Color Management

When you start editing and printing photographs, it doesn’t take too long to run into issues and problems with matching color all the way along the workflow. You spend hours carefully tweaking the colors on an image until it is perfect, only to find out that the printed copy is horrible. Where do you even look to fix the problem? Well, I went back to school again this past weekend – to the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa (SPAO) – to try and figure out how cameras, computers, monitors, and printers deal with color.

While color itself is an extremely difficult concept to grasp, it turns out that it can be reasonably easy to manage. While there are lots of tips, tricks, and important settings to deal with, the single most important piece of the puzzle is the color that your monitor reproduces. If you can solve this problem, most of the rest is easy. While there are some people that can calibrate a monitor by eye (sort of like tuning a guitar by ear), most people will rely on monitor calibration tools. These devices (such as a Datacolor Spyder) attach to your monitor and read the colors that your monitor reproduces. It can then create a unique and specific profile for your monitor, which your operating system will use to modify the colors it reproduces. So when you look at an image of a red apple, it will be red. If you are already lucky enough to have a printer that you can depend on, then most of your color printing problems will be solved.

To finely tune monitor colors for critical work – corporate logo colors, for instance – you need to be concerned about the light in the room you are working in. Some people will need to calibrate monitors with the drapes closed, under a consistent work lighting environment.  And to ensure the printer is doing the best it can, you will need to have printer profiles for the specific paper you are using, as well as up-to-date drivers for the printer of course. But, if you do nothing else, get your monitor calibrated.

So we worked for two fairly intense days, experimenting with settings in Photoshop and testing the printing workflow. It was a good opportunity to work on some of my better photos and to get good prints of them. It all went very well, and I learned a lot. Ask me anything…

The only downside is that I now have a monitor calibrator and a new printer on my wish list

A Model Assignment

A couple of weeks ago, before my Ottawa 67′s workshop with Harry Nowell, Harry sent out a request for models for one of his other photography classes. Luckily the requirements were minimal – human and breathing were the essentials – so I thought I might volunteer. It would give me a chance to meet Harry before my workshop, and get a feel for what he was teaching his students. It would also give me some appreciation for what models actually have to go through. This, of course, is a topic worthy of its own web site, but I figured I might learn from the students – either how to properly “engage” the model, or perhaps how not to do so. Anyways, worst-case scenario is that  I would likely get some photographs that I could use for my web sites, since sitting in front of my own camera and doing self-portraits isn’t really my style.

So off I went on a Sunday afternoon to the National Gallery in Ottawa, which would provide sufficiently interesting backdrops for a range of pictures. There were four sets of models – two couples (one of them with changes of clothing and everything), one family (mom, dad, and THREE kids under 6), and me. There were three pairs of photographer-students, and one single. The idea was that each photographer set would have a  half-hour session with each model set. The photographers were told to break the ice with conversation about what kind of photograph I was looking for, and then to engage in small talk to relax me and make the session easier on everyone. With all three pairs of photographers, there was a dominant one, and most of them did a reasonable job of quizzing me and making small talk without it sounding too much like small talk. All the photographers did a reasonable job with basic positioning and posing, but none of them moved much past that. In fact, I did most of the work for one couple. Since it was an available light exercise, the photographers needed to be able to position me so that the light was reasonably correct, at least avoiding obvious dark spots and shadows. They all needed to pay more attention to this, as many of the pictures were flawed with poor lighting. In their defense, this is what they were supposed to be learning, of course, and part of the learning process is to make mistakes, see them, and fix them. Taking portraits like we did is a HUGE challenge, since the photographer needs to direct the model, watch the light, and get the pictures. It can be (and was) overwhelming for some.

When I received the images from the shoot, it was interesting to review the presentation package. There were no specific rules to follow, but the deal was that I would get some photos for my time. Most of the photographers processed their images and gave me the best of  their work, in various sizes of JPG’s on a CD. One CD, however, contained over 100 raw images – basically a camera dump containing every shot – bad ones and all. At the other end of the scale, one CD was imprinted with one of the photos – a very nice touch – and had a nice handwritten thank-you note on the sleeve. When you see something like that, you just know you are going to like the photos.

So all in all, it was a very interesting experience. I learned a lot about how photographers should (and should not) treat models. And I got some very nice photos in return. Thanks to Harry and all the photographers for their efforts.

My day at the rink…

As team photographer for the Carleton Place Canadians, I have shot 30 or so games this season, which probably translates to almost five thousand pictures. I have learned a ton, but it has all been pretty much on my own. I can find lots of sports photography web sites to read, but not too many deal with the specific challenges of ice hockey. So when I saw that Harry Nowell was holding a hockey photography workshop, with access to an Ottawa 67′s game, I was quick to sign up. My Canadians are Junior A level, with kids between 16 and 20, playing against other teams in the Ottawa Valley, one level below the Major Junior A 67′s. The 67′s are part of the Canadian Hockey League, with three separate divisions encompassing all of Canada. These are the kids that are going to turn pro – the future stars of the National Hockey League. The Canadians draw 300 fans to a game, but the 67′s play in a 10,000 seat arena in front of an average of 7,000 fans. This is a pretty good achievement for these kids. So the opportunity to work with Harry and get to shoot a 67′s game was most inviting.

There were six of us including Harry, and we met on Sunday at the Ottawa Urbandale Center to shoot the game against the Guelph Storm. The ice surface is completely enclosed by the boards and high glass, which means that we will be shooting through the glass (at the Carleton Place Arena, I have a location just off the end of the players benches where I can shoot over the glass by standing on a small ladder). And rather uniquely, the first row of seats is raised and set back about three feet from the boards, leaving a walkway completely around the ice surface. This is perfect for photographers!

We all had media passes giving us access to the walkway, and we shared space with some of the local newspaper photographers. We also met one of Harry’s students from a previous course, who hosts a blog on the Ottawa 67′s and has full access to all games to take photographs. Valerie gave us some good insights on working in the Urbandale Center. The first thing I noticed was how much better the light was here – I was able to get shutter speeds of 1/1000th of a second with more light than I can get at 1/300th of a second in Carleton Place. This meant MUCH cleaner shots, with less noise and less blur from the motion. Shooting through the glass was a bit difficult to master – there are dirty spots and puck marks, and there are often reflections to deal with. But the flexibility of being able to move around the rink was tremendous. We even had one 15 minute slot in one of the corporate boxes, to get some shots from up high.

There were lots of good photo opportunities – seven goals in total, a few penalties, and lots of action in the corners. I took about 250 shots, and discarded around 100. I don’t know where these numbers stand in comparison with other photographers, but I certainly took a higher percentage of good shots than I usually do. From the 150 that I kept, I narrowed the field down to about 20 that I thought were pretty good. Not sure if I had any newspaper quality shots, but I did catch three goals being scored, and had numerous shots with the puck frozen in mid-air. I also got quite a few good images with story-telling facial expressions – those are usually my favorites. Look at the eyes of 67′s goalie Petr Mrazek as he tries to find the puck around the Guelph forward blocking his view

So it was a very good day at the rink. More of my favorites are on flickr.