Colour manipulation; Creating unusual skies with a colour gel
Sunday 3 November 2024, 13:13 by Frank Doorhof | 2,119 views | 0 commentsThis article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.
In the first article (working with colour and gels, part 1), you read that colours evoke emotion and that they are connected. You saw this in the colour triangle with the primary and secondary colours.
In a number of examples, you saw how you can combine ordinary (white) light with an accent colour, such as blue. And how changing the colour balance can produce very unusual effects.
I use the light meter and the Colorchecker to measure the light and set the correct white balance.
The second article showed that you can create white light (normal light) with red, green and blue. And that by changing yourself or the model's poses, you can create really cool images.
In this final article, I show you how to manipulate colours without Photoshop. How to create unusual skies without Photoshop, using gels.
We all love easy tricks, of course, so I thought today was the perfect time for a tip like this.
When we look at the colour triangle, we can see that all colours are connected through the white point. We talked about this in the first blog post in this series.
This also means that we can manipulate our white point by choosing a white point that differs significantly from the black body curve (the curved line in the middle) and choosing this as a new white point. So let's see how this works in real life.
Look at those skies
Let's take our model Lois on location.
Yes, well... There is nothing wrong with this shot, but it doesn't really pop, does it? So let's add some strobe power first.
Okay, that's much better. I love the sky and the model really stands out. But what if we want to make the photo a little more unusual?
Let's add a green gel to our flash. With the Rogue magnetic system, this is very easy.
Of course, it is vital to take a Colorchecker shot for this.
Now click on the white balance and see what happens.
Don't you think this effect is really cool?
Essentially, what happens is very simple. Normally, the white point lies on the black body curve. By using a green gel on the flash, we now place the white point above it.
Correcting this to the correct white point makes everything else move down. And that means that white becomes more magenta. Improve the colours a little in your favourite editor and you can have a lot of fun with it.
An extra tip
As you have read, Key is the luminance of a colour. This means that if your image is not correctly exposed, the colours will not look accurate.
Of course, sometimes you want a little more atmosphere in your photo. But it is important to understand the basics of colour so that you can manipulate them the way you want.
To assess your colours correctly, you need a good workflow. For me, this means a light meter and Colorchecker. This means I get my exposure right.
With the Colorchecker, I can create a profile and white balance for that series. And remember that this is only to make all the images look the same, so that any presets you apply produce an expected result.
I have been using BenQ monitors for years and can highly recommend them. They have a great line-up of professional photo monitors and a great range of P3 colour-space monitors (between sRGB and Adobe RGB) at very affordable prices.
Besides their excellent quality, most BenQ monitors also support hardware calibration. This means that you calibrate the monitor, rather than your operating system. This is a much better way to calibrate your screen than using standalone software. You get the software free with your monitor.
About the author
Frank Doorhof blogt dagelijks in het Engels op zijn website en geeft wekelijks workshops model fotografie in zijn studio in Emmeloord, maar ook op locatie in binnen en buitenland. Van beginners tot gevorderde, iedereen kan bij Frank terecht. Ook voor specifieke 1 op 1 workshops, of maatwerk voor groepen.
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