before it is saved as a JPG file will determine how much detail and clarity will appear in the magazine.

The old adage “start with the end in mind” comes clearly into focus here. Since these images will all get printed in a magazine, the publication press is the ultimate arbiter, and deserves the loudest voice in the conversation. What does that mean? Four critical facts.

Fact One: the detail that a press can reproduce in the darkest (shadow) portions of an image is limited by several factors; the grade (quality) of paper being the biggest. Fact Two: camera image sensors capture very little shadow detail. Fact Three: the darkest areas of a photo are the most difficult areas to print cleanly on press. Fact Four: if the photographer doesn’t shape each image specifically for the press and paper stock, the image will probably lose shadow detail and will display muddy middle tones.

Regardless of whether the photographer captures RAW or JPG camera images, the very first adjustment made to those images will determine the clarity and appearance of the printed image. More on this in a following post.

Assessment Time: If you are the Publisher, Editor, Creative Director, Production Manager, or a contributing photographer, now it’s time to do your homework. Grab the last issue of your publication and notice the print quality difference between the photos in the national ads and the photos in the editorial articles. While the photo quality may differ to some degree, the printing clarity shouldn’t.

If the cover and feature article photos in your pub don’t display detail in the shadows, clean color throughout, and reasonable “snap” (not to be confused with over sharpening), you should be concerned. Not worried, but concerned enough to set some new standards. In the following posts in this series, I’ll address specific production issues that will make a significant difference in the visual appearance of your publication. One that your advertisers and subscribers will appreciate immediately. Check out these examples http://herbpaynter.com/image-optimization.html.

Join me for the next post in this series where I’ll discuss how to uncover the hidden details.

Question: with all the technical control afforded by imaging software, advances in digital camera technology, and constantly-improving pre-press and pressroom controls, why do many high-end publication images appear… somewhere between lackluster and frumpy? All aforementioned technology considered, every image in your publication should routinely appear razor sharp and highly detailed, but in too many cases, they don’t! It’s in your best interest to recognize this situation and ask why? 

When you look at the feature article pictures in your publications, are you totally knocked out with the results? Are all images showing clarity, detail and definition? If your answer is “yes,” you can stop reading this post now; you are in a fortunate minority. Most publication Editors will answer this question with a quiet “not always,” even though their staff and contract photographers are true professionals. The photos are always well composed and technically accurate, and yet they still lack something.

Here’s a thought. You know those Architectural Digest and National Geographic-grade pictures that nearly assault your eye? Those full bodied, highly detailed mages have that special oomph of detail and authenticity that bumps them way above average Photoshop images. I was fortunate enough to work as a photoengraverfor many years early in my career, producing images for that level of publications, and now find it visually difficult to tolerate frumpy pictures. To me, it’s the visual equivalency to listening to an orchestra out-of-tune. It’s simply unacceptable at this level.

Years ago top-shelf image preparation required precision optics, expensive equipment and highly-trained craftsmen. But in 2015, anyone with a digital camera, a computer and an understanding of the process can produce amazing work. Why then do we continue to see *frumpy pictures on the pages of high-end magazines?

There is only one reason. Frumpy pictures persist because of a lack of understanding about the unique requirements of the printing process. Magazine production departments are full of very talented designers and artists. They are thoroughly versed in the tools and techniques of both Photoshop and InDesign, but perhaps not so much in the fundamentals of light and color. Even professional photographers who finesse and obsess over their beautiful gicleé prints probably don’t fully understand litho color reproduction.

The process of lithographic reproduction is quite different from that of inkjet printers. Let me change that. It’s entirely different, involving unique (highlight and shadow) tonal range adjustments, saturation settings, and even image sharpening. Printing presses have special dietary needs, and when fed correctly, they produce spectacular results. But when fed a generic photographic diet, they produce only generic results. Not exactly what you’re looking for.

If you really want to understand what makes color work, you need to understand how light behaves. I’ve created a very entertaining and easy-to-understand video series that will teach you these fundamentals and get you on track to capture and produce amazing color. In the next post I’ll propose causes for why frumpy happens. Watch next for “In the beginning. Lost in translation. A sin of omission.”

*frumpy pictures are soft fuzzy and lacking in detail

Sometimes taking a neutral position on things isn’t really the safe thing to do – sometimes it’s actually downright destructive!

  Auto White Balance. Your camera’s Auto White Balance, or AWB is a typical fallback lighting selection used by most of us because we assume that the camera is smarter than we are, or at least more capable of judging lighting conditions. But assuming that AWB will always diagnose lighting and set the proper color temperature is risky. Here’s why.

The first thing to understand is that in the language of RGB color, equal values of red, green, and blue (like red 128, green 128, and blue 128) produce an absolutely neutral gray color.

The AWB algorithm in your camera always assumes that there is a detectable neutral gray component present in every scene. It then examines the light reflecting from objects in the scene and locks onto the cluster of pixels whose values are closest to equal. The AWB algorithm then dutifully forces those colors to become absolutely neutral value. And at the same time, all colors in the scene are shifted to the same degree. This is the heart of auto white balance.

This is all well and good IF that color in the scene is suppose to be neutral (gray) in color. This color shift will then actually improve the balance of color in the image
But, if the scene doesn’t actually contain a neutral gray component; if there is a bluish –somewhat-gray item (like the snow scene above), and you capture the image with Auto White Balance, there will be trouble. The image on the left was captured with Daylight setting. The image on the right was captured with AWB. Notice that the camera interpreted the bluish snow as “neutral,” rendering it unnaturally gray. The image processor in the camera changed that bluish color to neutral gray, and shifted all the other colors in the scene in the same direction on the color wheel absolutely destroying the emotion of the scene.

Gray is not a color. Color balance is all about gray. Neutral gray is the colorless backbone of accurate color because it contains equal values of all three RGB colors. Gray is the gold standard by which all accurate color is judged. Auto White Balance is useless unless there is an element of this absolutely neutral “color” in the scene.

With all the whiz-bang technology and automated functions in today’s cameras, we photographers (whether accomplished or improving) are tempted to become a bit lazy. Successful photographers (like the ones who inspired you to purchase your camera) didn’t get successful by accident. They invested time and hard-earned money in their own understanding of the art. But it didn’t stop with the art/composition element. Their understanding of photography included learning about the way light behaves.

The best color balance setting is the one you will choose after evaluating the lighting. And that all starts with understanding how color behaves. When you get beyond learning composition and and the mechanics of your camera’s controls, you realize that learning about light is THE most important part of photography. You soon learn that light is the one thing you MUST learn to control.

If you really want to understand what makes color work, you need to understand how light behaves. And here’s where I can help you. I’ve created a very entertaining and easy-to-understand video series that will teach you these fundamentals and get you on track to capture and produce amazing color. 

There is an amazing parallel between the sciences of audio and photography; one that I learned about in the ’80 from personal experience. I operated a hybrid photo/litho lab in Nashville from 1973-1986. This allowed me to enjoy both the creative and the production sides of the communications industry

.

I had contracts with Studer/Revox and Harrison Systems, the audio industry’s top tape machines and recording consoles designing and producing their print advertising materials. What I learned about audio processing during this period definitely improved my understanding of image processing.

Shaping sound is very similar to shaping images. Think of bass as shadows and treble as highlights. simple example of a parametric EQ is a treble/bass knob. Crude overall shifting of tones.The internal contrast of each range clarifies detail and provides punch in both sound and sight. The distribution and emphasis of the middle tones in both sound and pictures is critical. Muddy sound is just as obvious as muddy pictures.

This is the same basic principle that is used in the audio industry to “crossover” the bass end of the audio spectrum to a subwoofer while maintaining the full-body middle tones and crisp high-end of the audio spectrum from regular speakers.

The difference between the Curves tool and the Levels tool closely reflects the functional differences between multi-band graphic equalizers and parametric equalizers, and the beloved Histogram is a simplified Spectrum Analyzer.

There is a good reason why the word “color” is used to describe sound shaping in the audio industry as much as in the photo industry. I learned so much about photographic color and tonal shaping from from working inside sound studios. (I also now own a killer personal sound system.) I may share some of this insider info in another post series.

Total dependence on the general contrast controls of the Levels command and audio’s treble/base knob rarely suffices to produce real clarity. Next time you really listen to music, think about these parallels. I think you’ll see the issue more clearly.

If you really want to understand what makes color work, you need to understand how light behaves. And here’s where I can help you. I’ve created a very entertaining and easy-to-understand video series that will teach you these fundamentals and get you on track to capture and produce amazing color.  http://gottaknowvideos.com

The title sounds ominous enough.

My first attempts to produce “snappy” pictures in print started in my sophomore year in college. I was the production manager for our college magazine and was determined to make the images in publication pop off the page.

I had no earthly idea how that was supposed to happen. I understood very little about either photography or the print reproduction game at the time. I remember accompanying the school photographer on assignments, asking him to shoot “high contrast pictures.” This was a little vague in direction, but it sounded like it should have an impact on the final print.

At that time I was working my way through college in the Reproduction Department of Tropical Gas Company in Miami Florida, running forms and reports and the company newsletter on the company’s Multilith 1250W duplicator (a small beginner’s version of a printing press).

Every time I wanted to print a black and white photo, I had to have the local “repro shop” produce a printing plate containing a halftone (a simulation of the photograph broken into variable size dots- see above). My halftone images usually printed flat, and I figured the fault had to belong to the photographer.

That was my early approach to QC in photographic images. I understood absolutely nothing about the photo/lithographic process but that was about to change big time.

To see the magic illusion of printed halftones, back away from your monitor by at least 12 feet.

What I came to realize shortly thereafter was that there were several VERY significant steps between the camera shot and the images coming out of the duplicator. Lighting in the photo was important, but it was only the first move in the production ballet. Then the critical steps of film development and photographic enlargement (the print) took place before the totally magic halftone conversion process happened. I found out that shaping the image after the photo was taken was the real secret to printed picture success. My learning “lights” began to turn on. Over the next few years, my quest for printed image clarity grew.

I determined to learn and take control of all the steps in the process, starting with the photography, developing my own films, enlarging my own prints, and shooting my own halftone images. The quest was turning into a plan and was headed in the right direction. The kid was taking control.

My love for the process eventually drove me deep into the high-end lithographic trade, running publication presses and producing color separations.

Funny how life unfolds. Here I am over fifty years later and I’m still on that quest for image clarity. After decades in the litho and photography trades, I’m still on track and still learning stuff. Digital images have replaced film emulsions, computer processing succeeded the rocking of film canisters and print trays, I’m editing on a digital display instead of dodging and burning under an enlarger, and printing on large format inkjet printers instead of spitting paper out of a small quick-copy duplicator.

Never settle for the image that first comes out of the camera. There’s always more detail below the surface.

But the goal remains: the perpetual quest for image clarity. Actually, it’s the same goal I’ve had all along, the game is just played on a larger field. No matter where you are in this visual journey, never stop learning. It’s an honorable and rewarding quest!

That’s the way I sees it.

If you really want to understand what makes color work, how light behaves, and how easy it is to push light around to make your images look better, I can help. I’ve created a very entertaining and easy-to-understand video series that will teach you these fundamentals and help you to capture and produce amazing color. Go online and get this video series. Get Bright About Light!

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