Why Portraits Go Wrong Through Miscoloration

WHY PORTRAITS GO WRONG THROUGH MISCOLORATION

The higher color temperatures, are the colder temperatures like blue;
the lower color temperatures are the warmer color temps like red.
Yellow is a higher color temp than red, white is a higher color temp
than yellow, and blue is a colder higher color temperature than white.

To a camera whose white balance is set to tungsten, objects shot in
sunlight will have a bluish tint. This is because the tungsten white
balance, makes colors look higher temp or colder, so that they will
not look yellowish-red, due to the low warm color temperature of
tungsten light.

To a camera whose white balance is set to tungsten, objects shot with
flash will have a bluish tint. This is because the tungsten white
balance, makes colors look higher temp or colder, so that they will
not look yellowish-red, due to the low warm color temperature of
tungsten light.

To a flash white balance, objects in tungsten light will appear
yellow-red. This is because the flash white balance does not colden
the tungsten light to in effect raise its temperature, because to do
so would make the flash produced light look bluish.

So when tungsten and flash are both used together, one might expect
auto white balance, to result in flash looking a little bluish while
the tungsten looked a little yellow-reddish. That is, one might expect
the auto balance to colden up the yellow-red colors produced by the
tungsten a little, but not enough to take the yellow red color out of
the shot, while at the same time one would expect it to in the process
of partially solving the tungsten yellow-red problem, make the colder
flash produced light even colder resulting in bluish tints produced by
the flash.

As a result in a shot combining flash and tungsten, one might expect
the following colors:

Tungsten bounced off objects, indirect: reddish
Direct tungsten: yellowish
Flash bounced off objects: whitish
Direct flash: bluish

This is because the bounced indirect tungsten has a lower temp warmer
redder color than the yellowish direct tungsten; and because the
direct flash has a higher colder bluer color temperature than the
indirect bounced flash.

250 200 150 is a light brown type color often found in human skin.

Mixed with white, this color is, 255 227 202 which is a pale brown
almost off-white.

Mixed with yellow, this color is, 255, 227, 75 a kind of dark yellow
color.

Mixed with red, this color is, 255 100 75 a red that looks like basic
red.

Mixed with blue, this color is, 255 100 202 a light pink color.

So you can see how with mixed lighting, combining flash and tungsten,
you could end up with the distortion of areas of the face that should
all look the same color, being portrayed by the camera as something
pale brown, dark yellow, red, or light pink, depending upon the source
of light that dominated in lighting up that particular area of the
face.

And you can see how even without mixing lighting, that is, using
tungsten or flash alone, you could still end up with distortion, due
to the difference between light traveling directly from its source to
the subject, and light bouncing off an object before hitting the
subject. For example with tungsten alone, areas of the face that
should be the same color could be split up into yellowish and reddish,
and with flash alone, areas of the face that should be the same color
could be split up into pale brown and pale pink areas.

This kind of miscoloration of the subject's face, results in
hypercontrast, as differences from area to area of the face are
accentuated, and as such differences are created where in fact no such
differences exist in the perception of the human eye.

Last time out I solved this problem in a tungsten/flash photo by
hypersaturating in Nikon Picture Project until the face turned red and
lost excessive contrast, and then desaturating and correcting color
balance in HP Image Zone Plus. As far as I can tell what happened was
that by hypersaturating I allowed the dominant colors to become even
more dominant thereby wiping out artificially produced hyper-contrast.
Surprisingly enough though there was plenty of direct tungsten and
flash lighting in the shot I corrected, the dominant color as
saturation was increased turned out to be red representing indirect
tungsten light.





@2004 David Virgil Hobbs
http://www.angelfire.com/ma/vincemoon

NOTE: After my last post to this newsgroup, there were hundreds of
hits on my index page whose link is listed here. At that time the
photo on this page had nothing to do with the photography I was
discussing. Since then I have changed the photo on my index page to a
new photo, the photo I talk about fixing in this post and in my
previous post to this group. In its current form this photo is quite
desaturated I will eventually get around to getting more color into
it.

"David Virgil Hobbs" wrote in message
om...

Idiot.

Nice analysis. thank you.



My examples from 11-11-2004:



All red-like from the tungsten over the stage:

http://www.fototime.com/FEE937EF5D94A5E/orig.jpg

De-saturated to near-normal on the tungsten-lit majority, but look at
the man facing us, who was apparently shielded from all but the flash...
http://www.fototime.com/309DEB6073ECA40/orig.jpg

--
Frank ess
===================================
David Virgil Hobbs wrote:
WHY PORTRAITS GO WRONG THROUGH MISCOLORATION

The higher color temperatures, are the colder temperatures like blue;
the lower color temperatures are the warmer color temps like red.
Yellow is a higher color temp than red, white is a higher color temp
than yellow, and blue is a colder higher color temperature than white.

To a camera whose white balance is set to tungsten, objects shot in
sunlight will have a bluish tint. This is because the tungsten white
balance, makes colors look higher temp or colder, so that they will
not look yellowish-red, due to the low warm color temperature of
tungsten light.

To a camera whose white balance is set to tungsten, objects shot with
flash will have a bluish tint. This is because the tungsten white
balance, makes colors look higher temp or colder, so that they will
not look yellowish-red, due to the low warm color temperature of
tungsten light.

To a flash white balance, objects in tungsten light will appear
yellow-red. This is because the flash white balance does not colden
the tungsten light to in effect raise its temperature, because to do
so would make the flash produced light look bluish.

So when tungsten and flash are both used together, one might expect
auto white balance, to result in flash looking a little bluish while
the tungsten looked a little yellow-reddish. That is, one might expect
the auto balance to colden up the yellow-red colors produced by the
tungsten a little, but not enough to take the yellow red color out of
the shot, while at the same time one would expect it to in the process
of partially solving the tungsten yellow-red problem, make the colder
flash produced light even colder resulting in bluish tints produced by
the flash.

As a result in a shot combining flash and tungsten, one might expect
the following colors:

Tungsten bounced off objects, indirect: reddish
Direct tungsten: yellowish
Flash bounced off objects: whitish
Direct flash: bluish

This is because the bounced indirect tungsten has a lower temp warmer
redder color than the yellowish direct tungsten; and because the
direct flash has a higher colder bluer color temperature than the
indirect bounced flash.

250 200 150 is a light brown type color often found in human skin.

Mixed with white, this color is, 255 227 202 which is a pale brown
almost off-white.

Mixed with yellow, this color is, 255, 227, 75 a kind of dark yellow
color.

Mixed with red, this color is, 255 100 75 a red that looks like basic
red.

Mixed with blue, this color is, 255 100 202 a light pink color.

So you can see how with mixed lighting, combining flash and tungsten,
you could end up with the distortion of areas of the face that should
all look the same color, being portrayed by the camera as something
pale brown, dark yellow, red, or light pink, depending upon the source
of light that dominated in lighting up that particular area of the
face.

And you can see how even without mixing lighting, that is, using
tungsten or flash alone, you could still end up with distortion, due
to the difference between light traveling directly from its source to
the subject, and light bouncing off an object before hitting the
subject. For example with tungsten alone, areas of the face that
should be the same color could be split up into yellowish and reddish,
and with flash alone, areas of the face that should be the same color
could be split up into pale brown and pale pink areas.

This kind of miscoloration of the subject's face, results in
hypercontrast, as differences from area to area of the face are
accentuated, and as such differences are created where in fact no such
differences exist in the perception of the human eye.

Last time out I solved this problem in a tungsten/flash photo by
hypersaturating in Nikon Picture Project until the face turned red and
lost excessive contrast, and then desaturating and correcting color
balance in HP Image Zone Plus. As far as I can tell what happened was
that by hypersaturating I allowed the dominant colors to become even
more dominant thereby wiping out artificially produced hyper-contrast.
Surprisingly enough though there was plenty of direct tungsten and
flash lighting in the shot I corrected, the dominant color as
saturation was increased turned out to be red representing indirect
tungsten light.





@2004 David Virgil Hobbs
http://www.angelfire.com/ma/vincemoon

NOTE: After my last post to this newsgroup, there were hundreds of
hits on my index page whose link is listed here. At that time the
photo on this page had nothing to do with the photography I was
discussing. Since then I have changed the photo on my index page to a
new photo, the photo I talk about fixing in this post and in my
previous post to this group. In its current form this photo is quite
desaturated I will eventually get around to getting more color into
it.

"Frank ess" wrote in message
...
Nice analysis. thank you.



My examples from 11-11-2004:



All red-like from the tungsten over the stage:

http://www.fototime.com/FEE937EF5D94A5E/orig.jpg

De-saturated to near-normal on the tungsten-lit majority, but look at
the man facing us, who was apparently shielded from all but the flash...
http://www.fototime.com/309DEB6073ECA40/orig.jpg

--
Frank ess

Frank,

Have you clicked on this guy's site?
He's a troll...nothing more.
The whole thing's a big joke.

I read on this newsgroup that you just need to switch to a different CF
card, and that'll solve all your problems. _All_ of them.
--
Phil Stripling | email to the replyto address is presumed
The Civilized Explorer | spam and read later. email to philip@
http://www.cieux.com/ | my domain is read daily.

I read on this newsgroup that you just need to switch to a different CF
card, and that'll solve all your problems. _All_ of them.
--
Phil Stripling | email to the replyto address is presumed
The Civilized Explorer | spam and read later. email to philip@
http://www.cieux.com/ | my domain is read daily.

Mark² wrote:
"Frank ess" wrote in message
...
Nice analysis. thank you.



My examples from 11-11-2004:



All red-like from the tungsten over the stage:

http://www.fototime.com/FEE937EF5D94A5E/orig.jpg

De-saturated to near-normal on the tungsten-lit majority, but look at
the man facing us, who was apparently shielded from all but the
flash... http://www.fototime.com/309DEB6073ECA40/orig.jpg

--
Frank ess

Frank,

Have you clicked on this guy's site?
He's a troll...nothing more.
The whole thing's a big joke.

Well, no, I didn't look. I guess I need a tune-up.

Shewt. Foiled again.

--
Frank ess