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Additive
Process of Light
Digital Imagery is created through a mixture or three colors;
RED GREEN AND BLUE.
Mixed in equal amounts they create a shade of Gray.
The more of each mixed, the closer to white they
get. Thus, zero amounts of all three colors equal Black. The
range of color (which colors and the quantity) help define what
is known as a color space.
Not all RGB color spaces are the same. Some are brighter, or more
saturated in certain areas. In order to keep things looking the
same on different devices, there are certain color spaces that
are known, or rather agreed upon. Most cameras use the PC (Windows)
Default of sRGB which tends to be very bright and saturated. That
may seem good, until you try to print those vibrant colors. It
also means the camera is not capturing accurate color and instead
is shifting colors to be brighter and more saturated. This usually
means people look sunburned or jaundice when they aren't.
Color
Space (Parameters)
Your camera may have the ability to change how it captures
color. By default your camera is set up to use the sRGB color
space. This color space is the normal color space used by windows
and most devices but it tends to be over-saturated for normal photography.
A slightly larger, and better, color space that is more accurate
to the real world is Adobe
RGB (1998); if you have the ability to change this setting,
I would change it to Adobe RGB, however most
online printers are designed for people who know nothing about
color spaces and therefor request you leave it to sRGB.
For a comparison of the two go to: Color
Space Comparison
Bit Depth
This is a little advanced, but it will give you a better idea of
why capturing higher bit images
is so desirable.
The bit depth defines how many colors a red green or blue can
produce.
Jpegs are 8 bit images. This means they are 2 to the 8th power,
or
2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2=256
That means that a jpeg image can have 256 reds, 256 greens, and
256 blues. It also means that it can have a combination of all
of them resulting in a total of 256x256x256= 16,777,216 different
colors.
That seems like it should be enough, but unfortunately
it isn't, and what ends up happening is that when your camera
can't find the right color to record, it substitutes a color
it does know. This results in fringing, or banding in gradient
transitions.
Your other capture choices, if your camera offers them, are TIFF (16
bit) or RAW (12-14Bit)
which are both considered uncompressed formats, but yielding
massive color ranges, and file sizes.
RAW =
Lots of Colors
TIFF = 65,536 x 65,536 x 65,536 = 281,474,976,710,656 or, Lots
more!
This is a decent link to color space and bits etc. here
White Balance
This is a setting that allows you to change the way the camera
sees the color white and all colors in comparison. It is measure
in temperature Kelvin, but more comonly will be shown as a cute
little icon for the type of light.
For example: Tungsten light (indoor household lamps) tend to
be kind of orange, so the "lightbulb" icon will make things look
more blue to compensate.
In my opinion, far too much is written and worried about when
it comes to white balance. There is no perfect balance so make
decisions based on creativity and what looks "right" to
you.
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