xamier wrote:
Good Morning,
I downloaded some images last night, portraits using hot lights. (I can't post, the model was underage and I don't have a release)
On the camera screen many of the photos seemed perfectly exposed. When I downloaded into light room on my laptop, I had to add at least one stop, sometimes more to get them light enough to see. I am using a Nikon 5300 and a Tamron 18-400 mm lens. I shoot in raw, the white balance was incandescent, picture control standard, color space adobe, ISO 500.
I am wondering if it is the adobe color space, my monitor, the hot lights......I have never run into this problem before and I would love to understand what is happening and any insight into the differences between what I see on the camera monitor and my computer.
Thank you .
Good Morning, br I downloaded some images last nig... (
show quote)
It is probably a combination of factors. If your "hot lights" are type ECA photo lamps or quartz-halogen stage/studio lamps, they should be 3200K, and the "Incandescent" white balance setting should work.
When you save *raw* images at the camera, the color space is irrelevant when you process the *raw* data. But KNOW THIS: Your post-processing software or operating system will apply the proper *camera* profile to the raw file, and convert it to a 16-bit bitmap image in a wide gamut "connection" or "working" color space. THAT bitmap gets converted to monitor RGB (6, 8, or 10 bits per channel), and run through the appropriate monitor profile before display. That is why it is absolutely necessary to:
A) Use a monitor capable of displaying a wide color gamut (wide range of color saturation and brightness)
B) Use a monitor of at least 8-bits per channel display output (24 bits per pixel, or 16,777,216 colors)
C) Use a colorimeter or spectrophotometer and software to calibrate and custom profile your monitor
When you adjust images on a properly calibrated and custom-profiled monitor worthy of photographic editing, you are seeing the best representation of what is in your file. ASSUMING you're doing that, you may proceed to export images. That may be in any number of bit-depths, or color profiles.
The *camera's* profile setting only affects the JPEG preview image stuffed into the raw file, and/or any JPEG file you save separately. It MAY, based on the EXIF table tag, tell post-processing software to put the processed raw image into the Adobe RGB color space, but you can certainly change that when you export/save the adjusted file.
Even if you calibrate it and profile it with a calibration kit, it is highly unlikely that your laptop monitor can display enough of the Adobe RGB color space to be usable as an editing tool. Many laptop monitors are 6-bit monitors with extreme fall-off as you move left and right from the screen. While you may be able to calibrate and profile them, the result is no where near as accurate as a properly calibrated and custom-profiled *desktop* monitor.
I always advise people to use the sRGB color space at the camera. "8-bit JPEG files in sRGB" is the world standard for the Internet, and most photo labs prefer (less compressed, higher resolution) 8-bit JPEGs in sRGB as well. If you need to supply files in Adobe RGB, you need to evaluate them and adjust them ONLY on a monitor capable of displaying that wide gamut color space. Such monitors aren't cheap.
I also advise people to use Adobe RGB ONLY WHEN A LAB, PUBLISHER, OR SERVICE BUREAU SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS IT. The best way to do this is to work from raw images, adjust them on a calibrated and profiled monitor capable of displaying at least 99% of Adobe RGB color space, and export them to the exact specs required for bit-depth, file type, and profile.
The key to achieving realistic, "what I see on my monitor is what's really in my files and what prints" color is a combination of:
Exposure (nail it!)
White balance (Custom is best, based on a standard target used for both JPEG capture and raw file "click balance," but Kelvin and the camera's own choices can work. AVOID AWB.)
Raw capture
Raw conversion from the camera profile
Monitor quality, monitor calibration, custom monitor profile
Image adjustment by a person with accurate color vision (Take the Munsell Hue Test at
http://www.colormunki.com/game/huetest_kiosk.)
Proper choice of output parameters (bit depth, file type, compression, resolution, color space required for the end use)
Printing with a properly calibrated and profiled system in good working order.
It may be interesting to note that many of the largest portrait producers in the world have all-JPEG, sRGB workflows. We did where I worked... We made millions of portraits every year using JPEG capture under controlled lighting, with exposure referenced to a standard target also used for custom white balance.
The Adobe RGB setting ON A CAMERA is primarily for press photographers who must submit JPEGs directly from the field to their editors/publishers for immediate use. The editor or publisher has a wee bit more information to play with when the photographer uses Adobe RGB. But their workflows are set up to accommodate it. They have the right monitors, calibrators, and other workflow components to make it work.