How to do Advanced Photography: Techniques and Guide on The Best Way to Get Professional Pictures

CHAPTER 1

COLOR MANAGEMENT

"I t's not enough to just own a camera. Everyone owns a camera. To be a photographer, you must understand, appreciate, and harness the power you hold!"

- Mark Denman

Color management helps the resolution of your original photos remain the same when reproduced on different devices. And it is a way to ensure that the consistency of color in your images or graphics in various media or devices, such as magazines, books, smartphones, etc., still is the same.

Achieving color consistency across different formats is problematic since colors pass through various methods or technologies.

So, methods used to maintain color in magazines or devices such as computer screens or smartphones are different.

Color management helps express images for devices that employ different color models, and the color model uses primarily three colors that it reproduces in a wide variety of colors.

There are two basic color models in this range of color space: the additive and the subtractive model.

RGB red, green, and blue are the most common additive color models for digital devices that can create a range of colors.

The combination of all the color ranges creates the color white.

The most common subtractive color model is CMYK for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, used in the printing process that requires ink and is called subtractive because layers of ink inhibit white color on paper.

Different models use colored light, but colored ink RGB produces more colors than CMYK.

Through a color management system or method, a designer can create a computer graphic and reproduce the same colors in the printed form.

Through the color management method, it is possible to reproduce trees' true colors against a blue sky on a computer or printed paper.

The beauty of color management is science.

A convenient aspect of the digital format is that it is definitive.

Digital means zeros and ones, and we say it's an absolute science because every color, hue, and color variation have an exact numerical value.

On the contrary, the human body has variations. Therefore, our eyes do not see colors in the same way for everyone, and the proof is that people have different degrees of color blindness, contrary to photographic tape or a painting.

If we want to maintain consistency in the color of our images, we cannot trust our eyes.

However, color management can maintain consistency and control.

So, through this method, we can make decisions according to what is pleasing to our taste or spirit.

In photography, even though digital files have absolute values, the devices used do not display colors accurately by themselves, and it is difficult to admit it, but it is so.

However, the positive thing is that most devices only need a few adjustments to control their correct operation.

Controlling color in photography is a constant need, whether in cameras, computers, monitors, or printers.

Professional digital cameras allow you to take images in RAW or JPEG format. However, many experts differ on this decision.

JPEG will be accepted if you can show your images on the internet through a computer.

On the contrary, if you need to highlight aspects of large file sizes and obtain unique photos, it is recommended to use the RAW format that allows you to choose the color, space, and depth when exporting from RAW with a processor such as Adobe Light.

The color spectrum consists of a varied detail of colors of extreme levels.

Color profile is basically a color space, color space theoretically covers the range of millions of colors.

Every object has a color profile that, theoretically, is the color it can display.

So, one printer has one color profile, and one monitor has another, while a second printer can have a third color profile.

Printer manufacturers and monitors try to maintain consistency in color profiles.

Printers offer an RGB color space, but there are slight variations from monitor to monitor and printer to printer.

Consequently, a monitor can only display a particular range of colors which is its specific profile, although often that profile closely corresponds to a color space.

Note that a color profile includes a translator of information so that a computer can swap colors to make them more accurate when appearing on a printer or computer. So, if a laptop tends to display green color resembling blue, the color profile will try to compensate for this mixture by reinforcing the green color making it greener.

Some spaces could contain many or just a few; among those spaces, some could be made of many blues, while others could have abundant red colors.

On the other hand, other color spaces could only contain green color.

However, the most common color spaces can be balanced and gather most of the colors people perceive because their design displays standard colors.

The discussion of color spaces usually is in practical terms.

Color space refers to a group of abstract colors like rainbow colors or colors produced by some device like a printer or smartphone.

The RGB color space is usually everywhere, as most device screens can display such a color range.

You can also occasionally find the Adobe RGB color space because most popular printers use it.

However, technically those are color profiles, not color spaces since they are no longer theoretical colors.

So, a color profile is the color space used in printers and modern devices. And how equipment interprets color information.

The color profile informs about the colors observed in color space and how those colors translate to print or display on electronic devices.

However, color space also refers to an array of abstract colors, such as the colors of the rainbow.

Color space is also an array of colors produced by equipment such as printers or the screen of a smartphone.

There are two color spaces, SRGB and Adobe RGB.

SRGB is the smallest color space.

On the other hand, Adobe RGB allows the reproduction of many more colors.

However, not all devices can display or print the full-color space of Adobe RGB.

For this reason, SRGB is more used.

For displaying images on the internet or any other screen, it is better to use SRGB color space.

In addition, the SRGB color space is compatible with almost any browser and application, which allows your image to display the resolution you expect.

The truth is that many monitors cannot reproduce Adobe RGB colors. Therefore, they cannot display the broad spectrum of Adobe RGB colors.

Browsers do not render Adobe RGB colors. Instead, they convert them to SRGB colors.

When printing, it is necessary to be careful when choosing the color space because low-end printers can only handle SRGB colors.

However, higher-end printers can work with Adobe RGB and produce better colors.

Therefore, ensure your printer or printing laboratory can use the Adobe RGB color space.

If not, using SRGB will be fine.

On your camera, you will see a button to select color space before taking a photo, and there will also be other options, including the SRGB dial on your camera.

Usually, working with SRGB is recommended.

The truth is that when shooting in RAW mode, it doesn't matter which color space is selected because RAW mode has no actual application in color space.

Once exported a photo you can apply color space, e.g., as in a JPEG file which is not very recommended.

Technically in Lightroom, you can't convert between color spaces.

Color and printing. Color profiles are not that simple because a color profile is independent of the printer and the ink and how the printer's ink interacts with the printing paper.

On the other hand, a printer plus aluminum foil paper will get a different color profile than if you use another printing paper, for example, Fine textured paper.

When using different types of paper in a printer, it will be necessary to apply the appropriate color profile to obtain the original colors.

However, using a paper type familiar to the printer will properly transfer information from the computer to the printer for a color-accurate final product.

Currently, manufacturers provide color profile combinations in their printing paper types. However, each printer varies slightly from one to another. In this case, you can create your color profile through color profile technology or a different service for color profile creation.

Unfortunately, although very aesthetic, custom color profiles still have deficiencies.

Sometimes when the resulting colors and tones are different from the expected, it can be very frustrating. Soft Proofing is the procedure that can accurately represent a digital file on a monitor before printing.

Today Soft Proofing analyzes the final artistic work and replaces the traditional hard copy proof.

Soft proofing combination permits simulating the output of printer and paper on a computer monitor.

When you apply this method to a portrait and the colors obtained are very saturated, you can desaturate them through editing before printing.

When an outdoor image is overexposed, you can still make it stand out through Lightroom's method, and then you can print it.

Now about the monitor and its calibration.

It refers to the quality of color and tone reproduced by