The Art of Seeing

A early morning session in the neighbourhood nursery produced this. Velvia is as usual masterful. Canon Rebel Ti, Tripod, Velvia, Canon 100mm Macro.

This is one of the pictures I like because of the almost dreamlike quality to it. Tripod, Velvia, Canon Rebel Ti, Canon 100mm Macro.

Nothing much to say here.. Vegas, Bellagio, 6:30 PM, Nikon D70, Nikkor 18-70mm @18mm, Hakuba mini tripod, 0.5s Exposure.

Had been to Las Vegas last weekend.
Do you think this is a good snap shot of the vegas mood? Glitzy, glamorous
, fast despite of what would normally be considered as dull and depressing weather.
Equipment info: Nikon D70, 18-70mm Nikkor @ 18mm, hakuba mini tripod , about 2sec exposure. I bought the mini tripod specifically for this vegas trip as I wanted long exposure shots but didnt want to lug around a standard tripid. Infact it would have been difficult ( or impossible) to set up standard tripod on casino floors. This one did the job perfectly.. completely unobstrusive and yet sturdy enough to do the job.. have few decent night pics of vegas that I will be posting in the coming days :^).

This was a funny shot. I spotted this worm on a leaf and decided to setup a tripod with my Canon Macro for a closeup. Unknowingly, I had my aperture at f19 and the shutter speed came to a few seconds. I started my timed shutter release and as soon I did, the worm woke up and started thrashing about. There was nothing I could do but just stare at the worm dance in a trance till the shutter closed. Canon Rebel Ti, Canon 100mm Macro, Velvia.

Why?
In the digital world, colors are most commonly represented as addition of three primary colors Red, Green and Blue (RGB). Each component of Red, Green and Blue can have a value between 0 to 255. 0 being the least amount of that color and 255 being the most amount of that color. So a color can be specified by defining how much of each primary component it possesses. For eg, Black is defined as R=0, B=0 and G=0 the absence of all colors.

The reason we need color management is that when we specify a color by the 3 RGB values and send those color values to two different devices, the output from those devices will be different! What is needed is the ability to know how each device will respond to the RGB values and then feed different RGB values to the devices to make them produce the same color. The process of doing this is Color Management. Why is this important to Photographers? Because it is crucial to ensure the images/colors that you capture are reproduced exactly when they are printed, displayed etc.



The 3 RGB values together will give us the possibilility of having 16 million colors possible. However, most hardware devices that actually produce color i.e scanners, printers, cameras, monitors etc are capable of only displaying a small subset of all the possible colors. This subset varies from vendor to vendor and product to product. This subset is called "Gamut" or the Device's color space. So colors that are outside the device's ability are called "Out of Gamut". There are lots of technical reasons why each device cannot be made to have the same Gamut. Suffice to say, if it were possible, there would be no requirement for color management. It is not possible.

Now when most devices produce color, they produce RGB values that have meaning only in their color space. A pixel that is red in color (R=240) sent to one monitor will produce a deep red, another a light red. if we knew that the original red is actually tomato red we would send R=225) for monitor A and R=245 for monitor B. This will produce tomato red in both monitors. So a RGB vaue has meaning only if it is relative to the device's color space.

This relative color space is characterized by the color profile of that device. So color profiles are nothing but a description of the boundaries of the colors that possible within the absolute color space. Once we have the profile it is possible to convert the RGB numbers from the original pixel to the right RGB numbers required for that monitor's color space.

To help work with transforming from one device color space to another, there are several indutry wide color spaces that have been standardized. One is Adobe RGB and the other is sRGB. sRGB has much smaller gamut than Adobe RGB. But sRGB is used as the defacto standard for viewing documents on the web and on a typical computer monitor. Adobe RGB is useful for printing.



To enjoy the best of both worlds, it is best to use AdobeRGB as much as possible as our color space and then finally do a conversion into sRGB at the end before using it for viewing or in the Web. (read more)

How?
How does one color manage? First step is to calibrate your monitor. By default, the monitor is assumed to be having a sRGB profile. However, this is only an approximation and a bad one at that.

To manage the color correctly, you need to create an accurate profile for every device you work with. The most important one is your monitor. This can be done by software or hardware. Hardware is more accurate but much more expensive. You can get reasonable results using software. I use Adobe Gamma that ships with Photoshop 7. Run adobe Gamma from the windows control panel and follow the procedure. At the end it will create a profile for your monitor and saves it as your profile for your system. Now essentially a color profile (.icc) has been created for your monitor.

When you use a color aware application like Photoshop, it will look at the display's profile and then convert the image's data so that you see accurate colors as the original looked like. If you did not have this step, the colors would be just converted assuming a sRGB space.

Now when it is time to Print, you want to know the Printer's color profile. Many professional photo labs will supply with you one (link to drycreekphoto). I use Adorama's printing service and get good results. It is possible to preview how the images would look when converted to that profile by soft proofing in Photoshop. If the image doesnt look right, adjustments can be done to the image to make it match the colors you want. So even before a real print is done, it is possible to ensure that you will get the colors you expect.

What other decisions to make? You need to use one standard color space (sRGB or AdobeRGB) for editing images. You should not use any device's color space for editing. AdobeRGB is preferred because of its wider gamut. The workflow is to import images into a color aware application and then convert them to a working color profile (like AdobeRGB), either Adobe RGB or sRGB. Once it is worked on, change the profile to be sRGB if they are going to the Web or to a printers profile if they are going to be printed. Finally remember, viewing an image's true colors can only be done via an application viewer that knows how to do color management. Viewers like the inbuilt in viewer in Windows XP are not color managed.

You are now on your way to becoming Color Managed!

Note: If you are feeling adventurous, a good place to dive into the world of color management is Norman Koren's website. It goes into too much detail without giving an overview in my opinion. But with the general principles above, you should be able to understand the nitty gritty details easily.

I am ready for a change of theme now ;^). This is a interior of Texas State Capitol. Shot with Nikon N80, Nikkor 28-105mm@28mm, Velvia 50, about 2 sec exposure.

Is this still a photograph? Or has it been manipulated so much its soul has been history brushed away? Well, such questions are not that important if the sole purpose is to produce something that is artistic. This was salvaged from a photograph which would never have stood on its own merits, but now has some value only because of the manipulation. I think this would make a good topic for an article.

Canon 20D, Canon 18-55mm.

ok..jus keep the sun theme alive here..lol. hmm.So this is all real, no manipulation and was scanned at costco for cents on the dollar. I should respect the Sun god a little more.Wait till I get my hands on PS.

As long as we are working with abstracts, here's one more. Canon Rebel Ti, Sigma 105mm Macro, Tripod, Velvia.

You tell me..Taken with Canon 20D, Canon 100mm Macro on tripod.

After migrating to the Canon 20D, I have been frustrated working with RAW images (.CR2) from the camera.

The problems

(1) No native support for .CR2 RAW files in Windows XP. Therefore, you cannot preview images via thumbnails using Windows explorer. As a consequence, it is impossible to quickly find the images one is looking for.
(2) Opening .CR2 RAW files takes a long time in any application like Adobe Photoshop or Canon EOS Viewer. To check images for sharpness etc one needs to open it first and view it in full size. This takes an enormous amount of time. Processing 1 GB of images after a shoot is no fun.

The solution(s)

(1)To view thumbnails of .CR2 images in Windows Explorer, try the Free Community Edition of DPMagic. Thumbnails come back once it is installed.

(2)To view full sized RAW images without going through time consuming conversion, use IrfanView along with the plugin for viewing Canon RAW files. Now .CR2 files can be viewed fullsized rapidly and with the same ease as jpeg images. (Note that you will have to modify the "Open next file in directory" option to view CR2 files in a slideshow using irfanview). Checking images for sharpness is a snap. Now you can spend your valuable time doing conversion using Adobe for the ones that really matter.

Update (Sep 20, 2005)
Since this posting, Microsoft has improved the situation quite a bit. They have released a powertoy that shows .CR2 as thumbnails and even include a viewer to view the files full size.

Check out Microsoft's Raw Image Thumbnailer and Viewer.

Ok, I am keeping the Sunrise theme alive here. Another shot of trees by the side of a Lake early morning. I still can't seem to let go of playing with my cokin filters. The effect you see is straight off the camera. No digital manipulation done.

Taken today at a local framingham park at sunrise.
Canon 20D, Canon 18-55mm, Sunset Cokin P filter.

The Cupid's Bow by the san francisco bay on a clear,lovely night.This sculpture is in a scale by itself-I therefore left everything out in the frame except the sky...

Apr'03/Nikon N65/Fuji Reala 100/30 secs/f8

I had an opportunity to try out 3 different 50mm prime lenses. Since I was always vaguely unhappy about my 50mm 1.4 I was curious to see if there is a big difference between these lenses. The three lenses that were compared were Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 50mm f2.5 macro (1:2) and Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro (1:1). I chose to look at these lenses at f/2.8. This is wide open for the Sigma but somewhat closed down for the Canon 50mm 2.5 and well closed for the Canon 50mm 1.4. Images were taken using Canon 20D, manual focussing, tripod, mirror lock up, no sharpening applied. I must also mention that the 50mm 1.4 is the most expensive of the lot.

So what did my images look like?

This is the full sized image.


A 100% crop of the image comparing Canon 50mm 1.4 on the left and the Canon 2.5 macro on the right.


Now a 100% crop of the image comparing the Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro on the left and the Canon 50mm 2.5 macro on the right.


What do I think? The Canon and Sigma macros appear to beat the Canon 50mm 1.4 easily. I don't know how this is possible. The Sigma appears to be very sharp, but has some color shift. (Still a good value for the money)

Well, here in Massachusetts Fall is almost over. The only thing thats about to fall is snow. Heavily inspired from Anis's Fall picture below, the above was taken at Mount Monadnock (one of the most hiked mountains in the world, I am told). Canon 20D, Canon 100mm Macro, Colors desaturated using Photoshop.

Lets get into the fall spirit! . Down here in Texas, not a lot of
places to see fall color, but last fall I was in new Hampshire and witnessed fall color in all its glory. Here is one of the fall color images I took at flume gorge (white mountain region ?)
Equipment info: Nikon N80, Velvia 50, Nikon 28-105mm @ 35mm, f/22, Bogen Junior tripod. Exposure was about 3 seconds due to very small aperture.. to get the milky water look. I desaturated the background using PS..

Nikon D70/80-200 Nikkor @ f/2.8, Spot metered and handheld. Was stuck waiting at Univ of Texas @ Austin, luckily I had my camera with me :^)