Test your color vision with X-rite’s online 100 hue test October 3, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision , add a commentX-rite has a really neat online Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test that you can use to test your color vision. I want to be completely clear that I make no guarantees about the accuracy of this test though. I performed it on a new LED backlit LCD which has particularly vivid colors and scored a 107 on it which is considerably better than my performance using the real thing in a proper viewing booth with a calibrated light source (I got an average of 163 under those conditions). There are a number of reasons the scores could be different as in my case, the least of which is a screen with extra saturated colors.
Still, if you want to see what taking the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test is like, this is as close as you’re probably going to get on your computer.
X-rite Farnsworth-Munsell 100 hue test
Walking downtown July 16, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision, Photography , add a commentYesterday Joe and I decided to wander downtown Rochester some. Our starting point was the soon to be demolished Midtown Plaza. This fabulously retro and dilapidated place was the first downtown mall in the country, and we both felt we had to take a visit there to see what it was all about. I have to admit while it was interesting to see, for the most part the overall space did nothing for me, photographically speaking. I focused on some details though and got a few shots. On top of that, getting the right color balance for that lighting was really tricky. Since I can’t tell when it looks right I just took a stab at trying to get a white balance reading off something hopefully neutral and lit by the right color of light.
After that we left, were blinded by the sunlight and headed a bit north, past the Liberty pole and to this empty shell of a church. All that is left standing of this church is the steeple and the side walls, which are all stone. Interesting, but I couldn’t really get anything out of it that interested me.
Finally we wandered back south to the abandoned Manhattan Square Park and eventually reached the Strong Museum where the big colorful walls are.
You can see the rest of that expedition in the gallery below. I will be going through more of the photos tonight and may pick a few more to put up, which will probably go in a new post.
What does color blindness look like? June 26, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision , 1 comment so farIf you’ve stumbled across this site by accident or because you are curious about how being color blind affects people, you might appreciate getting a sense of how the world appears to a color blind person. There are a number of sites out there that provide demonstrations of color blindness. Here I’ll mention some of the web sites and tools that have been made available to people who are “color normal” and some of these will likely result in another post on tools for the colorblind.
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Software for the colorblind: Tenebraex eyePilot June 20, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision , 2 commentsPretend you’re at a busy subway or train station in a city you don’t know your way around. You’re supposed to pick out the trains you need and the stations to switch at to get somewhere. The lines are all color coded: red, blue, green, yellow, orange, etc. What do you do if the colors are muted or not particularly clear and you’re color blind?
If you guessed stand there frustrated and confused, you guessed right!
Even under ideal conditions, like on a calibrated computer screen, greens can blend in to oranges and they can be difficult to differentiate from reds for many people (and there are certainly other kinds of color vision defects). If you haven’t figured it out by now from posts about color vision and the title of this site haven’t given it away, I’m one of those people.
There are various programs on the market catering to helping people with color vision problems better understand what is on their computer monitor. Although not generally tools for photography, some can come in handy and since I get a lot of people coming here after searching for color vision related topics I think writing about these programs is appropriate. One tool which I have owned for a couple years and does come in handy from time to time is eyePilot made by Tenebraex and available here: http://www.colorhelper.com/.
More light & color May 25, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision, Photography , add a commentOften, when it’s late in the day and I’m tired or haven’t had the opportunity to think of anything good before-hand, I wind up wandering around with my camera trying to find something for the photo-a-day project. I often carry a flash and an off camera cord for it just in case it might be useful (and it often is). Several days ago I was doing just this, and found that with some bounce flash I could get some really interesting shapes and colors out of some glass mixing bowls.
For lack of a better name these have been unofficially dubbed Fiery Rings 1 and 2. I also did some variations in processing where I changed the color temperatures to make them turn blue, but I liked what looked (to me) like it had the color of fire. My trouble with color came up here again because I wanted them to have nice reds and oranges, and based on the RGB value I think I got to that point for the most part. Hopefully they still look that way to “color normal” observers. I am trying to balance the amount of color and saturation here; I don’t want it to go too far, but I certainly don’t want to desaturate it.
Pushing the white balance around is always interesting for these abstract things because I don’t really find there’s a right or wrong, and it eliminates the need to mess with colored gels on the flash when I’m shooting. If I want some color that’s not blue, red, yellow or somewhere along those lines though colored gels do tend to work better.
I fully intend to go back to these and not only try different colors, but try to get multiple colors to exist within one frame. That may be trickier, they may all just end up blending in to one color but I’m hoping it will work out.
Back to Mendon Ponds April 14, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision, Photography , 1 comment so farSomehow I convinced my friends to join me down to Mendon Ponds yesterday to go for a hike and take some photos. We parked and hiked in a little bit and found some interesting things to shoot, mostly just taking advantage of the nice light from the setting sun. Eventually we decided that it was getting too dark and too chilly to stay there much longer, but I think we were also just running dry creatively for whatever reason.
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- Reflection
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- Barn Silhouette
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- Reeds & Sky
I found the barn silhouette interesting. Not my favorite of the bunch but I thought the sky was intense enough to include. Reflection is, by far, my favorite. I have struggled with the colors though as I’m not sure if the reeds are too yellowish or too reddish or too something. Half the problem is I don’t know if they’re too saturated, the other half is I don’t know if they’re the wrong color. Oh well! I like how their warmth and brightness plays off against the cool darker water.
I like the one so creatively named “reeds & sky” but I’d like it better without that shadow. Unfortunately there was a tree behind me and I just didn’t notice the shadow when I was shooting. If I had I would have recomposed to try to remove it from the frame if I could.
Lost in the dark October 22, 2007
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision, Photography , add a commentSometimes I take an image and have a heck of a time getting it to come out right. Yesterday I went to Letchworth State Park with a couple friends to take some photos and I got a handful of shots that I’ll put up here over the next day or so.
One of the first images I edited was the one below and the first one I produced was too green. Usually I can rely on digital counts to figure out the color of whats in the scene but with a shot like this it’s harder. I called on Joe to tell me how it looked and he said “too green” so after a couple tweaks (and a conversion to B&W) I had these:
It certainly can be a bit of trial and error since there’s no easy process I can use to get every image to come out right. I keep working on new approaches but more often than not I stick to what I’ve used for years (DC counting on objects I think I should know the color of) and the assistance of someone else to verify in the end.
Another post or two in the coming days will have the remainder of what I’m going to post from the trip.
Playing with color July 2, 2007
Posted by tcbp in : Color Vision, Photography , add a commentI’ve been messing around with color on recent photographs more than usual. Generally I take a pretty tame approach since when I do anything the results can be unpredictable, but it’s been fun to crank things up in varying ways. This weekend Joe and I went shooting on Saturday and Sunday night up near Lake Ontario at two different places. Saturday we missed the sunset for the most part, but still got some lingering color, and on Sunday we found a spot that I think we both want to explore some more near Braddock Bay
