Most photoshop users are familiar with the term color correction. But do they know what it means? Should they bother to know? Many photographers are of the school of thought that there is no such thing as color correction, and that color adjustment is a more accurate description of what occurs. Although this may sometimes describe the unintended reality of the situation, there is a distinct difference between the aim and purpose of color correction and color adjustment, and the relevance of the concept certainly exists. The concept is simple:
Color adjustment is performed to a photographer’s or a designer’s certain taste and perhaps to suggest a certain mood or feeling, whereas color correction is deemed necessary to remove an unnatural and/or unwanted color cast present in an image.
A good example is advertising. A manufacturer has a line of nice polo shirts in the latest summer colors. The intention is to print mail order catalogs and reproduce the colors of the shirt in print as accurately as possible. The photos are taken, contact sheets are created and reviewed, and final transparencies are processed. Finally they will have to be scanned.
When scanned “as is” the result always invariably shows a “color cast,” meaning the colors all tend to shift towards one direction, everything’s a little too blue, or everything’s a bit yellow, etc. The color cast is a result of the combination of the lighting of the photo shoot, the processing of the transparency film, the type of film, and other smaller factors. And this is where the term correction comes from. The scanning process is where the first real correction takes place, or should take place. In the scanning hardware and software the scanner operator has tools to remove color casts while simultaneously bringing out all colors in a balanced, natural looking way.
And this is where the concept of color correction truly differs from color adjustment. It’s not a term that applies well to photography and design, as it is driven by a commercial need to remove any mood or feeling from the shot and depict lighting as neutral as possible. This is also why the term sees heavy use in the reproduction of fine art prints.
But does the term apply to underwater photography, and if so, how?
—continued in pt.2
(©2010 Daniel Mendoza, CatalinaUnderwaterPhoto.com. All Rights Reserved.)
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