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Does color accuracy make a big difference in professional photography?


When we start out with photography, we get busy trying to understand the basics: shutter speed, aperture, composition, etc. As we progress, we start to get interested in much more subtle things, such as such as color reproduction, sharpness and of course color accuracy. But is color accuracy just a myth? Let’s find out together.

When doing commercial tasks, photographers like me often use multiple cameras for different purposes. In fact, sometimes there are several sets, with one camera for each. Other times there is a complex compositing where the landscape has to be added to another studio image. Making this work look realistic and accurate is difficult, to say the least. Of course, with enough time, anything is possible. But, what if I told you that there are ways to save time with these tasks?

Introducing color accuracy tools from Datacolor. That’s in the name: any digitally reproduced color is just data. Datacolor is a company dedicated to creating the most accurate colors possible, with SpyderX and Spyder Accessories. The highlight of these products is that they produce color accuracy easily with the click of a few buttons. But does it make a huge difference in a professional photography workflow? Dive in and explore a few elements of my own workflow to see if wasting money or buying convenience makes life easier.

Multiple screens

The easiest thing to say about the fact that I use several monitors. An image can be displayed on many different machines. For example, if it was a commercial set, I could tie the knot and the image would show up on the client’s screen as well as my own. Then the same image will go to the office, where I will use a third monitor to edit it. It then goes to my brilliant editors, who will see it again from another machine. Each of these screens will have different opinions on blue and red. This can cause misunderstandings among all members of the production team and eventually an argument. For example, a customer’s screen might show whites with a green tint, while yours will show up with magenta. The client asks you to adjust the magenta, and you will get a green image. Who has the right version? Honestly, no one unless you’ve been calibrated.

A rarely mentioned feature of the SpyderX Elite is that it can also calibrate the projector. So if you’re showing your image to an audience and want them to see things the way you do, just use SpyderX Elite to calibrate that.

To avoid these misunderstandings, calibration of the monitor (and projector) is required. Luckily, SpyderX Elite has a feature to do just that: calibrate and align some monitors. Using it, you can align several monitors, regardless of whether they are connected to one machine. So in this case, SpyderX helped me a lot in creating the perfect image for me and the team to see.

Different print and screen styles

Imagine a fairly standard commercial assignment: you need to create an image that will run in a local free magazine made from cheap paper on a digital board with medium resolution and above all on medium social media as well as billboards. Ignoring the fact that a significant resolution is required to make this work, there will be a big difference in how the image will be seen on each of those media.

The Elite version of the software allows you to check images on print using a profiler. That way, it’s very easy to see what colors are lost. This is useful not only when shooting but also when exporting as regular paper will naturally reduce contrast, but digital displays will increase contrast. Therefore, a slightly different version of the image must be for print and digital. Previewing your work with SpyderX Elite’s Softproofing will allow you to do just that, and calibrating your monitor will ensure that you’ll see exactly how it looks in the end. Guess is out.

In this respect, it is also very reasonable to invest in Datacolor products.

assured

If I know for a fact that I am viewing a calibrated monitor, in a good environment, I am sure of what I am sending to the client. More often than not, someone can open photos on their phone while commuting or commuting. So, of course, what they get may be a significantly muted image. An angry email may follow up saying your yellow is too yellow and the skin tone is not right. However, when you receive and read emails while comfortably sipping on your beverage of choice, you’ll know that what you sent was correct. Why? Well, since you used industry standard screen calibration for the images and didn’t view them from your phone. A silly example would be posted on Instagram. Each time I did, I changed it up a bit to make the photo look less saturated. Not sure why, but the iPhone just likes to saturate things to the extreme.

What should you buy?

I hate giving buying advice because it can never be tailored to the exact needs of your audience. But this time, it’s pretty simple because there’s a device that actually does all of this and more: Datacolor SpyderX.

This nifty device will help you calibrate your monitor in less than two minutes and ensure that what you’re seeing is accurate. I highly recommend using a monitor calibrator if you are taking pictures. And the Elite version calibrates the projector too!

In addition, there are accessories that can make SpyderX easier to use: I personally like SpyderShelfas it provides some vertical storage space which I use to hold the monitor calibrator itself.

For optimal ambient light readings with your calibrator, I recommend getting Spyder Tripod with flexible feet. It will allow you to screw your calibrator. It’s also the perfect handheld tool that you can take with you on any photography excursions.

So does color accuracy make a big difference in professional photography? Yes, it has.

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