Thursday 21 January 2010

Project 42 - judging colour temperature

I hijacked my very patient friend and "camera assistant", Dave, for this exercise. His title comes from the fact that he is considerably more knowledgeable about cameras and all things film than me.

While it clearly shows that looking into the sun is an uncomfortable experience, for the purposes of judging colour temperature he is a great success as a model.

In this image it was the middle of a clear day and the light is more or less neutral. Put him in the shade, however, the colour temperature is raised towards being blue-ish.
In Photoshop I had a choice of warming filters, so applied number 81 which did warm his skin tone up effectively.

Later in the day as the sun was going down, I took this shot with the warm sun on his face.

While I like the effect, I can see that sometimes - particularly in shots like this where there is no other indication of the sunset, for example, it might seem a little orange.

Again in Photoshop I applied a cooling filter, and his skin does turn closer to a neutral shade, although perhaps unnaturally pink.

As a bonus I include this shot, which should really be in Project 44 but fits better here, demonstrating edge lighting. I like this picture a lot!