civilized ku # 648 ~ "density"
Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 12:08PM 
Dried flowers ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenNo how-to questions have been forthcoming in the last week or so, I thought I'd answer a previously unanswered one.
Andrew asked / stated:
... one aspect of your work that appeals to me is that the color has density, a density that makes things look like real things. Without underexposing or darkening pictures you achieve this density ... when working in color I prefer a certain density, or weight, to the image ... [T]hough I'm not sure "density" is the right word. How do you achieve that in your work?
I really had to think about this question, in large part due to Andrew's use of the word "density", which even he considered to be a bit suspect relative to what he was trying to express. The best I can determine is that he was referring to one or both of 2 qualities in my pictures ....
1. I have always liked subjects / scenes that contained deep dark shadow areas. Relative to that preference, I have always chosen / used picturing techniques and post-picturing processing techniques (film and digital) that favor shadow detail, which, most definitely, create a rich "density" quality in my prints.
2. Color "purity" - In my decades of experience making color prints - 25+ years of wet darkroom printing and for the last 15 years, digital - I have always striven to make prints that are free of color casts no matter how small. The result is a print with colors that are as true as possible (with the characteristics of the medium) to the real thing.
Of the 2 items listed above, the single most important factor in achieving rich (dense?) color in a print (or its on-screen representation) is removing all color casts from a picture.
In the wet darkroom days, that meant making color corrections (in the printing process) of as little as 025 increments. For those of you without any wet darkroom color printing experience, an 025 correction is tiny indeed - get a hold of a 025 KODAK WRATTEN Gelatin Filter (any color) and see how very very subtle the color of the filter actually is.
However, it is truly amazing how making just a subtle 025 correction change in color balance on a print makes an incredible visual change - it is as if a "veil" had been lifted from the surface of the print. All of the colors seem to "pop" with a vibrancy / purity that is simply beautiful.
That is why, in the digital domain, I continue to make very small/subtle color adjustments / corrections in my pictures. The beauty of the digital domain is that those adjustments / corrections can be made globally and/or selectively (on isolated parts of the picture). In the wet darkroom trying to do selective adjustments / corrections was difficult at best.
And, here's a tip about making color corrections / adjustments in the digital domain - the single most important tool for doing so - perhaps the single most important tool in all of Photoshop - is the Info window set to display RGB values used in conjunction with the Eyedropper tool with the Eyedropper tool set to 3×3 Average Sample Size.
Drag that little gem anywhere in a picture for an accurate read of color. Then you can really go to town fine tuning color*.
*HINT: one of the first steps I make, color correction / adjustment wise, is to be certain that my deepest shadow value and my lightest highlight value are "neutral" - blacks (or near-blacks) should be in the R-10 G-10 B-10 range (+/- a wee bit) ... whites (or near whites) should be in the R-250 G-250 B-250 range (+/- a wee bit). By getting these RGB values by using Curves - keeping the curve lines straight - it is rather amazing how the entire picture starts to look right, color wise.
Reader Comments (4)
Thanks for the tip on colour management. I'll try this one out soon.
[I did ask a colour question back on #629-35 - Lake Placid Lodge.]
Could you amplify what "keeping the curve lines straight" means?
I had a play with this WB / colour tuning idea on some recent photos - it worked great!
I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, but here's what I did...
1. Add an adjustment layer for Curves;
2. Look for the brighest pixel/s that should be white and force them pure white.
3. Look for the darkest pixel/s that should be black and force them pitch black.
Done! As well as removing any colour cast this method also tweaks the exposure.
This step is now part of my standard post-processing routine. Thanks.
Thank you! Very informative - I'll give it a try.