UNDESTANDING

COLOR IN
PHOTOGRAPHY
- BRYAN PETERSON
LIGHT, EXPOSURE AND COLOR
• Light and the Science of Color
• Exposure and Color
• White Balance and Color Temperature
LIGHT AND THE SCIENCE OF COLOR
• Most Vitally Important Element: Light
• How Light gives rise to Color?
• Objects not only absorb light but also “REFLECT” it back.
• Objects have no color without light and when they are lit, the color
that we see is the “Rejected” color.
WHITE
• Greatest appetite of all colours
• Results from mixing equal amounts of red, green, yellow and blue
light waves.
BLACK
• Least amount of appetite
• Reflects all light waves
• Essentialy “COLORLESS”
EYES AND COLOR
• Specialized cells: “Cones”
• They are able to detect the color that is reflected by the objects.
EXPOSURE AND COLOR
• Your camera’s light meter has been programmed to interpret all
reflected light in the world as if it were always reflecting off a neutral
gray surface.
• The reflected light in our world is not a level playing field, because not
all light is reflected equally.
• For example, the light reflected off of snow or a white gown is twice
as bright as gray.
EXPOSURE AND COLOR
• But when your light meter is presented with a composition that is
largely white, it turns all of that white into tones of gray.
• What the light meter is actually doing is creating an image that is
underexposed: “dark white” or gray.
• At the other extreme, the light reflected off an object such as a black
car is twice as dark as gray, so the light meter turns all that black into
tones of gray.
• This time, the light meter creates an image that is overexposed,
making it “light black” or gray.
EXPOSURE AND COLOR
• So, to bypass this, from now on, when shooting white objects, you
should deliberately set atleast +1 exposure and when shooting black
or very dark subjects, you will deliberately set atleast -1 exposure.
• This allows the shutter to stay open atleast one stop longer (or set the
aperture one stop larger) when shooting white subjects to avoid the
normal underexposed gray, dark-white color; and you will deliberately
make the shutter speed one stop faster (or set the aperture one stop
smaller) when shooting black or very dark subjects to avoid an
overexposed gray, light-black color.
EXPOSURE AND COLOR
• So what about the colours that are neither too white nor too black?
• If you are filling your frame with “crimson red, deep purple of
lavender or navy blue”, treat them like black.
• If you are working with “bright yellows, light pinks, oranges or peach
tones”, treat them like white.
• If the frame is dominated by “midtones of green, blue or red”, setting
an exposure of -2/3rds seems to work quite well.
WHITE BALANCE AND COLOR
TEMPERATURE
• The colors we actually see are the “rejected” colors, but alongwith
each rejected color also has a temperature, either “cool” or “warm”.
• COOL(bluer shades): 7,000K-11,000K Cloudy, foggy, snowy days or in
areas of open shade on sunny days.
• WARM(reds): 2,000K-4,000K Sunny days
• DAYLIGHT(red+blue): 4,000K-7,000K