Visualizing Colors

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S.Witt-Tampa

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I'm not much of a computer geek here, (my problems usually result from a nut loose behing the keyboard) but we have visualization software (Frame Vue) and I wonder if there is some way to "calibrate" the colors that are displayed on the monitor????? Suspect it is not a function of the Frame Vue as much as it is between the camera and the graphics board... ...but if I really knew that I wouldn't be asking.

The software works great most of the time and especially when displaying a rough design idea or chosing the moulding. But when you try to finalize the design, it would be nice to be a little closer to the actual mat colors.

Any members of the Geek Squad out there???
 
Hello

Usually you can get it amazingly close by playing with the lighting, camera preview window, and monitor settings until you are pleased. We had a similar problem 2 years ago, with our previous system, and found that we had TOO MUCH light on the art. We have the same (FV) system as you and are happy with the color approximation with our Canon S1 IS series.

However, if you REALLY want to tweak the colors.... There are some monitor calibration gizmos out there. They'll even auto adjust your monitor as the lighting in the room changes. (sunny vs evening) I am not aware of any framers that use these things, but a relative of mine who is a digital photographer uses one.

If anyone here uses one, please speak up with your results.

examples:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...librate+monitor&type=product&id=1164154037485

http://www.pcconnection.com/ProductDetail?sku=6282758

http://www.pcworld.com/article/124911-1/article.html

I'm not a professional photographer, and just sharing my own opinion/experience. Others may have additional advice, and this has come up in previous threads as well if you would like to search the Tech forum.

Best regards
Mike
z-prop-hat.gif
Member, grumble geek squad :)
 
I have one of the Pantone Huey gizmos. Don't waste your money. It does appear to calibrate the monitor to ambient and changing lighting conditions. It does not compensate for any color changes caused by the camera system. That being said, I couldn't tell the difference with or without it, so it's collecting dust somewhere in the office.

It seems as though there are just too many variables to get things perfect. We get acceptable correction using the camera ambient lighting settings, but there's always the really picky customer who will not be pleased regardless of the level of accuracy.
 
I thought those were mostly for calibrating your monitor to your printer. I've never heard of anybody using it calibrate your camera to your monitor but anythings possible.

To calibrate your camera to your monitor you would probably shoot with a gray card in the shot. Then in PS select levels and pick the middle dropper and click on the gray card. But thats not very practical at the design counter is it?

You can try to shoot a mat specifier. Then you will have every color in one shot and you can adjust from there. I'll bet you'll have best results turning flash off and adjusting your shutter speed and white values.

Everybody seems to struggle with this.

Good luck.
 
Hooo Boy! Where to start...

Actually, you can get the colors nearly identical--as close as the hardware is capable of--and way better than you can eyeball it if you chose the right tool and learn how to use it--sorta like you can cut a better mat with a Wizard than by hand with a utility knife--but you have to learn the software.

The camera does not cause any color changes. It records the colors it sees as numbers and passes that data to the computer.

The colors it sees depend somewhat on the "color temperature" or color of the light you are using. Compare the color of candlelight to the color of daylight at high noon.

The Canon S series cameras have settings to adjust for this.

• Auto
• Daylight
• Cloudy
• Tungsten
• Fluorescent
• Fluorescent H
• Flash
• Custom

Choose the closest one, or try them all to see what you get. Read the manual that came with the camera. That may actually get you pretty close.

Using fluorescent lights can make things more difficult. Take a close look at your fixtures. Those lights can have a strong yellow, blue, pink, or green cast. If you are using a mix of bulbs, there is just about nothing that can be done to correct the light, short of turning them off.

You might have to buy some photography quality lights for your viz table. Lots to choose from at http://www.bhphotovideo.com. Or the right kind of gallery lighting would at least give you a consistent color temperature to work with.

Once you have the color temperature thing figured out, the camera will be sending numbers for "red" to the computer that can actually be displayed as red.

The next step is to calibrate your monitor so it knows which number means red. Think of the color of toast. We may agree that we want "golden brown," but no two toasters will produce that color with exactly the same setting. The right setting on your toaster may char the bread black on mine. The Huey, or EyeOne Display device is a gizmo that determines the right setting for your individual monitor and adjusts the "toaster" in your video card to the right shade of brown.

None of the calibration devices will adjust your monitor as the light changes during the day, unless you run the program over and over. Normally you control the light in your viewing area and calibrate to that light on a weekly or monthly basis. The best way to handle ambient light is to keep it off your screen with a shade from http://www.compushade.com. They go on with Velcro for about 40 bucks.

With the correct color temperature settings and a calibrated monitor you should be able to see that a piece of Black Watch mat board is a dark, dark green--or fully appreciate the nuances in Las Cruces purple.

(If you are thinking about branching into wide format printing, you will need to learn a whole bunch more about a color managed work flow. Andrew Rodney and Bruce Fraser wrote the books on the subject, available at http://www.amazon.com. When you calibrate your printer, you will need to create a profile for each paper, ink set, and dpi resolution. The equipment to do that correctly will run about as much as a better grade underpinner. IIRC, Framah has a big Epson printer and might have some advice.)

If I were just starting out, I would go to http://www.gretagmacbethstore.com/ and look at the Color Checker ($80). That will give you a set of reference colors to at least eyeball your lights and display. Then the EyeOne Display is a quality calibration tool ($250) that works well for general monitor work. I have more expensive models to calibrate my printers, but I keep a Display in my laptop case for calibration on the go.

Color management can definitely be intimidating at first, but if you take it step by step, getting the right colors is no harder than moving up from a precut-mat-in-a-ready-made-frame to one of those wonderful compound-complex-creations on display at http://franksfabrics.com/.

So Rick, just a thought, if you aren't using your Huey, maybe you could send it to S.Witt. :D
 
Wow...Chili....that's a lot of info........I've printed it and put it into my "Info to-process-when-I'm-beginning-to-get-this" file. Thank you for all of that! Hoo-boy, no kidding!!!
 
When the customer says "It looks too blue on the screen" I say, "The screen shows you the completed design. The samples [right there in front of you, dummy] are what the actual materials are made of."
 
When I am way off in mat colors, I turn off the fluorescent lights, leaving just the flood lights on. I have to adjust the exposure settings in IF then, but I am usually able to get a better color match.
 
Steve - Tampa

Thanks for the info.

When I first got the system up an running the colors were actually almost right-on. It seems to have gotten bad over time, so I suspected that I must have re-adjusted one of the thingies that I shouldn't have touched in the first place - as usual.

Agreed that the customers can see the mat samples right in front of them, but I've even had some complain when I don't get the wall color just right - yeah, right, like I've seen their wall. I love the the Frame Vue concept, but with some customers I think I'm giving them way too much information.

I'll start with something I can understand - the lighting.

Thanks again
 
Chile ...great information. Thanks for taking the time and effort to post.

One factor to consider that hasn't been mentioned is where the art will be hanging and the lighting in it's eventual environment.

As Chile pointed out, you can adjust your lighting to 5500 Kelvin to approximate noon daylight, but who hangs their art in that type of lighting other than a museum?

If the art is hanging in a home, it normally has incandescent lighting and is warm. If it's hanging in an office environment it probably will have cool florescent lighting. If their is ambient window lighting the color temp will change throughout the course of the day.

The color temperature will drastically change the colors of both the art and framing elements.

I always ask the customer what environment the art will reside in and what type of artificial and natural lighting exists there. Then I try to approximate that lighting by utilizing existing lighting in my store. Or, if critical, I suggest they take samples home.

I don't yet use visualization software. I figured I'd let all you folks work out the kinks and pay the R&D costs. From my digital imaging service bureau days I've paid enough of them.
 
Yeah... what Chili said!:thumbsup:

Always glad to help.

I use a Pantone Spyder to calibrate my monitor.

All of those settings in the camera will change the temperature of the lighting. What might help you also is to take a shot of the same white board in each of the settings and compare them on the screen to see which one matches the original the closest.

Until you calibrate your monitor to get the most accurate colors, you will not be able to set the camera to its proper temp setting for your lighting situation.
One of the problems in all this is that each "thingy" in the chain has its own limitations as to how accurately it records colors. The camera, the monitor, the programs themselves. Also there is a setting in the camera for the type of color you want sRGB or Adobe RGB(1998). You want to have it set to Adobe RGB as this has a larger color gamut or is able to handle a larger amount of color.
This is always a problem with trying to re create color to the original image.
Nothing will give you 100% accurate reproduction of the colors of the original but different settings will give you a larger "coverage" so to speak.

sRGB is not the preferred setting.

The more you get these different settings and calibrations right, the better you will be able to accurately show the colors.

Then recalibrate your monitor every few months or so. Each monitor is different in how long it holds its calibration. I have a LaCie Electron Blue and it holds it setting really well and I recalibrate every 6 months. Even then, it doesn't change much.
 
My Canon S2 camera is set for manual exposure - F/8 at 1/1000 sec.

Color is set for auto.

Color effect is off (sometimes I change to Vivid or neutral depending on the art's reflectance to pop it up or dull it down for best monitor appearance)

No Flash!!

My design table is lit using 2 light heads from a studio electronic flash system. Reading the light at any point on the table with an flash meter (light meter that reads light from a flash) reads f/8 within .2 f/stops

The images are good enough that I can print 16 x 20 images on my wide format Epson printers and sell them to customers.

Then I get to matboard corner samples and I can't get accurate color on the screen. I believe that these "point and shoot" digital cameras do some color juggling in processing the data and you can't control it.

So I can get a good image of the art and a good image of the frame corner sample but the mats often don't look as they should.

I have put the mat sampler pages on the table and taken a picture of them. I open a sampler and simply sample any mat color that looks on the screen like the one on the table - don't care which mat color it is just as long as it looks good - works for me.

Visualization software has a long way to go. Perhaps a little color control - (take out a little blue?) would be usefull.
 
Which brings out the need (maybe a future thing) for color samples stored in the system by the vendors of such visualization systems:

You enter B8466 and you get the Bainbridge Frost White that you really wanted. This way you don't have to take pictures of mat samples anymore.

I know I am dreaming, but it can happen.
 
Bandsaw, I was told a long time ago by Wizard that it really didn't matter what your camera was set to, as the IF software controls the exposure. Guess I had better take a look at my camera settings though. Which brings me to another question....I have my camera mounted on the ceiling. Is there a way to check and change the settings from the PC?

Back on color, I've also noticed that the color of my counter top changes the mat colors in IF. My counter has a multi-colored carpet on it. If I put a white or light gray mat on top of the counter and place the samples on top of that, I usually get a totally different mat color in IF. Sometimes better...but sometimes worse. Interesting!
 
I don't shoot in the Integrated framer software. I shoot in the Canon software which allows me to control the camera. Both software are running. When I take a picture it appears on screen in the Canon Zoom Browser so I can check that I like it or shoot again. The image is saved at the same time in "My Pictures". I then tab to IF and "Open From File" instead of "Aquire From Camera" - really doesn't take any longer once you get used to it.

My design tables are 18% Gray which is a photo standard. My tables have been this color for 20 plus years - I find it very helpfull in seeing colors. If I place one mat corner on the table and zoom right in on it I get the best color.

If the image the camera sees is a vast variety of colors in different amounts it will interpret the color to what it's software thinks is correct. For this reason I try to keep the table area that the camera sees as simple as possible. I take a picture of the art separately, then the frame corner sample separately, then the mats. And if I have mat color problems I take pictures of each mat color separately. If you can zoom in until one mat color fills the frame it can give a better result - but not always.

If I'm having big problems with mat colors and I have the time and need I scan the mat corner into Photoshop and adjust the color on the screen until I'm happy.
 
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