Blue skies - white balance

[Iwan Bogels]

It is not that I don't like Iwan's picture, but if I remember correctly the sky was pretty blue that time of the day.

Now I have several questions:
1. Iwan, what is the reason your sky is almost grey and mine so blue?
2. What do the photographers here preffer?
3. Does the photographers here preffer pictures which represents the sky of the day, or do they preffer better light conditions on the subject? (I actually preffer my sky and Iwan´s light conditions on the F-16's)

Hi Maarten,

It’s a nice subject to discuss here. I like it. Here are a few of my answers:

Blue Skies: People usually think that the skies were more bluish that a photo shows. The reason behind this mistake is that we all tend to look straight up when we check the skies while on average we are shooting just over the horizon (near horizontal). The skies overhead are always blue’er than at the horizon because of the atmosphere. Reflection of light, pollution and just the fact that horizontally there is much more air in between our camera and outer space then when looking straight up, causes the clear blue skies to show much more “milky”. Give it a try by shooting a blue sky horizontally and vertically at the same occasion. You’ll be surprised to see how grey a blue sky will look.

So much for the different shades of blue between your mind and photo.

Much more interesting is the difference in shades between your photo and mine, both take almost simultaneously from the same spot. Here are some reasons I can think about.

Hardware:

- Lenses all have their own (glass) colour. It may sound strange, but some lenses are just slightly more blue or green than others
- Sensors can make the difference. Each different type can have their own characteristics. Somewhere on this forum there is a link to test graph showing the difference in colour depth.

Software

- Camera and computer software can make the difference in recording and displaying the right colours. I used Lightroom 3.4 to process my RAW-file, but I didn’t touch the white balance and colour temperature sliders.
- Even after using identical hardware and processing software, colours can be distorted by saving in the wrong colour profile (like Adobe 1998 or sRGB). When publishing on internet, sRGB is the standard. When saved in Adobe 1998, most browsers will show your photos in a different colour than you had set it on your own screen.

Do these reasons make any sense ? Looking forward to comments and additions.

Cheers,
Iwan

[DJdeRidder]

Reflection of light, pollution and just the fact that horizontally there is much more air in between our camera and outer space then when looking straight up, causes the clear blue skies to show much more “milky”. Give it a try by shooting a blue sky horizontally and vertically at the same occasion. You’ll be surprised to see how grey a blue sky will look.

That makes a lot of sense! Never realized it was that simple. You don't have to go outside and look for blue skies (especially not tonight), just look at your photos from the airshow. On your photos, the sky behind aircraft performing loopings and other manoeuvres high in the sky is darker blue than the sky behind aircraft doing a low flyby. I always wondered why these sky colors changed so much on photo, now I have an explanation..

[Iwan Bogels]

To show the importance of colour profiles, I have created a composition that shows the diference between the three most common settings: sRGB, Adobe(1998) and ProPhoto.

What I did was that I adjusted my RAW-file in Lightroom 3, and changed the settings in order to match it to the way I liked it best. For this I used a calibrated monitor. After reaching the final result I saved it three times, in colour profiles called sRGB, Adobe(1998) and ProPhoto.

Almost every internet browser will show EVERY photo in the sRGB colourprofile. So when showing a sRGB photo in a sRGB browser, it will show the photo in a way that it was meant to be. But when a sRGB browser wants to show an Adobe(1998) or ProPhhoto image, it needs to convert the colours and a deviation will occur. The result is that the browser will show slightly different colours than what you intended to show when you were using Lightroom, Photoshop or any other image processor.

This is what the difference looks like:



Now don’t be fooled by thinking “I like the ProPhoto result better, so I will use that one in the future”, because it does not match the colours that you INTEND to show. If you want it to show like the ProPhoto result, you will have to adjust your photo to that setting in Lightroom and save it in sRGB.

Below you will see the difference again, but applied on the same area. Check out the colour of the afterburner! From left to right: ProPhoto, Adobe(1998), sRGB.



I hope this explains a part of the mystery.

Cheers,
Iwan

[wild weasel]

To show the importance of colour profiles, I have created a composition that shows the diference between the three most common settings: sRGB, Adobe(1998) and ProPhoto.

What I did was that I adjusted my RAW-file in Lightroom 3, and changed the settings in order to match it to the way I liked it best. For this I used a calibrated monitor. After reaching the final result I saved it three times, in colour profiles called sRGB, Adobe(1998) and ProPhoto.

Almost every internet browser will show EVERY photo in the sRGB colourprofile. So when showing a sRGB photo in a sRGB browser, it will show the photo in a way that it was meant to be. But when a sRGB browser wants to show an Adobe(1998) or ProPhhoto image, it needs to convert the colours and a deviation will occur. The result is that the browser will show slightly different colours than what you intended to show when you were using Lightroom, Photoshop or any other image processor.

This is what the difference looks like:



Now don’t be fooled by thinking “I like the ProPhoto result better, so I will use that one in the future”, because it does not match the colours that you INTEND to show. If you want it to show like the ProPhoto result, you will have to adjust your photo to that setting in Lightroom and save it in sRGB.

Below you will see the difference again, but applied on the same area. Check out the colour of the afterburner! From left to right: ProPhoto, Adobe(1998), sRGB.



I hope this explains a part of the mystery.

Cheers,
Iwan

Some solid and usefull information Iwan, thanks a lot for sharing with us!

Cheers!

Menno

[Thijs]

Some more info about color profiles http://forum.scramble.nl/viewtopic.php? ... 25#p312725

[SquAdmin]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any difference between the three afterburners...

I've read a blog by some hotshot expert in which he write that the whole sRGB/Adobe discussion is highly exaggerated: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/adobe-rgb.htm

[nilsko]

I do see some differences though. The sRGB afterburner seems to be the brightest/most vivid. The prophoto one is the least vivid. I use an uncalibrated monitor BTW, but still the difference is showing.

[Iwan Bogels]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any difference between the three afterburners...

Hi Patrick,

Check again and focus on the color of the burner. In ProPhoto it's more yellow than orange. Next to that, look at the inside of the nozzle panels. In ProPhoto they are a lot darker and show less detail / contrast. And what about the color of the nozzle and tail surfaces? To me they look much greener in ProPhoto. Maybe the difference is more noticable when I leave out the Adobe(1998) photo.



What bothers me the most is that it is the exact same photo. If you have not set the sRGB as your colorprofile, your photo will look like the sRGB version when you look at it in Lightroom or Photoshop, but will show differently when you look at it on internet. I think it is quite a difference....

Toch?
Iwan

[wild weasel]

I do see some differences though. The sRGB afterburner seems to be the brightest/most vivid. The prophoto one is the least vivid. I use an uncalibrated monitor BTW, but still the difference is showing.

Indeed a difference, prophoto is much more yellow, and not even close to the right color. About the exxagerated discussion, if you´re Ken Rockwell or not, i do not agree. Uploading an image which is saved in adobe color working flow, can show colors that are way of the original colors when viewed on sRGB device/server.....i think it´s a personal thing, but there really can be a diffrence between them.

[Flygvapnet_Viggen]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any difference between the three afterburners...

Hi Patrick,

Check again and focus on the color of the burner. In ProPhoto it's more yellow than orange. Next to that, look at the inside of the nozzle panels. In ProPhoto they are a lot darker and show less detail / contrast. And what about the color of the nozzle and tail surfaces? To me they look much greener in ProPhoto. Maybe the difference is more noticable when I leave out the Adobe(1998) photo.



Iwan

Interesting... I too do not see any difference here between the colour profiles...
Even with these last two comparisions the colours are the same. Seriously, no matter how hard I try to see any differences in colour... I dont haha
The only thing I can see is that indeed the sRGB shows more detail... Either the difference is really really small, even close to unnoticable or their is something with different screens or browers or computers that do show differences and ones that do show the same colours in different profiles...
Im using a Acer Aspire 5520G laptop with LCD screen (non calibrated, but I have been using it for all my photo editing) and Firefox 6.0.2 as browser.

Im curious for the final results!
Corné Uittenbogaard

[Iwan Bogels]

Hi Patrick, Corné et all,

Mea culpa ! I had forgotten to tell you that I heard about a browser that is able to display different colour profiles in the right way. Are you by any chance both using the same compatible browser ?

Yes, it’s great that web browsers are able to recognize and display all different colour profiles. But it can be a problem too if the bulk of the people that wish to view your photos is using a non-compatible web browser. In that case you think everybody is looking at your photo in the way that you intended the photo to look, but in fact people see its colours differently.

I’m using Internet Explorer 8.0. And you ?

Cheers,
Iwan

[Hans Rolink]

Good way of explaining the physics behind this phenomenon, Iwan!
As to the difference between the 'burners; in Opera 10.63 it's obvious that the left one is more blueish.

Hans.

[planecrazy]

This is a very helpfull subject. I did know there were diffrences between the color profiles, but i did not know there was such a big difference.

When i looked at this post at work with Iexplorer i was seeing the difference in color profiles, but when i looked at this at home i could not see any difference. So i did a little cross check, and it looks like the firefox 6.0.2 and safari 5.1 converts all the images to sRGB.

[Flygvapnet_Viggen]

OK! Wow, this could explain a lot!! Now I viewed the photos in Internet Explorer 8.0 and not in Firefox...
What a difference indeed, I do now see what all of you are talking about!! As you say the sRGB is not so yellow/green as the others.
I usually use Firefox 6.0.2 to surf around the web and view photo forums, there I do not see any differences.
Good to know!

Corné

[Iwan Bogels]

OK Maarten, the difference between your photo and mine is now really beginning to tease me.

I have shown what difference a colour profile can cause, but there is more to it than just that. Would you mind sharing your RAW-file ? Then I can do a bit of home testing, using the exact same software and technique on each photo. My own RAW-file of my photo is available at http://www.dappa.nl/IWAN1987.CR2.

But I have another surprise up my sleeve…..

When checking my own photos, I noticed that I do have a photo which was taken almost at the same split second, and this photo has a different shade of blue than the first photo. Now check out the difference….

PHOTO BY MAARTEN PEETERS


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

PHOTOS BY IWAN BOGELS




See the different shade of blue between each of my photos ? Apparently the exact direction of the lens can cause a significant change in colour. But still my photos are more yellowish than yours. If you want to check the RAW-file from the two-cockpits-shot, download it at http://www.dappa.nl/IWAN1986.CR2.

Now it’s time to compare the hardware. My photos were shot with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, in combination with a Canon EF 400mm/f2.8L USM II and a Canon 1.4x Extender. What about yours ? I see you used a Canon EOS-1D Mark II, which is a 12-bit camera. Could there be much difference with my 14-bit camera ?

An to top things of for tonight, the white balance settings in Lightroom, for both photos:

Two Cockpits: Temperature = 6150, Colourtint = +27
Two F-16’s: Temperature = 6150, Colourtint = +27

As these settings (and equipment) on my own two photos are identical, the colour of the sky must have changed with the direction of the shots. Or am I missing something ?

Questions, questions, questions! I hope you are not too bored with them….

Cheers,
Iwan