HOW DO WE ENSURE OUR IMAGE COLORS ARE SPOT-ON?
Being a professional photographer, I’m constantly concerned about the colors in our images incorrectly representing those in our client’s beverages, food, or products. There have been times in the past that I would have to edit with the image subject beside my monitor. I could be well into the editing process, staring at the image on my screen wondering if that bottle label is the correct hue or whether that lettuce really was as green as it appears in my image. Constantly reviewing image colors quickly becomes obsessive, but then clients are paying for accurate color reproduction, so we must be obsessive. To help address my obsession and take my concerns down a few notches I eventually invested in some tools that would help ensure that our image colors and overall color game are spot on.
The one thing that I can guarantee in this game is that the key to great photography is color quality and consistency; they should not just help in creating a pretty picture but they need to be totally accurate, the colors we see on our monitor should be the same as the colors we see when the image appears in print. Ultimately my goal is not to just ensure we have this consistency in our photography but also to assure clients and potential clients alike that we possess the ability to recreate their beverages, food, and product images with totally accurate color reproduction.
Monitor Calibration
The first product that we selected to help us achieve that was a professional-grade color-calibrated monitor. While that helped us gain confidence in our color reproduction, we also realized that the monitor's color calibration would not last forever and that there would come a time when we would need to regularly recalibrate it. For this, we have invested in two Datacolor LLC products, who have a variety of products, all designed to address color calibration problems. We purchased the SpyderX Pro for monitor calibration, along with the SpyderCheckr and associated software for color correction.
The first step in our color calibration process, and in fact it’s the first thing we do before starting a shoot is to make sure that our monitor is calibrated. This is especially important as we use it for both tethering during the shoot and post-production editing. Note to self – consider a post that discusses tethering. Anyway, back to monitor calibration. This device that we use visually looks a little like a mouse. I’ve provided a few pics below but the cool thing about this is its ease of use, as its software walks the user through everything that is needed to calibrate the monitor, so there is no guesswork needed at all.
We simply warm up our monitor for at least thirty minutes to ensure the colors read correctly, as prior to that they tend to read a little differently. And in terms of lighting conditions, we just make sure that we don’t have any form of intense glare from light sources shining directly onto the screen, and from there this little guy does the rest, which only takes about five minutes or so. Once finished it simply asks whether we wish to save our new profile and how it should be named. That way, when we go into the list of our monitor calibrations, we can select this particular one. This is something that is important to do regularly because the monitor's calibration will change the colors over time. Unfortunately, it's not a perfect system, which is why all monitors need to be recalibrated regularly. We do it monthly and before every shoot, but at least that ensures we are on our color game. And it’s important to do; I hate the thought of editing with an uncalibrated monitor thinking the colors are perfect, only to find that when the image is printed, we’re questioning why a liquor or food element color is off because we’ve overcompensated during post-production.
So that addresses the monitor, and its color accuracy during post-production, but the next “weak point” in the process then becomes our cameras, and specifically, how the sensor recreates the correct colors. Rest assured that we have this covered as well. Or at least Datacolor does. This is where we use another device that we have invested in, the SpyderCheckr.
Camera Calibration
The SpyderCheckr, with its associated software, is a calibration tool that has forty-eight different colored swatches. I’m sure for all of us there are times when we’ve taken a photograph where some of the colors appear accurate, but then there are others that appear off. I know there used to be times when I photographed crepes and that happened. The white tablecloth appeared correct but then the crepes themselves appeared to be more yellow than they should have been. The problem when this happens is that we end up having to mess around with the sliders in the color section of our editing software, attempting to adjust the hue and luminance and just getting really frustrated when we just can’t nail the colors.
This is where the SpyderCheckr comes to the rescue as it enables us to ensure that every color is interpreted correctly once we get the image into post-processing. The image below is taken from a silk rug shoot. First, we set up our lighting and once we’re happy with it, take a reference shot with the SpyderCheckr in the scene. Once that’s done then we can put it away and complete the rest of the shoot.
Once we get our captured images into post-processing, we look for the reference image. We crop it down so that only the SpyderCheckr is in the image and straighten it as necessary. We then use the swatches to set our white balance, the white point, and the black point. Following that the image is then taken into the SpyderCheckr software, which uses all the swatches to produce a custom preset for our editing software. This is where the fun starts. We now import the present and hey presto, all the software color sliders are adjusted automatically for us, ensuring the hue, saturation, and luminance for each color is spot on, taking all the guesswork out of it for us. Now it’s just a case of simply syncing all the other images in our gallery to the same color settings. That provides us with the confidence that all our images have been correctly color-corrected, so we can now get on with our editing as normal. All our colors are spot on, saving us a huge amount of editing time, which is reflected in keeping our editing cost-effective. We’re now free to make artistic decisions without worrying about color correction.
Wrap up
I appreciate that I have only scratched the surface here, but I hope it’s enough to provide you with the confidence that any images you request of us will be color-accurate. We do this as we aim to deliver perfect images that help you be successful, so please do reach out. And here's my usual end-of-post reminder, True Images Photography provides professional beverage, food, and product commercial photography that gets your business noticed. Feel free to book a free 30-minute consultation here. But we are not strict about the 30-minute duration, it can take as long as it needs to.
Please do look around the rest of the blog here for more helpful posts, and if you have any questions please reach out. I’m happy to advise. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn where I always answer messages with a detailed reply.