correctmyphotos

Vista Image Preview
The other day while searching my photo files for images I mistakenly clicked on Open instead of Preview to brows photos in a folder. Up pops the window asking me what application I want to use.

Click on Open to select an application to priview or edit a photo

Since all I wanted to do was browse the folder I didn’t need the extra step of selecting an application. I should have selected “Preview” which would have taken me directly to the Windows viewer allowing me to quickly cycle through the photos. An honest mistake since Open is the only selection in bold. But,that made me wonder how many people don’t even know about the preview feature in Vista or know the difference between Open and preview. The Open feature is used primarily to select and/or launch a photo editing application. You can set a default application such as CorrectPhoto or Elements to always launch when you click Open by checking the little box below the selection window. However, since I use both of these programs on a regular basis I choose not to automatically launch one of them.
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I often ask people with digital cameras if they are pleased with the color they are getting from their camera.  The answer is usually, “Yeah, I guess its okay.” If I push a little and suggest that maybe the photos are a little dull and maybe not as vivid as when they use a film camera they acknowledge a bit of disappointment with digital photography. But, even if they know the color is not right they don’t have a clue as to how to fix it.

Fixing Color is Difficult
If you have tried to use the software that came with your camera or some other photo editing software like Photoshop Elements you know it is one of the most frustrating and difficult challenges. If the tools in Photoshop were easy their wouldn’t be a market for the hundreds of thousands of articles and the many books devoted to Color Correcting Photos in Photoshop. For most of us, it is just too much work and take too much time to fix the color. And, if you’ve tried to use the auto color feature you probably found that it really doesn’t do much good on most photos (see the middle photo in the example below).

The Original Color (left) is dull, Elements Auto Fix is a little better (middle), OneClick Color is accurate (right)

So, is there really and easy way to fix color?
I am going to assume you have Photoshop Elements to edit your photos, but you don’t have a good understanding of Levels and Curves and all the other color tools (and really don’t care to learn it).
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Do you think the color of your photos is correct? And, do you care?

Chances are when you look at your digital photos on your computer screen or the prints you just picked up you don’t really ask yourself, “Is the Color Right?” And, unless some Smart Alec like me comments about the color (remember, that’s my business) you probably think the color is okay. Well, chances are pretty good that the color is not right. Look at the following photo comparison of Spearfish Falls in Spearfish Canyon, SD. The original photo (left) is dull and lifeless and seems to have a grey cloudy day color cast. The color corrected photo is much more alive and looks like the scene I saw when I took the picture.

Spearfish Falls-Before/After Color Correction

The nature of digital cameras is that unless you take the time to white balance your shots (and who has time to do that?) the color will be off to some degree. In fact, most will be dull and lifeless. And, it will vary with lighting conditions both outside and indoors. When shooting outdoors you will get the best color on a bright sunny day.  Generally, the color of indoor shots will vary greatly depending on the lighting conditions. Yes, with more expensive cameras you can compensate for incandescent or fluorescentlighting, but you will probably forget to make the adjustment. Here is an example of an indoor flash photo from a real estate listing. The room really is not a dull as it appears in the original photo posted on the internet.

Flash photos can appear dull and lifeless

 Even photos taken on a bright and sunny afternoon can appear dull. Now, if you saw the photo on the left by itself you may not think it is too bad. But, compared to a color corrected version it really is dull. 

Even a photo taken on a sunny day can be dull and lifeless

It is Monday morning and time to calibrate your monitor.

This morning I decided to practice what I preach (click on color monitor in the Tag Cloud section on the right sidebar) and calibrate my monitor. I used a Pantone huey that I have had for a couple of years and within a minute or so my monitor was calibrated. And, WOW, did it make a difference!

How can you tell if your monitor color is off? A simple way is to look at the colors in the header of my blog. The graduated grey scale is there for a purpose. If it is really grey and not a little blue or magenta or cyan then you are okay. If not, you need to calibrate. My guess is that even if you think it is grey, it is not. So, I suggest you invest in a monitor calibrator.

For us amateurs I would suggest either a Pantone huey or a Datacolor Sypder2express. The are available for about $80.00 and well worth the investment. Both companies have more expensive calibration devices, but unless you are a pro I would not spend the extra bucks.

If you are editing photos and trying to Make The Color Right, you really need to have a calibrated monitor unless, of course, if you are color blind like my friends, Dick and Ron.  They can save the money because it wouldn’t really make a difference. However, there are ways for color blind people to Make the Color Right and I will cover that in a separate post one of these days.

Wayne http://www.correctphoto.com

I updated the theme of my Blog today. I got tired of the pink text in the old theme. As I said when I started the correctmyphotos blog, blogging is a new adventure for me so I continue to learn and try new things. The latest version of WordPress has made it easier to find and install new themes so I might change themes a few times over the next few months.  Let me know what you think of the new them.

Wayne http://www.correctphoto.com