Understand color temperature and white balance to capture ideal colors

Introduction: Color has always been the biggest knowledge in the photography and output industries. You may ask: Isn’t it just a matter of pressing the shutter button, transferring the photos to the computer, pressing Print and you’re done? No. In fact, if you want to obtain the truth of "what you see is what you get" in this series of actions, you need to understand a lot of knowledge. The data on color space and color temperature are compiled below to help you further understand the importance of color. Understand color temperature and white balance to capture ideal colors

Color space is a collection of all colors that can be expressed within a certain range. The larger the color space, the more colors can be displayed. The two common color spaces are sRGB and Adobe RGB. You can choose one of them when setting the color space. However, many players do not often use the camera's color space settings because they do not understand it. The question is which one to choose. color space, there is great controversy.

Color space principle and selection

RGB is a color space widely used in the field of output devices and hardware devices. Although its color space is relatively small, its versatility is relatively wide. Using this color space will result in smaller color errors when sharing on the Internet or developing photos in the later stages of photography.

Adobe RGB can record a wider color range and is mainly used in the printing field. It requires professional post-production to make the colors appear better on the screen, and is suitable for professional photographers. The choice of color space should be based on your own photography level and the purpose of the photo. It is not recommended for ordinary players to use Adobe RGB, because it has higher requirements on post-production processing technology, and if used incorrectly, it will be counterproductive.

Schematic diagram of the working principle of color space

Selection of camera image storage format

RAW

It is a data file of the original information of digital photos , these data have not been processed by the image processing chip in the camera, but are just data and cannot be called a video format. Because of this, RAW files can edit the original information of digital photos at any time, including contrast, color temperature, exposure compensation, sharpness, etc. Its size is smaller than TIFF files, but the recorded information is richer and more Helps preserve the original information of the photo.

JPEG

is currently the most common image format. It uses a distorted image compression method, which has an impact on image quality, but its size is much smaller than the original image file. Another advantage of this format is its compatibility. It can save space on the memory card and increase the number of photos that can be taken. It is a good choice for players who do not have high requirements for picture quality.

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TIFF

It is a truly non-distorted image format. It can achieve 2 to 3 times compression, so it can maintain the richest original image. colors and levels. However, this file format is bulky and takes up a lot of hard drive space. Mainly used in printing, publishing and other industries, this format will not cause any loss of detail, and it is very helpful for large-scale image output of photography photos. In addition, TIFF files are the same as JPEG files, with good versatility and compatibility.

Various image storage formats have their own advantages and disadvantages. Not one format is absolutely excellent, and one format is definitely outdated. Therefore, when players choose an image storage format, they must follow their own shooting habits. By comprehensively considering the purpose of the photo and the post-production processing capabilities, and choosing the file storage format that best suits you, you can get twice the result with half the effort in shooting and post-production processing.

Color temperature is actually the temperature of the color

When the temperature of substances in nature is at absolute 0 degrees, their color expression is black. As the temperature increases, the substances will Emit different kinds of light. In this process, the color of the light emitted will continue to change as the temperature increases. The temperature of the substance is called the color temperature of the light source. Light in nature has different color temperature attributes depending on time and weather conditions.

Schematic diagram of color temperature changes

White balance correction of color deviation

The color temperature of light at different times is different. The human eye can correct and identify color changes, but digital The camera's photosensitive component cannot complete this task. Therefore, digital cameras need to correct the color cast caused by light of different color temperatures, and this correction process is called white balance.

Color temperature adjustment menu

The basis for adjusting white balance is to identify the type and color temperature of the light source. The automatic white balance function of the digital SLR camera can complete this operation to a certain extent, but The results of automatic white balance are often not accurate enough. Therefore, manually adjusting the white balance is an effective way to obtain the correct color temperature of the image.

There are two methods to adjust the white balance: one is to set it according to weather conditions, such as sunny days, rainy days, outdoors, etc.; the other method is to directly set the color temperature value of the light.

While correcting the white balance, players can also try to take photos with different color temperatures than the light, because different white balances will bring different color performances to the photos. The following list of photos shows the different effects the photos will show under different white balance color temperatures.

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