• Aug. 23, 2024, 12:57 p.m.

    A discussion thread for Bob's article on Colour Rendition. First published in December 2013

    The article can be found here: www.the-photo.org/colour.html

  • Members 2310 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 6:30 a.m.

    Quote "Photographers will prize the colour rendition of one particular brand or model over another. When discussing these matters phrases such as ‘wonderful skin tones’ and ‘beautiful greens’ abound."

    The artical needs some camera comparrisions to actually show the difference in skin tone colour rendering/recording.

  • Members 3970 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 6:36 a.m.

    Not really because I would think it's a given that cameras render colours differently to each other to some extent.

    The intention behind the article isn't a comparison of the extent of the differences and which camera might or might not render colours more accurately.

  • Members 2310 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 7:14 a.m.

    its a paper open for discussion and needs practical examples. rendering skin tones is a very complex process and the raw files are not a general fix as the colours are not global. i have to set up complex actions to match skin tones even from the same brand.

  • Members 187 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 7:15 a.m.

    "The language of the Himba people of Northern Namibia in Africa recognizes five different colours: senandu, which most Asians and Europeans would say cover reds and purples; dumbu, which covers reds, greens and yellows; burou, covering greens and blues; zoozu, covering greens, blues and purples and finally ‘vapa’, white and grey."

    Just a little clarification on this point, (the actual point is only really stated in the caption for figure 1 and not in the main text). The Himba don't see different colour as in wavelength, they are able to differentiate between shades of colour ("different ‘bags’ of wavelength") that look identical to us. The reason is that their language/or classification of colour/or underlying logic that underpins formal education of colour, is different, so the Himba colour classification doesn't really relate to the Western system. In the Western world we classify colour along the lines of scientific understanding, the Himba use something more akin to their practical application in nature. And it's a two way street, show the Himba a series of blue/greens and they will pick out the shade that isn't an "earth colour' straight away, Westerners struggle. But if you reverse that and show the Himba a series of earth colours in which one is very definitely green and they will struggle where Westerners clearly see the different colour.

    Similar observations have been made in young children pre-formal colour education, the way we see colour is affected by our language, or the way we classify and learn about colour.

    With RGB, it was Thomas Young who made the breakthrough when he correctly identified that the RGB primaries in additive colour were describing the way the human eye worked and were not a problem related to the physics of light. Interesting note, although it is known that there is a wide variation regards the cones/rods and their responses in animals, scientists have still been known to use LCD colour touch screens in experiments. The colour on which is specifically tuned to the response of the human eye, animals do not see the same colours on the screens. Even scientists have been known to make broad assumptions about the nature of their vision...

  • Aug. 24, 2024, 10:46 a.m.

    This.
    There are closer examples than Himba people. In most bigger (western) language groups there is one word for color blue, but in russian (and some other east-slavic languages) there are two - синий and голубой, first one representing darker blue (like ultramarine), second one lighter tone (like sky). I struggled with differentiating those colors long time (and make mistakes anyway), for native russian language speakers it is absolutely no problem.

  • Members 1626 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 10:54 a.m.

    In Italian Blue and Azzurro, dark blue and light blue respectively.

  • Aug. 24, 2024, 11:18 a.m.

    Sorry, I somehow skipped italian language while checking translations. Let's correct my claim then to "In many (western) language groups ...".

    Not so rare distinction then :)
    Are those color names really not interchangeable? Can you use Blu for sky or you have to always use Azzurro?

    Like in our language (estonian) we may use specific foreign word for sky blue (asuurne - apparently has the same root as Azzurro), but usually we don't use that - for us the sky is just blue (sinine) most often.

  • Members 1626 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 11:38 a.m.

    Blue is dark blue, Azzurro light blue. But we do have some exceptions and mixing.

  • Members 1089 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 1:21 p.m.
  • Aug. 24, 2024, 1:38 p.m.

    Actually I didn't talk about color shades, I meant basic colors - in russian these dark and light blue (синий and голубой) are completely different basic colors. Of course there can be much more words for different color shades, but they can be classified under basic ones (sky blue is some kind of blue and so on.)

    Years ago xkcd (they do not create only comics) made (unscientific) color survey to find out, how people name different colors (in english). Results and some interpretations follow:
    blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
    community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/434022

  • Members 1089 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 1:42 p.m.

    Yes I know. I was just having a joke... 😄

  • Members 1089 posts
    Aug. 24, 2024, 1:51 p.m.

    Thankyou!!!

    I had stopped looking at XKCD - why?

    So I looked again... He is very good.

    xkcd.com/2974/