Tag Archive for: workflow

Calibrations demystified

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Calibrations are essential and easy

Let’s first take a look at what a calibration is.
I’m writing this blogpost in English.
I chose English because I know that most people in the world understand English better than Dutch. And the fact I don’t speak any languages as good as Dutch and English.

So because I’m writing this in English everyone reading this understands me.
And this is because we use rules and letters in combinations that we agreed upon as the English language.

And with calibrations it’s the same.
We have many different devices ranging from your camera, to your printer, monitor and scanner.
Some devices are capture devices, some are output devices, but they all use different techniques, and still you want your images to look exactly the same on all devices right?

Luckily there is a solution for this.

Home Theater

When we look at the home theater market calibrations are done to get the optimal image quality out of your tv or projector setup. During these calibrations high-end calibration devices and software are used costing thousands of dollars, and in most cases there is no auto-mode 😀

Now you might wonder, “what is optimal image quality?”
Is this “max light output?”, “the best colors?”
And what is best, or max?

Well luckily there are rules for this.
For most TVs and projectors we use the REC709 colourspace for SDR material (normal HD material) and BT2020 or P3 for the new HDR material.
For the correct colors in the ISF (Imaging Science Foundation) setup we use the D6500 standard.

During a calibration for a tv or projector we look at the following settings.
User settings like Contrast and Brightness to set the perfect dynamic range.
Grayscale for the correct color temperature
CMS (Color Management System) for the correct colors per colourspace.
Gamma for the brightness curve
Extra features like sharpness, iris, motion flow etc.

Because the same rules the calibration follows is also followed by everyone that makes professional movies we can now see the movie exactly as the director intended on our projectors or TVs. And we all know that color evokes emotion, so seeing the correct colors and colortone can have a huge impact on the movie experience.

For Photography and video

Now for Home Theater the process can be complicated and you need to know what you’re doing (I’ve been doing it since 2001 and still have to learn every new format and display) but the workflow is very basic and simple. We just follow what the movie industry follows. For photography it’s the other way around almost.

For photography the process itself is super simple but we have a lot of different devices and things we have to take care off to get it all working together.
So lets take a look at what we can encounter.

First off we have the input devices

Cameras, scanners etc are input devices. This means we have a file that has to be used as our reference file.
One of the tools that’s essential for a fast calibration is the Calibrate Colorchecker passport.
The process is very simple, you just shoot the colorchecker with proper lighting (use a lightmeter) and you can use the included Lightroom plugin or the standalone version.

Now we have to make sure we follow the workflow
After you restart Lightroom you select the colorchecker profile you created from the custom profiles and sync this to the rest of the images you shot with this setup. And indeed when you use the colorchecker with your camera it’s highly recommended to shoot a new colorchecker image with every change in your setup. If you are not incredibly critical you can also create one profile for your camera/strobe combination. It will not be 100% correct but it will be close.

One thing I always do is when I select the profile from the menu you see here, just before syncing I’ll do a quick colorbalance with the colorbalance tool in Lightroom.

Now lets look at the output devices

Output devices can be for example a monitor or printer.
Now we already looked at the colorchecker for the input devices and believe it or not for the output devices we use a similar technique with one difference, now we need a device to meter what the monitor or printer outputs.

I personally really like the Calibrite products due to their ease of use and quality, plus they work with the hardware calibrations on the BenQ monitors I use.
But you can also use other brands of course, just make sure you replace your analyser every few years because they will deteriorate over time.

For the printer we need a so called spectroradiometer and for the monitor we can use the same technique but also a much cheaper solution like for example tristimuls meters. But without getting to technical.

The calibration is very simple.
I’ll walk you through the more advanced version.

You start the software.
Use the following settings:
Color Temp D6500 (some setups depend on D54 but you will know if that’s you)
Gamma 2.2 (2.4) depending on your preference and room.
Lightoutput 110-130cdm depending on your ambient light conditions.
Profile V2

These are the settings you will find in almost all software, and will give you a perfectly calibrated screen.
Now the software will ask you to activate this profile and send you a reminder after X weeks, please don’t ignore that because calibrations do change over time. After you activate the calibration you’re done.

Different profiles, so now what?

By now we have created several profiles.
The colorchecker creates both DCP (Adobe) and ICC profiles.
The monitor calibration creates an ICC profile etc.
But luckily we don’t have to worry about them anymore. The profiles are now exactly where they should be. In the operating system for the monitor and in Lightroom for your camera where you can now select it and sync to the photos shot with that combination.

Why do I mention this?
A lot of people ask me which profile to use when opening files in Photoshop from Lightroom, the monitor profile or the camera profile?
Well both are wrong, how weird it might sound, you can’t use any of them.

When you open up a file in Photoshop you should always select the colourspace that you want to work in, being sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProphotoRGB.
If your monitor is capable of showing 99% AdobeRGB, thanks to the calibration you will now see all the colors as close to accurate as possible, but also when you have to work in another colourspace the monitor and calibration will make sure you are still seeing the correct colors.

Some things to make sure are in place

For a correct and easy workflow there are some things you have to take care off.
When using HDMI make sure your monitor is setup for 0-255 as dynamic range. (16-235 is for video)
Make sure there is no light hitting your monitor, BenQ delivers a nice hood with most of their photography monitors and these can make a huge difference.
As mentioned before a color analyser deteriorates over time, so make sure to replace it every once in a while. The same goes for the colorchecker, and for the colorchecker you can extend it’s life a lot by keeping it out of the sun when not using.

 

This is one part in the series on calibration and colorprofiles, make sure to check the blog for much more.
If you’re in the market for a new monitor, we have some 10% discount codes for BenQ monitors for European customers, mail us for more information.

 

 

Colors and how they connect

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Colors evoke emotion

You probably have been hearing me say that a lot.
And that’s because color is incredibly important to give images/video/film a certain mood. But also for logos, design, cars, buildings, interiors, clothing, colors are used everywhere to get a feeling, or make you feel a certain way. This article is about how colors connect in photography.

Accurate colors

So for us as content creators, it’s vital to make sure that our designs, photos, videos, etc. all look accurate.

So when someone orders a red scarf and a red sweater they look the same as in the brochure or website.
Luckily this is pretty easy.
You probably heard the term calibration regularly on this blog, my books, and videos.
With calibration, you make sure that your camera, printer, monitor, etc. are showing you the most accurate colors.

Because this is a topic that I’ve explained a few times in other blog posts. But always in connection to a technique. I thought it would be interesting as a reference to just explain a color space and the pure basics of calibrations, in a later blog post this week I’ll go deeper into the process and settings.

Primary versus Secondary colors

First, we have to make sure we know that divide the main colors into 2 sections.
The primary colors are Red, Green, and Blue
The secondary colors Yellow, Cyan, Magenta

Now how does this work in practice?

Color temperature

The first thing we must know about the colorspace and calibrations is the color temperature.
When you look at your strobes, sunlight, shade, continuous lighting, etc. you will probably know they all have different color temperatures. And when we talk about calibrations we call this the blackbody curve and a point on or close to that curve.

But when we look at the curve you can see that it runs from blueish white to reddish white.
The blue part has a very high color temperature, whereas the red has a very low color temperature.
Think for reference about a piece of metal you throw in a fire and you will see that the hotter it gets the more it will shift from red to blue.

We agreed upon the value of D65 for the reference white point. (6500 Kelvin)
When we calibrate our monitor or projector you should calibrate to the value of D65.
In some cases, 5400K is demanded. But if you need this, you don’t need this blogpost explaining colorspacee, probably.

how colors connect in photography

When we look at the color triangle above you can see that the 6500 degrees point is slightly reddish. This means that people sometimes have to get used to calibration at first because white will look a bit reddish, but trust me, this is very short.

Colorspace

Now that we know how the color temperature works, how do we get there?
As you can see in the next image there are different colorspaces with different levels of saturation (larger colorspace = more saturated colors)

colors and how they work together

In this diagram you can see that the primary colors Red, Green, and Blue create the color triangle.
And you probably also notice that the colors are located in different locations.

Luckily for us, those coordinates are known for every colorspace.
Each color has 3 coordinates.
x,y, and Y.
To manipulate these colors we use the settings Hue, Saturation, and Luminance (Y)
You probably know these from Lightroom already.
During the calibration, you are in essence pushing and pulling the colors around till they are in balance with the colorspace you chose. And those corrections are stored in the ICC, DCP profile.

Because for every colorspace we know the coordinates for the primary colors you might wonder, “Where do the secondary colors come in?”
That’s actually simpler than you might think.

How colors connect in photography

This is how colors connect in photography

When we draw a line from the primary color through the white point we end up with the secondary color of that color.
So Red connects to Cyan, Green connects to Magenta, and Blue finally to Yellow.
You probably understand that this is a very fine balance and if one of these colors or the white point is not correct the whole colorspace will shift slightly or even “collapse” meaning you can’t trust your workflow.

Gamma

There is one thing I didn’t mention yet and that’s gamma.
When we look at for example a 10-step grayscale we want to make sure that all steps are visible but also are visible equal in brightness difference. This is done with the so-called gamma correction, in most cases we use a value of 2.2 or 2.4.

Conclusion on how colors connect in photography

The primary colors Red, Green, and Blue connect through the white point with the secondary colors Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.
Colors have 3 coordinates, x,y, and Y, and are adjusted by Hue, Saturation, and Luminance, corrections needed are stored in the ICC/DCP profile.
Each colorspace has pre-determined values for Gamma, Colors, and white point. This means the only thing you have to do is make sure your images and monitor show the correct colors, which they never do, so they need to be corrected.

Now that we know how complicated it is, it’s time to tell you the calibration itself is super simple.
For the monitor, I highly recommend the calibrite series of products. The process can be done fully automated and takes between 5-15 minutes.

For the camera, I’ve been using the calibrite colorchecker passport for years. It’s easy to create a profile and the results are very good.

In later blogposts, I will focus on these devices separately.
But one I have to mention right away because it’s essential.

The light meter

When we calibrate the monitor we are guided through the software by a very easy-to-follow workflow. The software actually asks you to adjust the contrast/brightness till it hits a target.

Now the reason we do the calibrations is to create a stable workflow that makes it possible to get constant results in all different lighting situations. As you can see one of the coordinates of the colors is the big Y or in other words Luminance.
Seeing the calibration of the camera is done with a ColorChecker we must shoot the ColorChecker with a light meter and as flat as possible.
I mostly place a large softbox on 3 mts distance when I create a global profile, when I create a profile for a specific set I just make sure there are no gels on the strobes and the ColorChecker is still lit as flat as possible with the main light, even if that means the model has to turn and I shoot it from another angle. Otherwise, the calibration will not be accurate.

If you are in the market for a good light meter make sure to check out the Sekonic range. I’ve been using several over the years and they all performed perfectly in every possible situation. I’m now using the 858 but their whole line is top-notch.

I hope you now better understand how colors connect in photography and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
If you’re in the market for a new monitor with hardware calibration options, I can recommend the BenQ line up. For EU customers we have some 10% discount codes available just drop me an email.

 

Working with colors and gels is fun 

How to read the Light Meter? 

 

 

That setting that drives you nuts during the calibration process on Mac (and windows)

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Calibration is important

I think most of us will agree on this. If you want proper colors and happy customers (depending on the assignment of course) it’s very smart to calibrate your monitor at least once a month, but preferably before every important retouching job. But what are the important settings during calibration?

Calibrating your monitor is super easy.

I’ve been using Calibrite (X-rite) products for years. They are easy to use and compatible with the hardware calibration options inside my BenQ monitor. This is a big plus because although the software from Calibrite is great, hardware solutions are always better, of course. Most professional and semi-professional monitors support hardware calibration.

By the way, if you are in the market for a new monitor and you live in the EU drop me an email, I have a few 10% discount codes from BenQ
They have been supporting my work with Digital Classroom for years and love to give you guys a nice discount.

Anyway back to the story.
Even with easy software, it’s sometimes easy to get an error that… well you can’t fix.
You checked everything, and although you know your brand new monitor should really be perfect, it’s far from.
Or maybe you don’t know how to read the rapports and just wonder why there is so much fuzz about professional monitors.

Step 1

This one is for all systems.
When you are using the HDMI connection make sure your monitor is set for 0-255 or FULL RGB.
If it’s set up for 16-235 (video) you will get all kinds of weird behaviors, very noticeable in the dark and bright areas, but in essence, your whole image looks way off.

When you are using USBc, TB, or Display port you don’t have to check this.
Those connections automatically select the right output.

So is HDMI bad… absolutely not, it’s just as perfect for what we do as USBc and Displayport, you just have to check that one setting.

Step 2

And that’s the nasty one.
In the Mac, there is one setting that will almost certainly have you scratching your head and probably a little bit in panic mode.

If whatever you do, you can’t pass the final certification from your calibration and the errors are constantly changing per calibration, there is probably one setting you forgot the turn off. You can find it under “Displays” in Mac OS.

important setting during calibration

This one will give you A LOT of issues when you want a stable and trusted display.
So turn it OFF.
This goes for all settings with labels like “auto”, “Enhancement”, “Super”, “Real”, “natural” etc.

Just turn everything off and run the calibration software.
You will see that you will pass the certification without any problems now 😀

Don’t forget this important setting during calibration!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below, or reach out via our social media.

Read more about colors in this blog about Working with Colors 

 

Why the blog or website is more important at the moment

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Frank Doorhof blog

Back to square one?

When we started with the internet (ok now I feel old) we used dial-up connections and a small booklet to write down the websites. And of course, as a company, we dreamed about having our own website on this amazing (but incredibly slow) internet. This article is about our Frank Doorhof blog, and why we (and you) need a website.

It wasn’t long before that dream came true and our company was on the World Wide Web.. We have several websites. FrankDoorhof, Studio FD (Dutch) and Photography-workshops.eu 

You can read English blogs on FrankDoorhof.com and Dutch blogs at StudioFD.nl

More reach means more customers

But how do you lead people towards your website? At first via the (believe it or not) newspapers, flyers, and stickers on our products and invoices. But then….. the revolution of social media started to happen.
In the Netherlands for a lot of people, it started with websites and discussion forums. For me, it was a site called Dutchheaven which really made a huge impact on how to reach people and network Plus there was a discussion forum and chat room.

Not a lot later in the Netherlands, we saw a new network called Hyves. In essence, you could compare this to Facebook. It was not yet interesting for a company, but it was a great way to get in contact with people with the same interests as you. And slowly of course also companies started to discover “social media”.

Social Media took over

When Hyves stopped most people (if not all) went to Facebook.
This was the first time for us that we really started to use Facebook for our business including the Photography studio and workshops. And it worked like a charm. Direct contact with your audience, a nice and clean interface, great messaging, and no spam.

Frank Doorhof Blog

Social media? or filtered media?

When I take a few steps back and look at the social media landscape at the moment, I have to be honest it’s not good. Facebook filters a lot of messages and comments, which means I don’t see comments (random), followers don’t see all my posts, and the last year using the message function is a disaster because 90% is spam with messages about my page being deleted (don’t click on those links :D) and deleting them is a one by one deal (please add batch delete).

But it isn’t much better on other platforms.
Instagram is nice, but there is no real community with discussions, for sharing images it’s great just like Threads, but it’s hard to explain techniques or lighting setups in depth when you can’t use links or layouts.

LinkedIn is nice but not for everyone in your target audience.

And X (Twitter), what can I say?
It has changed a lot, some things are better but I have a lot of issues with the hate, no moderation, and an enormous amount of fake news and conspiracy theories. Plus the limit on characters makes it almost impossible to explain lighting setups etc.

 

The solution: Don’t build your brand on rented land

Our website has been online for a long time and has always aimed at sharing photos but most of all also sharing techniques, tips and tricks, videos, and of course, answering your questions. In the last decade or so, the focus might have shifted away a bit from the website due to the immense popularity of social media. But as mentioned before I think it’s time for our website to be the main focus again.

I’ve been adding loads of new articles about lighting, photography in general, results from Digital Classrooms, and a lot more in the last few months, so I’m sure you will find something you like. And I will continue to add articles to the blog, so make sure you add them to your bookmarks,  or……

Frank Doorhof's Blog

on our blog, we share how-to lighting setup, including results

Building a community

As mentioned before one of the strongest points for education is that you can always ask whatever you want and get an answer or opinion from the community or the site owner. And this is exactly what makes social media great for connecting people and education.

So under each article, you can leave a comment on the blog
Feel free to ask questions, share your work, or just share your tips about the subject. Registration is 100% free and you help us to build the community which leads to more articles.

 

Conclusion

I think a lot of people and companies have been focusing a lot on social media in the last decade or so. However, the generation now is leaving school is already a lot less active on social media. I think that’s why it’s now the right time to, besides your social media presence, also to focus on a nice website where your clients can connect instead of just watching static pages.

Feel free to add your opinions, and share the article with your social media followers 😀

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Thanks again for your support

Frank & Annewiek Doorhof