Zack Zoll wrote:
Canon cameras are always red. Always. Most also have more saturated reds, which trend toward magenta.

Interesting. Mine is black

Seriously: there is nothing "red" in Canon or any other camera. Raw image data is always quite green due to the technology of the sensors (search the web for uniwb). So 'red' is the result of the software in the camera creating the jpg preview from the raw. The LCD of the camera body should be used only to evaluate that the uniwb histograms are exposed properly, everything else is done in post. In that sense - there is no such thing as "great Fuji color" or whatever nonsense we hear from various talkers around the web. Raw image data has no color. Color is created during raw conversion.

anchev wrote:

Interesting. Mine is black

Seriously: there is nothing "red" in Canon or any other camera. Raw image data is always quite green due to the technology of the sensors (search the web for uniwb). So 'red' is the result of the software in the camera creating the jpg preview from the raw. The LCD of the camera body should be used only to evaluate that the uniwb histograms are exposed properly, everything else is done in post. In that sense - there is no such thing as "great Fuji color" or whatever nonsense we hear from various talkers around the web. Raw image data has no color. Color is created during raw conversion.

That's a great theory, and would be true if every sensor were designed the same.

Canon has a shift to red/away from cyan due to software, yes.

But red is more saturated because the sensors they use are better at/more sensitive to/less balanced/whatever you want to say when it comes to red. The red to magenta shift ... I'm not smart enough to say why that is.

But it's not all software, no. Whether you have a Bayer or non-Bayer pattern, sensor or screen, each 'block' is divided into sub-pixels that actually have colour data. If one of those colours is slightly stronger than the rest, you can fix it via software. If it's much stronger, you can't.

To put it another way ... If colour were entirely a matter of software, and if we all agreed on what 'good colour' was, then why would you get different colour casts using the same lens on different cameras? You don't think Nikon changed their mind on what they wanted on every camera, while Canon didn't, do you?

Ditto for monitors. If all it took were software, then why isn't there an app to make my Droid look like an Eizo? For that matter, why does Eizo make more than one model?

Zack Zoll wrote:
That's a great theory, and would be true if every sensor were designed the same.

It is not theory but how technology works and how one should use it in order to avoid confusion.

Canon has a shift to red/away from cyan due to software, yes.

I own a Canon and I work with raw files from all kinds of Canon bodies. I haven't noticed any red shift in raw data, so yes - it may be due to the software you (and others) use. Personally I work in uniwb.

But red is more saturated because the sensors they use are better at/more sensitive to/less balanced/whatever you want to say when it comes to red. The red to magenta shift ... I'm not smart enough to say why that is.

Different sensors have different color matrix but that is normally color corrected during raw conversions. If the raw converter doesn't do it properly - that is a software issue. In any case if you shoot a color target (e.g. color checker) you can profile the image accurately.

But it's not all software, no. Whether you have a Bayer or non-Bayer pattern, sensor or screen, each 'block' is divided into sub-pixels that actually have colour data. If one of those colours is slightly stronger than the rest, you can fix it via software. If it's much stronger, you can't.

To put it another way ... If colour were entirely a matter of software, and if we all agreed on what 'good colour' was, then why would you get different colour casts using the same lens on different cameras? You don't think Nikon changed their mind on what they wanted on every camera, while Canon didn't, do you?

Of course color filters on sensors are different from camera to camera and that's why there is a different color matrix which the raw converter should handle. Obviously color is not entirely a matter of software. I am rather saying that the concept of color is simply inapplicable before raw conversion because before demosaic all that is there is just 3 separate black and white channels. The sensor knows only light, converted to voltage, converted to 0 and 1 by the ADC for each separate R, G, B channel. In that sense "saturation" in that process can be only the signal saturation, i.e. exposure clipping and that is not the same as color saturation which has entirely different meaning. Obviously lenses and lens filters can influence the ratio between different channels due to chromatic shifts but raw data is still without actual color until it is converted. And as I said - you can profile your image for each light situation, each body, each lens etc. by shooting a color target. After you do that for a few cameras you will know that there is no such thing as "good color", especially without profiling. There is only good raw data in the sense: properly exposed. The rest is post-production.

Ditto for monitors. If all it took were software, then why isn't there an app to make my Droid look like an Eizo? For that matter, why does Eizo make more than one model?

Monitors are a different matter. The problem with so called "calibration" is that people rarely understand that in most cases all they do is profiling, which is a software thing. Surely tuning the 0 an 1's which a video card outputs by using an ICC profile doesn't calibrate a monitor which has no hardware calibration controls and doesn't make it accurate or stable. Personally I have experimented some years ago with a spectrophotometer on some low end monitors and the results after creating a color profile were far worse visually than without that - they simply don't have the physical qualities to do it.

Zack Zoll wrote:
While I respect that many ways your knowledge is vastly superior to my own, I cannot agree with someone that doesn't admit there are flaws in the system.

What do you mean by flaws in the system? If you could please clarify I would know what I am supposed to admit (or not)

So far I was just explaining how things work in general, technologically, and I already said that there are differences between devices and ways to deal with them (if possible). It is not meant to be a demo of superiority in knowledge, just sharing some info.

Colour film has existed for almost a century, and it's still not 100% accurate, even if shot at tested speeds and under ideal WB conditions.

Let's not forget that accuracy is defined by the acceptable delta (error) between measured and reference value. Film is very different from digital as a process. Being chemical and including more phases makes it more prone to influence by various factors, so accuracy and precision become much more difficult to control. It is really not a matter of century but of physics.

WB itself is not something ideal that can be used as an universal origin. One can have the perfect WB point for sunlight and for a street light with very bad spectrum but the other colors won't look the same. So although one can pin one point in color space and say "this is neutral", darker or lighter perceived neutrals may not be actually neutral to the hardware. Let's not forget that neutrality is something which we humans invented, it doesn't exist in nature. That's why color targets were made - the more color patches, the more points to fix in color space. And of course the light source matters too, there is also metamerism etc.

I suspect that your ability to fix problems is such that you have forgotten that those problems even existed in the first place.

Fixing problems is part of my work, so it is impossible to forget them

BTW here is a reading which explains the difference between hardware and software calibration (profiling):

http://www.eizoglobal.com/library/EIZO_DCH_CH3.pdf

Zack Zoll wrote:
I'll make a few generalizations, sure.

Canon cameras are always red. Always. Most also have more saturated reds, which trend toward magenta.

Apple screens, especially the portable type, are usually magenta by default. IOS stuff is often yellow too. So between that and the camera, you're looking at pretty much every kind of warm tint.

Portable devices very rarely calibrate properly. Reason is, they're not made for it; they're made to be bright, contrasty, colorful, and make movies look good - all under various lights. And possibly for battery life. The bit about the battery doesn't seem like a big deal, until you consider that displaying 10-240 instead of 0-255 saves a tiny bit of processing power; not much, but enough to claim another few minutes of battery life - every bit helps when the  brightness and contrast are jacked up. Andthen you may as well use a cheaper panel since you don't have 0-255 anyway.

You can calibrate these devices only so far. At a certain point, the design becomes the limiting factor - like trying to turn a pair of scissors into two knives.

Two good rules: devices that make movies and games look awesome are almost always worse for accuracy.

The potential accuracy of devices usually goes(worst to best) portables -> laptops -> work stations -> full sized monitors.

That doesn't match my specific experience.

The iPad looks way more accurate than the iMac. It was clear when adjusting the iMac's WB.

I didn't calibrate the iPad at all. Only the iMac.

anchev wrote:

Interesting. Mine is black

Seriously: there is nothing "red" in Canon or any other camera. Raw image data is always quite green due to the technology of the sensors (search the web for uniwb). So 'red' is the result of the software in the camera creating the jpg preview from the raw. The LCD of the camera body should be used only to evaluate that the uniwb histograms are exposed properly, everything else is done in post. In that sense - there is no such thing as "great Fuji color" or whatever nonsense we hear from various talkers around the web. Raw image data has no color. Color is created during raw conversion.

I think he's talking about when you open a Canon RAW photo in Lightroom.

I've always found Canon looks more red with LR's default settings. C1 is usually less red.

Though I'm certain my WB on my iMac has been too warm for a long time.


I do have a question that can probably only be answered in a ballpark way - what's the effect of ambient light temperature on your perception of a monitor's colors?

I know brightness will be a variable, but if you have a monitor and you don't recalibrate for the ambient light, say daylight through windows vs tungsten at night?

Are you going to make things cooler if your ambient is tungsten compared to if it's daylight, or do you go the same direction as the ambient light?

Mikey McMichaels wrote:
I think he's talking about when you open a Canon RAW photo in Lightroom.

I've always found Canon looks more red with LR's default settings. C1 is usually less red.

Though I'm certain my WB on my iMac has been too warm for a long time.

Yes, I understand what is meant perceptually. And here there are 2 factors:

1. The color profiles which the raw converter uses
2. The color accuracy of the display device

Neither of those has anything to do with the camera sensor, at least not directly.

Personally for raw conversion I use neither ACR, nor C1 because both are not good enough to me. But if you use ACR for Canon files with the built in profiles, you better set Camera Profile = Camera Faithful (not Adobe Standard). I read some time ago that it is closest to the neutral settings of Canon software. And of course the best thing is to shoot a color target and make your own profiles.

I do have a question that can probably only be answered in a ballpark way - what's the effect of ambient light temperature on your perception of a monitor's colors?

In general you would like to have your room light temperature match the temperature of your monitor, otherwise not only perception may be influenced but also your eyes will get tired quickly.

I know brightness will be a variable, but if you have a monitor and you don't recalibrate for the ambient light, say daylight through windows vs tungsten at night?

If you change any monitor setting (brightness, temperature or other) you must recalibrate, unless your monitor can maintain built-in hardware calibration presets.

Are you going to make things cooler if your ambient is tungsten compared to if it's daylight, or do you go the same direction as the ambient light?

I do the second but I don't recommend it unless you have a monitor that can be hardware calibrated at 4000K. Ideally, if you do things by the book, you would have a lab room with 5000K room light, with CRI 100 and with neutral gray walls. In any case make sure that your environment and screen brightness are neither too low, nor too high as a whole because this will cause quick eye fatigue which is also a factor for color perception. Never work in a dark room, this is very bad practice.

anchev wrote:

Mikey McMichaels wrote:
I think he's talking about when you open a Canon RAW photo in Lightroom.

I've always found Canon looks more red with LR's default settings. C1 is usually less red.

Though I'm certain my WB on my iMac has been too warm for a long time.

Yes, I understand what is meant perceptually. And here there are 2 factors:

1. The color profiles which the raw converter uses
2. The color accuracy of the display device

Neither of those has anything to do with the camera sensor, at least not directly.

Personally for raw conversion I use neither ACR, nor C1 because both are not good enough to me. But if you use ACR for Canon files with the built in profiles, you better set Camera Profile = Camera Faithful (not Adobe Standard). I read some time ago that it is closest to the neutral settings of Canon software. And of course the best thing is to shoot a color target and make your own profiles.

I do have a question that can probably only be answered in a ballpark way - what's the effect of ambient light temperature on your perception of a monitor's colors?

In general you would like to have your room light temperature match the temperature of your monitor, otherwise not only perception may be influenced but also your eyes will get tired quickly.

I know brightness will be a variable, but if you have a monitor and you don't recalibrate for the ambient light, say daylight through windows vs tungsten at night?

If you change any monitor setting (brightness, temperature or other) you must recalibrate, unless your monitor can maintain built-in hardware calibration presets.


I do the second but I don't recommend it unless you have a monitor that can be hardware calibrated at 4000K. Ideally, if you do things by the book, you would have a lab room with 5000K room light, with CRI 100 and with neutral gray walls. In any case make sure that your environment and screen brightness are neither too low, nor too high as a whole because this will cause quick eye fatigue which is also a factor for color perception. Never work in a dark room, this is very bad practice.

I appreciate your answers guiding me to the ideal. Unfortunately, for a lot of reasons I'm not going to be able to pursue that right now.


I assume that in a dark room, your perceive everything as brighter than it is, so images will be darker, and contrast will be lower and colors will be undersaturated. My guess is that in an excessively bright room, your images will be brighter, contrast will be higher and colors will be more saturated.

The thing I'm not clear on is whether the ambient light temperature masks the colors at that temperature or exaggerates them. I realize that's a very small part of getting the monitoring right, but it's something I'd like to understand.

Mikey McMichaels wrote:
I appreciate your answers guiding me to the ideal. Unfortunately, for a lot of reasons I'm not going to be able to pursue that right now.


I assume that in a dark room, your perceive everything as brighter than it is, so images will be darker, and contrast will be lower and colors will be undersaturated. My guess is that in an excessively bright room, your images will be brighter, contrast will be higher and colors will be more saturated.

The thing I'm not clear on is whether the ambient light temperature masks the colors at that temperature or exaggerates them. I realize that's a very small part of getting the monitoring right, but it's something I'd like to understand.

1. Keep your eyes
2. Everything else

In a dark room the pupil of the eye opens a lot. When you expose it with a very bright light from the monitor, this is like "burning the sensor". I don't know if you have noticed but if you look directly at a very bright light source and then you shift your eyes to something else, you keep seeing dark spots for some time. A similar thing happens when you look at an image in a dark room. It is not good for your health. Remember that the protective mechanism of the body and the nervous system will always act in a way to mitigate the effect of the external stimulus on the sensory response - just like after some time you stop noticing the sound of the clock or the smell of the flowers in the room. That's why people who get addicted to a particular sensation look for a stronger and stronger drug which of course destroys the sensitivity of the system. For the same reason when you edit your images it is good to leave them for a while and get back to them after some time.

In a too bright room the pupil closes, you have a lot of ambient light which creates a lot of reflections (from walls etc) and that reduces the perceived contrast of your image (you cannot see gradations in the dark well). Then you have to increase the brightness of the screen which shortens its life. Mind also your own reflection on the screen (even if the surface is matte) - if there is big difference between your own silhouette and the background behind you, it will affect the uniformity of the perceived color and contrast.

If your room light is more orange than your screen, you will have a tendency to make your images look more orange. And vice versa. Obviously the smaller the screen (or the viewing area), the more pronounced this effect will be because of the different field of view. Also don't forget about metamerism - it is always there, even if you work with the most accurately calibrated device.

Similar to the dark/bright room and light color, the background on which you put your image influences perception. Also if the viewer looks at your image next to others with different colors.

Does that help?

Mikey McMichaels wrote:
It seems like the simple answer is that ambient light color has a masking effect which makes you add more of that temperature.

Well, I wouldn't use these words as a mask implies something like a gobo and that is not the same (at least to my mind).

I haven't done much editing since making the post, but I can see that using the iPad as a WB reference was a good choice. The whites on the iMac are clearly whiter than before.

I don't know what "whiter" means - brighter? Less yellow? Less blue? It really makes no sense verbally. You see - what we call white (or rather gray) is a particular wavelength. A monitor in general is not a good reference for white balance because the spectrum of its light source is with low CRI. Also the monitor flickers. As discussed previously - mobile devices are even worse. So for reference you need a stable thing.

If you have more information on monitoring environments and other issues that affect perception, I'd be interested.

You can refer to wikipedia as a starting source to learn about color management and find your way for more info as you need it.

Glamour Alternative wrote:
I have a Asus 29" monitor that looks amazing (costed $430 for the exact same specs as the apply thunder and cinema display but is matte), never used a color calibrator for it. With that said, I edit mostly on my 15" macbook pro still lol. I don't have any issues with it (maybe a hair off with highlights and shadows).

In colorimetry and color management there is no such thing as "looks amazing" and "I don't have issues with it". There is only measurement and without measurement you cannot possibly evaluate the accuracy of your device. That would be like saying "my car is very fast" without a speedometer. It may be something which gives you pleasure personally but for everyone else it is meaningless.

Unless you work primarily for print, I kind of laugh at the monitors some photographers get just for web use, some spend thousands! Because no matter how accurate YOUR monitor is, someone else is using a cheap dell for their internet browsing or a samsung phone, which isn't as good as a iphone's color accuracy (shots fired). Someone will always see it as too contrasty or saturated, or not enough saturation.

1) "a samsung phone" and "iphone's" really mean nothing. There are so many models and they are not identical
2) Unless you have measured all these devices and compared the results you have no way to know what their accuracy is
3) Just because most people use cheap pocket devices doesn't mean a professional should produce mediocre work. On the contrary - good work is the reference, not the result of following bad practice. Otherwise if you follow that logic - everyone must shoot porn because this is the most viewed content on the web and anything else is not worth it.

Technology gets better every year, and the color spaces are almost identical.

Just because a device can reproduce colors within a particular color space does not mean it will reproduce them accurately.

I use the standard color space, on everything, and on web viewing on peoples devices im usually happy with the results.

There is no such thing as "the standard color space". The only color space that is considered standard (in the sense of reference) is CIELAB and you cannot possibly use this "on everything".

Its not that off that I need to custom calibrate everything and spend the money that a web developer or graphic designer would who deals with printed material. If it is print, i'll convert the color space.

You seem to assume that print per se is something super accurate - it is not. Converting your working color space has absolutely nothing to do with accuracy of reproduction.

Why do photographers make it so complicated :p

It is not photographers who make it complicated. Color *is* a complicated matter and quite a technical one. It is not something that you just plug-n-play. When you work professionally and supposedly your work matches criteria which are higher, you have to understand the process and use it properly, not merely fall for the latest marketing of products. Of course - at least if you are serious about what you do.

tenrocK photo wrote:
Although I really like Apple products and use MacPro, MacBookPro, and iPhone, their monitors are far from accurate when we talk about color or contrast. I opted to go with a Dell WA2709 that can be calibrated and is very budget friendly, because I can't justify the expense for top of the line monitors but want a very good (if not perfect) way to control the color of my images. Coupled with EyeOne software and for the price of about 1k altogether, I found this setup well worth it over the years.

This is very true. The OP's 2009 iMac screen will be inferior to other screens in general. I own a 27-inch Apple display and the color range and brightness downright sucks compared to my NEC Multisync 27-inch. Plus, the Apple display doesn't have any manual controls to adjust color correction, so even if you had a screen calibrator it won't do you much good.

The new MacBookPro screens may be a step up, but the anything from Apple older than a couple years will not live up to the hype. I know NEC makes great monitors, but they are expensive. I've heard Dell sells color accurate monitors that are reasonably priced. Look for the 99-100% AdobeRGB color space coverage for a color accurate monitor.

Kris Krieg wrote:
Look for the 99-100% AdobeRGB color space coverage for a color accurate monitor.

People keep repeating this mantra. Please understand that wide gamut has nothing to do with accuracy. AMOLED screens for phones are wide gamut but that doesn't mean they are accurate.

anchev wrote:
People keep repeating this mantra. Please understand that wide gamut has nothing to do with accuracy. AMOLED screens for phones are wide gamut but that doesn't mean they are accurate.

True, but a larger color gamut is more capable of being color accurate. It's my personal opinion that a photographer will be better off looking for a monitor that is close to 100% AdobeRGB as opposed to just 100% sRGB. Especially if that photographer has any hopes to get their work printed in a magazine or other offset press application.

I've just been reading about Apple's new P3 color gamut (MacBook Pros), which seems like a departure from the Apple's emphasis of a graphic design community to a video editing community. As a still photographer, I think I would still purchase a monitor that is specified for AdobeRGB as opposed to a P3 monitor. It appears that the new LG UltraFine 5K monitor (27MD5KA) has a 99% P3-gamut color range, but only a 92% AdobeRGB color range. Both color ranges are large, but the P3 is a color shift.

All this talk of color ranges might be too detailed for this post, but I think a photographer that is serious about their craft should be working with a monitor that is capable of reproducing accurate color that is targeted towards a print medium. A photographer should understand the differences of monitors and not use some "off the shelf" Apple display or cheap Samsung display purchased at BestBuy.

Kris Krieg wrote:
True, but a larger color gamut is more capable of being color accurate.

Not necessarily. The ability a quantity to have a wider range of values normally means it is more error prone. Look at it this way: If you have a monitor which can physically output only 2 values, say "black" (e.g. 5cd/m2) and "white" (e.g. 100cd/m2) your error is limited only to those 2 values. For similar reasons (and others of course) the high class monitors (like Eizo CG) have a huge palette from which the actual working palette is chosen during calibration. In that sense - they have intermediary values which they are able to produce and that makes them even more accurate. A pocket AMOLED obviously doesn't have this.

It's my personal opinion that a photographer will be better off looking for a monitor that is close to 100% AdobeRGB as opposed to just 100% sRGB. Especially if that photographer has any hopes to get their work printed in a magazine or other offset press application.

Wider gamut actually means that the device is able to produce more saturated colors. CMYK (which as you know a print press uses) in general is not that saturated (note that it is smaller than AdobeRGB):



As you see it cannot reproduce the saturated purple and green colors of AdobeRGB and even those of sRGB. Also bear in mind that the contrast of paper is not the same as the contrast of a screen and this naturally creates a perceptual sense of less saturation. So unless special inks and papers are used, just using AdobeRGB doesn't make your soft proof magically more accurate.

A huge note I would like to make here: just because you may have a perfectly calibrated post-production workflow, doesn't make your print accurate. Calibrating an offset print press is very expensive and very time consuming which means that whatever you do, in the end everything is in the hands of the printers and in most cases their workflow will be just something generic and average, not calibrated. And as noted above - nobody can escape from metamerism.

I've just been reading about Apple's new P3 color gamut (MacBook Pros), which seems like a departure from the Apple's emphasis of a graphic design community to a video editing community. As a still photographer, I think I would still purchase a monitor that is specified for AdobeRGB as opposed to a P3 monitor. It appears that the new LG UltraFine 5K monitor (27MD5KA) has a 99% P3-gamut color range, but only a 92% AdobeRGB color range. Both color ranges are large, but the P3 is a color shift.

You may want to read this:

https://blog.conradchavez.com/2015/10/2 … late-2015/

All this talk of color ranges might be too detailed for this post, but I think a photographer that is serious about their craft should be working with a monitor that is capable of reproducing accurate color that is targeted towards a print medium.

The problem with that is that you cannot possibly target a print medium without receiving an ICC profile from the print press. And considering what I wrote above - you will very rarely get one. There are printers who don't even know what this is.

A photographer should understand the differences of monitors and not use some "off the shelf" Apple display or cheap Samsung display purchased at BestBuy.

Yes, understanding is important. But I would say - understanding beyond and without brands and marketing. After all the way color works and what it means to us is not invented by Apple or by Samsung.