gi6ers Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 I've been having colour balance and picture problems since forever so following some helpful advice from several people on here I've tried to see what impact different colour backgrounds have on the final result of my pics. I used 2x 50W white halogen lamps (£10 each from Homebase (UK)) and a selection of coloured backgrounds. I have a 3.2MP olympus and applied auto colour balance in GIMP. From left to right the backgrounds are: White Grey Grey with a black and white colour reference Blue marbled card Grey marbled card Blue I'm amazed at the difference this made. I hope this is of some use to you folks! Bigger pic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritual Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 The bigger pic is in fact the same size... I would really like to see bigger versions of these. It's interesting to see more close-up what the differences are. From the smaller photos I'd say that the ones with marbled backgrounds look best, but then I've never seen the mini in real life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi6ers Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 I can email it to anyone who wants a bigger version....Photobucket didn't like the huge version too much. PM me with your email address if you want it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pae Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 I'd stay away from any auto color balance in the software itself, if possible. If you camera has it, that's what I'd go with. Another option is to put various swatches of color inside of the frame of your photo, but far enough away from the mini that you can crop them out. Basically if you have something in your frame that pretty much fills in the CYMK ranges, you'll get better results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi6ers Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 @Flynn - agreed, ideally I'd do that. My camera has an auto white balance and doesn't give me good results without any post processing. Here's some bigger pics: The second and fourth pics are pretty accurate representations of the actual mini. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malebolgia Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 I think I like the blue one the most. Must be for a reason that manufacturers use blue for pictures (well, most of them). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathan Caroland Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 That is a nice collage there to show the differences - thanks for doing that, I think that will likely help some folks out when they are doing their photography and they are new to it, or looking to improve. Oh, and for photobucket, if you do 'save for web' it'll make it much smaller but keep a good look to it, might help you out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wren Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 Another test you might do is to photoshop the same background into all the images. I mean take a typical blue fade or whatever background and use the magic wand thingy to cut out the background of the image and insert the blue fade. Then you'd be comparing just how the figure ends up looking rather than being influenced by how much do you like whatever background or how did it turn out. (And by you I also mean the sample group of people responding to this thread. ;->) If you aren't familiar with how to use the magic wand tool or your graphics program doesn't have that feature, you could post or mail the individual photos and I could do it. (Or someone better at PS or whatnot, but I think it'd be easy enough to do with this particular mini.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi6ers Posted January 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 Sounds like a good idea, I'll have a go later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malebolgia Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 If you aren't familiar with how to use the magic wand tool or your graphics program doesn't have that feature, you could post or mail the individual photos and I could do it. (Or someone better at PS or whatnot, but I think it'd be easy enough to do with this particular mini.) Then check out this awesome thread by Spacemunkie: http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?t=385 I don't know where Scott has been for the last four months, but that tutorial is AWESOME. I use it a lot now and it works like a charm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi6ers Posted January 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 I use the GIMP (free!!) very similar approach. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matty1001 Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 Photoshop is free if you know the right people! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gi6ers Posted January 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 So I've just been told by a work colleague Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duende Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 I use an ancient program called Micrografx Picture Publisher which works well enough for me despite its age. One of the main things I like about it is the JPEG save function (shown in the pic below) which is where I can see the exact file size it will be, and can adjust the compression to make it bigger or smaller (the circled areas). I just have a belief that it's not the model of the camera you use or what program you use, it's how well you can use what you got. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malebolgia Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 Photoshop has that one too...the 'Save for Web' function (the one Nathan keeps screaming about ) which is excellent for web usage. It makes pictures small and you can decide how good it looks with its corresponding size. Ideal for contests and things like CMoN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pae Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 the Gimp also lets you see what the size of the picture will be when you save it as JPEG. It works on a slider from 1-100%, so lots of granularity there. I do the magic-wand thingy in Gimp and insert my own faded backgrounds on my pictures now. It looks much better than before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
callumrice Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 Then check out this awesome thread by Spacemunkie: http://www.wyrd-games.net/showthread.php?t=385 I don't know where Scott has been for the last four months, but that tutorial is AWESOME. I use it a lot now and it works like a charm. ive just had a look at that tutorial and its great. Very informative and should help me with my photos now. Really good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ritual Posted January 11, 2007 Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 The Save-for-web function in PS is actually not the same as the linear compression setting (that ALL digital image software have, AFAIK...). The Save-for-web uses a more elaborate optimisation algorithm that compress the files in a way that peserves on-screen picture quality as well as possible. Using that function you can actually get a file that is both smaller and has better on-screen quality than using the regular compression settings. Very good feature for miniature photography! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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