by Brenda K. Hipsher

We had a blast in Las Vegas this year at WPPI.  Our booth was busy with nearly constant speakers and gathered crowds to hear the latest on ColorChecker Passport.

© 2009 Alan Karlin

Special thanks to Joe Brady who kept the information going for us day after day with multiple presentations.  We were also privileged to have Coloratti speakers at the booth each day showing their work and talking about color management in their own workflow.  We appreciate the generosity of Jay Kinghorn, Jim Divitale, Brian Marcus, Kevin Ames, Eddie Tapp and Rich Marchisotto.

We had a chance to profile some of the projectors for speakers. Using i1Xtreme and Colormunki Photo in just a few minutes before their presentations, custom profiles allowed the speakers to enjoy the very best color presentation on the big screens.  You can do the same for your presentations in your studio or speaking environments.  Visit xritephoto.com for information on projector profiling with Colormunki and projector profiling with i1Xtreme. Find out what you’re missing.  Profile your projector with solutions from X-Rite Photo.

by Brenda K. Hipsher

You are invited to a FREE Webinar!  See for yourself how easy it can be to make prints that match your display – every time!

Two sessions are available: Wednesday, March 24th

Session One – 1PM Eastern Time
(12PM Central, 11AM Mountain, 10AM Pacific)
Click here to register for the 1PM session

Session Two – 3PM Eastern Time
(2PM Central, 1PM Mountain, 12PM Pacific)
Click here to register for the 3PM session

Who should watch this webinar?
Wedding, portrait and landscape photographers
Photo Lab Professionals
Photographic enthusiasts doing their own printing
Anyone passionate about photography

Topics Covered
Monitor to print matching (calibration and profiling)
Obtaining consistent color in camera
One click accurate color edits
Benefits of creating and using custom printer profiles
Soft-proofing in Adobe® Photoshop®
Applying printer profiles in Photoshop®
Digital projector profiling

If you can’t make these live webinars be sure to visit xritephoto.com. You can find archived webinars by clicking the tab marked “Learning” and going to the bottom of the webinars page.

by Brenda K. Hipsher

An interesting blog post was forwarded to us by the author this week.  He breaks down his reasoning for using color management in his printing workflow.  Mark Alberhasky makes a very good case for using a color managed workflow by pointing out that making multiple prints in an unmanaged environment leads to waste of not only money but time and creativity.

Mark uses an HP printer with the X-Rite i1 device built right in. And you can enjoy similar results using i1Xtreme to profile any printer in your studio and any monitor on your desktop.

So visit www.xritephoto.com and have a look at Mark’s post Color Management … Take Away the Pain. That’s it…. Take two links and call me in the morning.  See you’re already feeling better!

by Brenda K. Hipsher

I’ve been spending some time lately on www.johnpaulcaponigro.com. It’s a beautiful site with changing images on the landing page.  There is a full plate of workshops coming up including Illuminating Creativity offerings in Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Arches National Park. And if you want to understand color inside and out, have a look at The Power of Color. Just about any aspect of color management, color theory, fine art workflow, Photoshop techniques, all the way to finishing and storage is covered.

And there are some really wonderful free lessons on a diverse list of topics.  One that I downloaded and enjoyed is Six Steps to Color Management.  It’s hard to believe how much information John Paul makes available to you free! He even shares his reading list.

Check it out for yourself.  There’s something for everyone on his beautiful and easy to navigate site.  Take some time for your self to just relax at www.johnpaulcaponigro.com

by Brenda K. Hipsher

If you happen to be in Las Vegas attending WPPI this week be sure to stop by and visit us in the X-Rite booth #210 on the main trade show floor. Come by and say hello, learn about color management for your digital workflow. See the equipment, talk to our professional staff, learn about the new ColorChecker Passport and ColorMunki Photo.

And we will have Coloratti speakers each day in our booth. Stop in to check out the schedule that includes Jay Kinghorn, Jim DiVitale, Brian Marcus, Kevin Ames, Eddie Tapp, and Richard Marchisotto.  Come on by and hear how color managment enhances your photography and your business.

So stop by and be sure to say hi.  I’ll look forward to meeting you!

by Brenda K. Hipsher

The Institute of Visual Arts in Maui was founded by Randy Hufford and Eddie Tapp to bring together photography and fine art.  If you’re going to teach why not teach in paradise, right? You can find out more about workshops like “Let’s Get Creative: Photo Adventure Maui” coming up in April featuring Eddie Tapp, Judy Host, Randy Hufford and on location in Maui! You can also read more about the event on Eddie Tapp’s blog, too!

If you can’t find the time to spend a week in Maui you can check out Randy’s new DVD series called The Perfect Print. It’s a 5 DVD tutorial series that takes you from calibration, selection of ink and media, digital enhancements, finishing techniques and even includes sales and marketing.  Visit www.ivamaui.com to learn about the series, the workshop, and more.

by Brenda K. Hipsher

Coloratti Moose Peterson recently sent me an email about a two part video blog that he recently posted using ColorMunki Photo.  Part one is a step by step video profiling his dual monitor setup on his desktop. Have a look click here. Part two is using the ColorMunki to profile his laptop. Check it out click here.  He shows you how to do it, talks about how often he profiles and gives you hints on little details that may be unique to your display.

Enjoy!  And while you’re there check out his content rich site including where you can attend a workshop with Moose.  Have fun and enjoy his site. MoosePeterson.com

by Brenda K. Hipsher

Welcome to the first in an ongoing series called “On Site.”  This series will feature documents from our website www.xritephoto.com.  We will address a wide range of topics that arise from comments here and other places on the net.  The objective is to point you to some useful resources that already exist on the website.

Today we begin with Epson print settings on Mac OS Leopard and Snow Leopard.  This issue has come up twice in the past week so it seems like a good place to begin!

If you are experiencing darker than expected prints from ColorMunki Photo profiles and you are using Mac OS 10.5 or 10.6 you may want to have  a look here. This document will give you the correct settings in Epson print dialogue boxes to print the targets for making the profile as well as the correct settings for printing and image from Photoshop utilizing custom profiles.

Please leave a comment if you find this “On Site” post helpful or if you have other suggestions for future posts.  We’re always listening to you and interested in your responses.

Click this picture to go directly to the article

by Brenda K. Hipsher

Photo Optimization Master Class is a new offering by Digital Outback Photo Workshops the weekend of May 7-9, 2010. Coloratti Uwe Steinmueller and R. Mac Holbert are the instructors for this weekend that is part of the “Realize your Vision” series at DOP Workshops. A quote from the workshop says, “R. Mac Holbert and Uwe Steinmueller have extensive experience in creating masterful images. They share this knowledge in an accessible and intuitive manner to help workshop participants realize their vision.”

The location is beautiful Carmel, California along one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world.  And Carmel is also known for its quaint picturesque beauty.  So you’ll have lots to photograph while you’re there in addition to the classroom instruction. There will be sessions in optimization techniques that include organizing and editing workflow, texture blending, masking techniques, and advanced HDR.

Register by March 15 and take and extra $100 off the registration price. Read all about Photo Optimization Master Class and find out how to register. Don’t miss this opportunity to study with two great instructors in a relaxed and beautiful environment.

by Joe Brady

Based on some of the questions I have been asked, there still remains some confusion on the relationship between white balance and custom camera profiles. There are three times when this comes up – during the creation of the custom camera profile, creating a custom white balance in-camera and applying a white balance in software.

Let’s start with profile creation, because this one is easy! As we’ve seen previously, we create custom camera profiles by taking a photograph containing the ColorChecker Classic target. Using either the plug-in in Adobe^® Lightroom^® or the ColorChecker Passport Desktop Application, this image is brought into the application and the profile is generated. You do not need to white balance the file before doing this, because the software does this behind the scenes by itself. Remember however that applying the custom profile that is created in this way does not apply a white balance to your image – you will still need to do this. By doing it this way, you still have the creative freedom to apply a white balance as you see fit. To sum up – don’t white balance to build a profile, but do white balance after applying the profile!

The second situation is how and when to create a custom white balance in-camera. If you are in a controlled environment like studio lighting, this is easy, because if you are using good lights, the color temperature won’t vary too much. The same goes for shooting in mid-day light. Create a custom white balance by simply photographing the Passport white target in the same position where your subject will be photographed. How much of the frame needs to be filled varies from camera to camera, so check your camera manual. I find that most current cameras can white balance with the frame filled 60% or more with the white card target.

If your studio lights are of the more inexpensive variety, one of the weaknesses (yes, there are several) these systems have is that the light temperature falls as the power is decreased. If you create a custom white balance at full power and then turn the lights down, your images will get yellower. That means that besides doing your custom white balance, you’re going to have to include a neutral white reference in the scene each time you adjust the power of your lights. When processing your images, you will need to adjust the white balance of each lighting power change. This is a great reason to invest in good studio lighting!

The third situation where white balance becomes a variable is when photographing in early morning or late afternoon light. As photographers, we all want to keep the golden glow of the light and if we white balanced during these times, that beautiful color would be neutralized right out of the image.

My solution to these situations is to both custom white balance and shoot the ColorChecker Classic target close to noon at the same or similar location. This allows me to get a camera profile that is accurate to the color response of the location without neutralizing the golden light.

©2009 Joe Brady

Now, if you arrived the night before and got up at sunrise to photograph the scene, I would recommend setting your camera to its Daylight white balance setting for these captures and then photograph the ColorChecker Classic, Enhancement Target and the White Balance Target so that profile creation and white balance adjustments can be easily made later in software. By the way – all of this assumes you are shooting with a RAW workflow, not JPEGs. While it is true that you can adjust the white balance on JPEGs as well, if you are going to do any major adjustments to color, the JPEG’s image quality will suffer.  When photographing the landscape, I will always shoot RAW to have the best possible data capture and to insure the best color control and editing flexibility!