Colour accuracy - photographing fabric
Discussion
Hi All
My wife's got a small fabric business and one of the reasons I bought a DSLR (D5100) recently was to get better photos of the fabric for the website. I'd previously shot using a compact camera and the white/colour balance was all over the place with colours often looking nothing like the actual subject in real life and needing loads of tweaking afterwards to even get close to a real representation.
Since getting the D5100 I've been able to get some far better and more accurate colouring, more vivid and bright coloured fabrics seem to be pretty much spot on but I still struggle with certain shades, particularly pale blues and greens which come out almost off-white with only a hint of colour.
I've tried shooting in natural sunlight, in the shade / overcast, and under halogen downlighters, I've got a diffuser box to put the fabric inside to try and give an even light all round, I've played around with WB both on camera and post processing on RAW using NX2 and also tried a WB preset on the camera using a sheet of white paper shot under the same conditions, but I still am not quite getting there.
Does anyone have any advice on how best to shoot this kind of stuff short of having a full studio setup which we can't do?
cheers
My wife's got a small fabric business and one of the reasons I bought a DSLR (D5100) recently was to get better photos of the fabric for the website. I'd previously shot using a compact camera and the white/colour balance was all over the place with colours often looking nothing like the actual subject in real life and needing loads of tweaking afterwards to even get close to a real representation.
Since getting the D5100 I've been able to get some far better and more accurate colouring, more vivid and bright coloured fabrics seem to be pretty much spot on but I still struggle with certain shades, particularly pale blues and greens which come out almost off-white with only a hint of colour.
I've tried shooting in natural sunlight, in the shade / overcast, and under halogen downlighters, I've got a diffuser box to put the fabric inside to try and give an even light all round, I've played around with WB both on camera and post processing on RAW using NX2 and also tried a WB preset on the camera using a sheet of white paper shot under the same conditions, but I still am not quite getting there.
Does anyone have any advice on how best to shoot this kind of stuff short of having a full studio setup which we can't do?
cheers
Well, garments colours do look different depending what light you view them in, so there's not really a 'true' colour as such. I think natural daylight is the best since that's how they'll normally be seen, but not natural daylight which will obviously given them an unnaturally bright appearance.
Another issue is how you are viewing the pictures - if its on the computer monitor have you calibrated that? And of course if viewed on a website the pictures will only ever be as good as the customer's monitor.
Another issue is how you are viewing the pictures - if its on the computer monitor have you calibrated that? And of course if viewed on a website the pictures will only ever be as good as the customer's monitor.
I struggle on my light colours too, I take pictures of beaded jewellery for my website, it's the pale pastels that I struggle with, blue pink and green, always look washed out, so I'd be interested to see what suggestions you get, tried playing with them when on computer but never get the right colour, it's like the camera doesn't pick up the colours.
Always natural daylight and in a white tent
Always natural daylight and in a white tent
Sounds like you're taking a considered approach to the capture stage so this could/ should be a simple processing issue.
When you open a RAW file most processing software only imports white balance of the in-camera settings. As a Nikon product, NX is different and also takes contrast & saturation settings. Might be worth looking at these in camera and on the computer to make sure they're not having an adverse affect on the final image. Or you could try a different processing tool?
When you open a RAW file most processing software only imports white balance of the in-camera settings. As a Nikon product, NX is different and also takes contrast & saturation settings. Might be worth looking at these in camera and on the computer to make sure they're not having an adverse affect on the final image. Or you could try a different processing tool?
Oddly enough a query like this on PH years ago is how I came to be doing what I do now!
Shooting RAW with a white calibration tag should get WB correct - but exposure will affect colour too - I suspect this is Miss Diane's issue.
Assuming your monitor is calibrated then if you still can't get it looking right, I'd fly it manually until it *looked* right. Ctrl/L, Ctrl/M, Ctrl/B - the answer is in there somewhere.
Shooting RAW with a white calibration tag should get WB correct - but exposure will affect colour too - I suspect this is Miss Diane's issue.
Assuming your monitor is calibrated then if you still can't get it looking right, I'd fly it manually until it *looked* right. Ctrl/L, Ctrl/M, Ctrl/B - the answer is in there somewhere.
The fact is, some colours just won't photograph accurately. Things are much better and easier to correct in the age of digital, but some colours still can go AWOL.
When I first started out, the studio I worked in had a dedicated team of retouchers correcting colours. This was in the days of film and when shooting fashion, the client would want his green dress to look green, rather than brown, as often happened (or visa versa), some of the dyes just don't record accurately. Kodak called this anomalous reflectance syndrome or dichroic colour, were a colour could flip. Back in the film days retouchers used to mask and bleach out the troublesome areas on the transparency and replace it with a photographic dye to match the actual garment they had with them.
I have found this to continue when shooting digital with fabric and, to a lesser extent, jewellery. i.e. things like purple appear blue on the monitor as I'm shooting, so have to correct with local selective colour adjustments when I edit and process the RAW file.
Using passport/grey cards and shooting RAW is the best starting point for achieving accurate colour, but you will still have to tweak some colours when you process or adjust in PS if you want to show what your product or garment as it looks. Just the way it is.
ETA
When I first started out, the studio I worked in had a dedicated team of retouchers correcting colours. This was in the days of film and when shooting fashion, the client would want his green dress to look green, rather than brown, as often happened (or visa versa), some of the dyes just don't record accurately. Kodak called this anomalous reflectance syndrome or dichroic colour, were a colour could flip. Back in the film days retouchers used to mask and bleach out the troublesome areas on the transparency and replace it with a photographic dye to match the actual garment they had with them.
I have found this to continue when shooting digital with fabric and, to a lesser extent, jewellery. i.e. things like purple appear blue on the monitor as I'm shooting, so have to correct with local selective colour adjustments when I edit and process the RAW file.
Using passport/grey cards and shooting RAW is the best starting point for achieving accurate colour, but you will still have to tweak some colours when you process or adjust in PS if you want to show what your product or garment as it looks. Just the way it is.
ETA
missdiane said:
I struggle on my light colours too, I take pictures of beaded jewellery for my website, it's the pale pastels that I struggle with, blue pink and green, always look washed out, so I'd be interested to see what suggestions you get, tried playing with them when on computer but never get the right colour, it's like the camera doesn't pick up the colours.
Always natural daylight and in a white tent
The problem with photographing beads with subtle colours is that they may well be reflective too. So what you are effectively photographing is the light white light tent reflecting off the bead, which desaturates the colour of the bead and therefore makes the colours look washed out. Light tents are fine for some things but not so good for others. Sometimes hard light is better. I assume you are familiar with magazines like Lets Make Jewellery and can tell you that a lot of selective colour correction is applied to correct the problems, but getting it right is not easy.Always natural daylight and in a white tent
Edited by Bacardi on Sunday 16th September 02:04
Cheers all, looks like there's no magic to it or anything I'm missing so will have to continue tweaking in post processing as and where necessary then, having only recently got my DSLR I've yet to invest in any software as I'm currently using the combination of NX2 for RAW processing and Paint.net for other tweaks. I'm not sure I can stomach the investment in the full photoshop suite at the moment so would I be better served with Lightroom or PS Elements for this type of work?
Bacardi said:
The problem with photographing beads with subtle colours is that they may well be reflective too. So what you are effectively photographing is the light white light tent reflecting off the bead, which desaturates the colour of the bead and therefore makes the colours look washed out. Light tents are fine for some things but not so good for others. Sometimes hard light is better. I assume you are familiar with magazines like Lets Make Jewellery and can tell you that a lot of selective colour correction is applied to correct the problems, but getting it right is not easy.
Thanks, I never buy the magazines, didn't realise they had photography tips in them, thanks for that Edited by Bacardi on Sunday 16th September 02:04
LocoBlade said:
Cheers all, looks like there's no magic to it or anything I'm missing so will have to continue tweaking in post processing as and where necessary then, having only recently got my DSLR I've yet to invest in any software as I'm currently using the combination of NX2 for RAW processing and Paint.net for other tweaks. I'm not sure I can stomach the investment in the full photoshop suite at the moment so would I be better served with Lightroom or PS Elements for this type of work?
I'd also suggest what Mark said, you take one shot with the colorchecker in the frame, then another without it (keeping lighting/setting constant) then you have a known reference.markmullen said:
Have a look at colorchecker passport (cheaper grey cards are available) which will help you get an accurate white balance.
LocoBlade said:
Cheers all, looks like there's no magic to it or anything I'm missing
As mentioned, you're best (IMO) using a sheet of pure white card to calibrate the camera each time. You might even be able to leave a corner of the white card in your shot. Shoot raw and then check the white balance on the monitor, and you can set it correctly using the sample white card in your image. Then just crop the photo to exclude that sample white card.HTH
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