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!

The post A Lifelong Quest for Image Clarity appeared first on The Way Eye Sees It.

The thrill of romance wanes when we fail to appreciate uniqueness and recognize differences. When we downplay distinctive traits, the spark of romance gradually mellows and we settle for the bland and predictable. Instead of identifying and appreciating those small differences, amplifying distinctions that stimulate the senses, we settle for what is merely tolerable, and we end up with boring.

I’m not talking about human relationships here, I’m talking about black and white conversions from color images. When color is transposed into monochrome, billions of colors are reduced to a couple-hundred monochromatic steps. It doesn’t take a genius to see that with this transition something can easily be lost in the translation. But if we handle it correctly, we can exchange color for detail, drama, and power.

Look closely at the images below. While the color picture is colorful but the monochrome image presents an additional level of drama.

For the sake of this post, I’ll refer to B/W as Monochrome. There are only 256 tones between black and white in this photo, but this reduced number is actually a benefit. Detail is the result of internal contrast control, NOT sharpening. When you control the contrast, you control the detail. Distinguishing individual tones in the shadows and the highlights creates detail.

Notice that as an RGB image, you have a minimum of 16.8 million colors/tones. Making a distinction between all those colors is a real challenge. The very nature of overlapping red, green, and blue channels reduces the visual distinction. While the “dynamic range” is much larger in color than in B/W, the “dynamic distinction” is much harder to achieve.

The intent and purpose for this Black and White series of posts is to showcase the power of contrast and edginess possible with monochromatic images; an exchange of subtile color for detail and drama. You’ll learn that sometimes color can actually diminish detail instead of enhancing it. Because color is inherently lacking in dynamic contrast, the transitions between tones is much more gradual. This may work well for subtle beauty, but if the colors present little contrast, the photo will present little visual detail.

Photoshop Black and White Conversions. There are a number of ways to convert color pictures to monochrome in Adobe Photoshop as well as a number of RAW software products. Photoshop offers a number of ways to transpose colors to tones of gray, commonly known as Grayscale. In this post I’ll present four powerful processes available in Photoshop. In the next post, I’ll dive into the RAW Interpreter methods.

Black and White Panel. All six primary and secondary color channels can be lightened and darkened by the sliders in this panel. Only the luminance of each color can be adjusted here but the Preview checkbox allows you to reference the original color image while you adjust each color’s effect on the grayscale. Increasing or decreasing of each color channel affects the corresponding gray tones. The Hue slider at the bottom has a profound effect on the overall monochrome image though the Saturation control has very little effect. All of the sliders have influence over the interpretation of the grayscale conversion.

Channel Mixer Panel. This panel provides interesting (Red, Green, Blue, Orange, Yellow, and Infrared-filtered interpretations of the color image. While both the Black and White and the Channel Mixer panels render the file as a grayscale image, each produces very interesting results. Once the color influence has been established, further tonal controls can be made in the Shadows/Highlights dialog.

HDR Toning. HDR Toning provides many controls over the image’s color and shape. While primarily a color tonality tool, once other adjustments are made, simply dial back all the Saturation (bottom-most slider) and you have a unique monochromatic image.

Shadows/Highlights Panel. Shadows/Highlights dialog from the Image/Adjustment menu. Shadows: the top three sliders allow you to lighten and shape the Shadows (the darkest parts of the image). Highlights: the next three sliders let you affect the internal contrast within the Highlights (the lightest parts of the image).

Adjustments: Since this image is now grayscale, the Color slider will have no effect, though the Midtone slider will have a major effect on the overall contrast. Don’t change either the Black Clip or the White Clip since we will address both the Black point and White point next.

Any one (or even combinations of all) of these workshop areas can be employed. If additional contrast and middle tone adjustments are needed, the trusty Levels dialog can provide the finishing touches.

Levels Panel. The Levels panel is where we set the darkest and lightest tones in the image.

I’ll cover additional methods of producing very rich black and white prints from digital image files in subsequent posts. Stay tuned. That’s the way I sees it. Let me know what you think.

If you’d like to understand even more of what makes color work, how light behaves, and how easy it is to shape the light in your photographic images, go to http://gottaknowvideos.com and get Bright About Light!

The post Rekindling the Romance of Black and White, Part Two: Photoshop appeared first on The Way Eye Sees It.

and they always will. It’s an unavoidable reality.

The reason for this has little to do with color management, inks, paper surfaces, device profiles, or any other adjustment-related issue. The simple fact is that your monitor’s white is illuminated by a projected light source and the white of your paper print is illuminated by reflected light. This tone range difference takes its most egregious toll on the darker parts of the image; the three-quarter tones. The very tones that get slighted by your camera’s image sensor are also the most vulnerable in print.

As I often claim, detail is a product (result) of contrast. Contrast is the measured difference between two tones. On the printed page, this statement has to be further clarified… detail is determined by the perceived difference between two tones. Here’s the visible proof behind the statement.

Consider the visual extremes (light vs. dark) of both of these media vehicles- paper and the computer display for the moment. In the case of pictures in print, the white of the printed substrate (usually paper) is determined by the whiteness of the paper and the strength of the light reflecting from the unprinted part of the paper. The darkest color (usually a multi-color, composite black) of the print is determined by the density (or light-absorbing) opacity of the colorant (usually ink).

The computer display plays the contrast game by a completely different set of rules. While the black of the monitor does have its opacity limitations, the white illuminate of the display is limited only by the brightness of the (typically) LED (light emitting diode) elements; which in turn are affected by the brightness or gain dialed in by you, the user. Brightness directly affects contrast. With more light comes more potential contrast, and where there is contrast, there is detail.

Which system do you suppose displays the most contrast? Duh!

As a color separator in the litho trade, I faced this same type of problem when reproducing images from photographic prints versus photographic transparencies. It was always easier to capture detail from a transparency than from a print. In technical terms, a printed page typically measures a reflective contrast of 1.7 points of density, while a transparency can display upwards of 3.8 points of density, depending on the strength of the backlit light source. More dynamic range produces more steps (bits in digital lingo) in the tonal scale and thus more detail. With digital images, the spread is even higher. When prints are compared to LED displays, the contrast ratio is huge on the display but remain the same for print.

You simply cannot pour enough light onto a page to bring the reflected brightness to the level of a projected display, just like you cannot dial down the brightness of the display to match the normal contrast of a printed picture. It’s apples and peanuts anyway you “look” at it. The two methods of viewing a picture are simply, fundamentally, and totally different.

THIS is why you can see detail in the darker portions of a displayed image that you just cannot see in the printed version of the picture. The contrast ratio visible in print is simply not in the same league as your backlit computer display. It is woefully insufficient.

So, what can be done to close this light range gap? Can you do anything to improve the detail in the darker portions of the image? Absolutely. But you must 1) recognize that this issue exists, and 2) you must learn how to effectively compensate the tonal range for the difference. You can make a significant difference in your printed images by taking the same actions that we litho folks have done for decades… you have to learn to shape the internal contrast of the images before they go to print, and that includes your inkjet.

Remember that camera image sensors record light linearly, one photon at a time, but your eyes/brain perceive light quite differently. Camera images record light with a serious bias toward the lighter side of the tone scale (an area we call quarter tones), while recording very little data in the darker portion of the tone range (the three-quarter tones). The result in print is almost always a lack of detail in the darkest parts of the image. When this lack of data is combined with the print’s lower contrast ratio, shadow detail takes the hit.

Here’s the secret to maintaining detail in the darker (3/4) portions of your image. Slide the Shadows slider to the right. How much to adjust the image will vary with each image. Low key images will require more adjustment than full range images. Learning to adjust your images to print all available detail is critical for serious photographers. Pay attention to separating tones in the darker parts of the image where detail can be buried when printed.

Think about it!

Please leave a comment.  If you find this worthwhile, please share it with your friends and sign up for more. This ain’t rocket science, but it is information that is many times overlooked (and sometimes overstated). Take some time to get back to the basics and your photographic results will give evidence that you did.

That’s the way I sees it. If you have an argument with this position, take it to a higher court! In the mean time, sign up (above right) to get personal notices of future posts. You can’t beat the price.

I enjoy speaking to schools, photo clubs and organizations every month presenting programs on digital photography, post production, and color science. If you’d like me to speak to your group, drop me a line.

If you’d like to understand even more of what makes color work, how light behaves, and how easy it is to shape the light in your photographic images, go to http://gottaknowvideos.com and get Bright About Light!

The post Images Look Darker in Print Than They Do on Your Monitor appeared first on The Way Eye Sees It.

Saturation is a founding member of color’s sacred trinity of color elements; hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is the color of color, or what differentiates red from blue, or green, or orange. Brightness (or luminance) deals with light; how bright or dull a color appears, largely a matter of light and dark. Saturation is the measure of how intense or diluted the color is; the difference between pungent and pastel.

Everybody likes nice rich pictures, they are the eye-candy of life. But there is an important balance that must be struck between that brilliant color and the image’s overall tonality. Tonality is the form of an image; the skeletal structure that gives purpose and definition to the color. Think of tonality as the Christmas tree structure that supports the lights and ornaments. That structure retains the shape or definition of the image.

Even though we all love saturated color, great care should be taken when boosting saturation in our digital images because there is a thin line between optimal saturation and tonal range damage.

Saturation has a photographic definition and a household definition. I believe we need to understand both in order to accurately balance saturation with its counterpart, tonality.

Photographic saturation is basically color intensity, expressed as the degree to which it differs from black and white. Get the picture? It’s what differentiates a grayscale image from a color image. A color image without saturation is just luminance (tonal structure).

Now consider the more common “household” definition of saturation: the state when no more of something can be added. Combining these two definitions actually provides a very practical guideline to the use of saturation in digital imaging. It’s called “too much of even a good thing is still too much!” In a practical sense, there is a balance point in which too much saturation actually robs the image balance and definition. If your image lacks highlight detail, consider backing off the saturation level.

Don’t Lose Your Balance.

Try this simple exercise to understand the the function of saturation. Open up an image in Photoshop and pull up the Hue/Saturation dialog box. Now slide the Saturation triangle all the way to the left. See what you have left? A grayscale (what we use to call black and white) image… all form and no color. Now slide that Saturation triangle all the way to the right side of the scale. After you pull your eyeballs out of the back of your head you’ll notice that the image’s form has now been pretty much destroyed… overboard color and distorted form.

We all enjoy very colorful things. Current television programming confirms this. Note: I grew up in Miami and can’t remember ever seeing a perpetual state of late afternoon lighting like I see on the Miami crime shows. God gave us an imagination that is very rich and colorful. And frankly, sometimes really dull digital images need a little boost in color. But take great care in the exercise of your imagination as it can push your pictures beyond “believable.”

Here’s a tip on how to how to maintain the “best” of a good thing. Go back to the Hue/Saturation adjustment dialog and carefully slide the Saturation triangle to the right but stop short of losing any tonal definition. You must strike a balance. If you enjoy more saturation, try backing off the luminance (brightness) channel to achieve the same result. Just like other issues in photography, more saturation in an image isn’t necessarily better, it’s just… more!

Think about it!

Please leave a comment.  If you find this worthwhile, please share it with your friends and sign up for more. This ain’t rocket science, but it is information that is many times overlooked. Take some time to get back to the basics and your photographic results will give evidence that you did.

That’s the way I sees it. If you have an argument with this position, take it to a higher court! In the mean time, sign up (above right) to get personal notices of future posts. You can’t beat the price.

I enjoy speaking to schools, photo clubs and organizations every month presenting programs on digital photography, post production, and color science. If you’d like me to speak to your group, drop me a line.

If you’d like to understand even more of what makes color work, how light behaves, and how easy it is to shape the light in your photographic images, go to http://gottaknowvideos.com and get Bright About Light!

The post The Image Saturation Balancing Act appeared first on The Way Eye Sees It.