The Chiropractic Hazards of Reading

St. Marks Bookstore, NY

doug anderson said:

St. Marks Bookstore, NY

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Hi Doug,

It's almost surreal, great catch.

Bart

P.S. If you don't mind my mentioning it, maybe it's intentional, but your most recent (yesterday's) images involving human skin have a very yellow/green color balance/cast. Maybe something has changed in your setup? In this particular image it might add to the surreal quality, but I'm not sure if it was intentional.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Hi Doug,

It's almost surreal, great catch.

Bart

P.S. If you don't mind my mentioning it, maybe it's intentional, but your most recent (yesterday's) images involving human skin have a very yellow/green color balance/cast. Maybe something has changed in your setup? In this particular image it might add to the surreal quality, but I'm not sure if it was intentional.

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Bart, you are right. I can't figure it out. It may be the tungsten lighting and my camera's inability to process it. When I gave it a quick fix in elements 6, it got worse, and I was unable to undo it. I guess I'm going to have to go deeper into Photoshop and learn how to modulate color.

D

Now she's read. I have a lot to learn about color balance. The smart fix option's kind of useless.

Maybe its my camera.

D

Either way, Doug, this picture is exceptional!

It's a very special thing you have done. So, what makes its so?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Either way, Doug, this picture is exceptional!

It's a very special thing you have done. So, what makes its so?

Asher

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Good question. Thanks for the comments.

D

Your pictures reminds me of Gauguin's works. A sort of imagined primitive innocence, "sauvage" The color shift helps direct that notion!




"One whole branch of modern art has glorified primitivism as an attribute imported to Western culture. Artists from Picasso to Henry Moore have explored the mirage of a nonwhite primitivism. Gauguin contributed much to the origin of this idea. His artistic fantasy about the natural and uninhibited primitivism of other people -- whether he meant it as a compliment or not -- was racist, since neither the Tahitians nor any other people portrayed in his art were the source of his vision." Source: is from an Essay by Keith Morrison, Perspectives on the Art of Gauguin; For Nonwhites, It's Racist Propaganda.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Your pictures reminds me of Gauguin's works. A sort of imagined primitive innocence, "sauvage" The color shift helps direct that notion!

Print image absgallery.com Paul Gauguin. Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary). 1891.
Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.​

"One whole branch of modern art has glorified primitivism as an attribute imported to Western culture. Artists from Picasso to Henry Moore have explored the mirage of a nonwhite primitivism. Gauguin contributed much to the origin of this idea. His artistic fantasy about the natural and uninhibited primitivism of other people -- whether he meant it as a compliment or not -- was racist, since neither the Tahitians nor any other people portrayed in his art were the source of his vision." Source: is from an Essay by Keith Morrison, Perspectives on the Art of Gauguin; For Nonwhites, It's Racist Propaganda.

Asher

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Ha! Gaugin's color balance problem didn't bother him at all. I feel vindicated....

The skin is better, but now the yellow is wierd...

Hi Doug
would you mind sending the raw file (or any format but untouched original) so we could see what happens from the begining?

Nicolas, I'd like to, but I don't have a raw file, and the original doesn't really exist. I did an auto smart fix on it and couldn't undo it.

However, here is another shot taken just after that is pretty close to the original.

D

In this case, it seems that the yellow from her shoes and bags permeates the whole image.

Frankly, Doug, the first image is perfect as is your second version. Color is only job is to add or modulate feelings and directions for what is seen. In each of your two versions of your photograph, the color works to present a coherent enjoyable picture. "Correct" color is really a scientific concept applicable to quality control for printing the best representations of things described such as a painting, garment or interior of a well-crafted boat.

In the real world, however, mostly it's over-rated. Quite often we do not need accuracy since we hardly ever have an environment where that is usable. That's because our impression of even that accurate color varies with changes in the make up of illuminating light! Therefore, what we perceive depends on the time of the day. Also the presence of other colored objects. These reflect an added hue, even a bush or tree nearby or a red dress. That effect is two-fold. First the light from the colored object contaminates the existing primary light illuminating the object being viewed and next the proximity of one color or shade to another alters our perception of what hue or tonal value it might actually possess.

So the way I'd look at it is in the impression given by the picture. I'd ask, "To what extent it invokes and evokes the totality of the picture's (i.e.. the photographer's) intent!" On the reception end, I had no issues with color at all, in fact, it's part of the charm!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

modulate feelings and directions for what is seen. In each of your two versions of your photograph, the color works to present a coherent enjoyable picture. "Correct" color is really a scientific concept applicable to quality control for printing the best representations of things described such as a painting, garment or interior of a well-crafted boat.

In the real world, however, mostly it's over-rated. Quite often we do not need accuracy since we hardly ever have an environment where that is usable. That's because our impression of even that accurate color varies with changes in the make up of illuminating light! Therefore, what we perceive depends on the time of the day. Also the presence of other colored objects. These reflect an added hue, even a bush or tree nearby or a red dress. That effect is two-fold. First the light from the colored object contaminates the existing primary light illuminating the object being viewed and next the proximity of one color or shade to another alters our perception of what hue or tonal value it might actually possess.

So the way I'd look at it is in the impression given by the picture. I'd ask, "To what extent it invokes and evokes the totality of the picture's (i.e.. the photographer's) intent!" On the reception end, I had no issues with color at all, in fact, it's part of the charm!

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Thanks, Asher.

Asher Kelman said:

Frankly, Doug, the first image is perfect as is your second version. Color is only job is to add or modulate feelings and directions for what is seen. In each of your two versions of your photograph, the color works to present a coherent enjoyable picture. "Correct" color is really a scientific concept applicable to quality control for printing the best representations of things described such as a painting, garment or interior of a well-crafted boat.

In the real world, however, mostly it's over-rated. Quite often we do not need accuracy since we hardly ever have an environment where that is usable. That's because our impression of even that accurate color varies with changes in the make up of illuminating light! Therefore, what we perceive depends on the time of the day. Also the presence of other colored objects. These reflect an added hue, even a bush or tree nearby or a red dress. That effect is two-fold. First the light from the colored object contaminates the existing primary light illuminating the object being viewed and next the proximity of one color or shade to another alters our perception of what hue or tonal value it might actually possess.

So the way I'd look at it is in the impression given by the picture. I'd ask, "To what extent it invokes and evokes the totality of the picture's (i.e.. the photographer's) intent!" On the reception end, I had no issues with color at all, in fact, it's part of the charm!

Asher

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Asher
I almost agree, but you forget one IMPORTANT thing, is that to reveal his REAL intent, an artist have to rely on his skills and must control every single things that make the picture.
An artist cannot rely on any auto settings that HE has not under control, should the artist wish to perform his own auto action, this is fine, but relying on auto feature provided by the industry will take the risk for the artist to rely on luck.
This is one main of the WHYs most of photographers don't shoot JPEG but raw, they don't want to rely on the industry's view of an image.
Luck is the latest thing an artist should rely on…
That lady could be green or pink or whatever color if the artist would have previously said "I'll get her pink (or yellow, or white, or…").

Heureusement, PS since long time gives the power to change selective colors (much better to do this when converting raw files).
Below is an example of an exactly 30 seconds try (the intent there, was to bring the skin color more "correct" if I may say…)




on the left is the image posted by Doug viewed in Safari in background
on the right is the image retouched after a very slight USM (couldn't resist!)

Nicolas Claris said:

Heureusement, PS since long time gives the power to change selective colors (much better to do this when converting raw files).
Below is an example of an exactly 30 seconds try (the intent there, was to bring the skin color more "correct" if I may say…)

on the left is the image posted by Doug viewed in Safari in background
on the right is the image retouched after a very slight USM (couldn't resist!)

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But, my dear friend, she if not Gaugin sienna colors, then Matisse blue, je vous en prie!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

But, my dear friend, she if not Gauguin sienna colors, then Matisse blue, je vous en prie!

Asher

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Who said it should be so? You maybe… Not Doug! below is the quote of his second post repling to Bart:

Bart, you are right. I can't figure it out. It may be the tungsten lighting and my camera's inability to process it. When I gave it a quick fix in elements 6, it got worse, and I was unable to undo it. I guess I'm going to have to go deeper into Photoshop and learn how to modulate color.

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So the artist intent here was not Gaugin's colors.
This was your interpretation! which is straightly your right to read the image like this, but it is not Doug's intent…

BTW can't see any Matisse blue here…

Nicolas and Asher: You guys are really terrific. This is very high level teaching.

Thanks,

D

Nicolas Claris said:

... to reveal his REAL intent, an artist have to rely on his skills and must control every single things that make the picture.
An artist cannot rely on any auto settings that HE has not under control, should the artist wish to perform his own auto action, this is fine, but relying on auto feature provided by the industry will take the risk for the artist to rely on luck.

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I fully agree with that!

When a color balance is 'off', it should be the deliberate choice of the photographer as a means to underline his/her previsualized intent. Sometimes(!), in post-processing, one may discover other/different ways of augmenting the intent, which is fine if it becomes a technique to be used repeatedly to achieve a goal. Luck has little to do with intent.

Postprocessing to create an intent which wasn't there to begin with, has more to do with photo manipulation than with photography, and is a different artform.

Bart

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

When a color balance is 'off', it should be the deliberate choice of the photographer as a means to underline his/her previsualized intent.

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Bart,

Although that appears self-evident, the photographer making his/her art, first draws on the original intent and then must look at the developing result and decide which, if any, of all the possible ways of development that are discovered by trial and or error, now represents his/her intent. In art, intent is plastic and iterative. By contrast, to demonstrate what the eye helps the brain observe, accuracy of color is a fixed intent.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Sometimes(!), in post-processing, one may discover other/different ways of augmenting the intent, which is fine if it becomes a technique to be used repeatedly to achieve a goal.

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Agreed!

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Luck has little to do with intent.

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Well if one found a piece of gold under the keyboard, then I'd agree. However, if the "luck" was a chance finding of a shape or color or other effect not thought of before, when working on a particular image, then that "luck" does have it's origin in the original intent.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

Postprocessing to create an intent which wasn't there to begin with, has more to do with photo manipulation than with photography, and is a different artform.
Bart

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Bart,

Photo-manipulation has always been part of photography. That you'd agree. Discovery of unimagined possibilities has gone side by side with accurate craftsmanship since the dawn of photography. All photoshop has done is to greatly exaggerate the occurrence of chance findings derived from the original intent.

Still, the point is well made that Doug's attractive picture of a girl reading, isn't exactly what he had intended, but an unexpected derivative. I believe that we have, (or can easily have) sufficient tools, technical knowledge and skill to execute original intent. Arriving at something else just because one is not able to reach one's goal is, in itself, a pity. So intervention by Nicolas, for example is worthy.

However, despite the shortcomings of failing to faithfully execute one's original intent, when the result of photoshopping is to make a picture outstanding, that can be welcomed. One has, despite one's technical shortcoming, gained from both chance and the immense possibilities of photoshop.

That, IMHO, is like going for a walk and, by chance, discovering a special leaf. Without the walk, (the original intent), the chance finding of the leaf (creating a new but derived intent) would not occur. However, that has, to some extent, always been part of photography. In previous years, intent with disciplined craft kept the walker on track to reach the original end intended.

Asher