Grey card...
- Thread starter mickc22
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Sounds about right. Seems to be some talk of 118, 118, 118 on various photo fora.
Sounds as though it\'d make a good advertising campaign!:beer:
Sounds as though it\'d make a good advertising campaign!:beer:
Avelorn
Sven Jonsson
While the grey card is usually reflects 18% of the light (Should be 12%?)getting the correct percentage is not the biggest issue.
The thing is that you have to make sure that the printer does an entirely neutral grey so that you don\'t get a colour cast... which can be problematic to make sure not only because of callibration but because of the ink and paper quality + inevitable deterioration over time. So the general recommendation I\'ve heard is that you either buy a grey-card or use neutral grey paint and paint yourself one.
The thing is that you have to make sure that the printer does an entirely neutral grey so that you don\'t get a colour cast... which can be problematic to make sure not only because of callibration but because of the ink and paper quality + inevitable deterioration over time. So the general recommendation I\'ve heard is that you either buy a grey-card or use neutral grey paint and paint yourself one.
Crayfish
New member
i dont see any reason for it not to work, since greenscreen is only a 1 coloured piece of something, aslong as its no shadows on it, it should be no problem cutting out the colour in a program (such as photoshop)
As long as you dont have green on your mini it should be really easy! (so you dont end up as the weatherman who wore a green tie to his job! )
cheers!
As long as you dont have green on your mini it should be really easy! (so you dont end up as the weatherman who wore a green tie to his job! )
cheers!
Not really and yet Yes; Green Screen technique relies on computer programs to replace the background, so the basic principle still applies as how we work in Photoshop (or whatever). It\'s how you light it to get even coverage that matters.
If you watch and DVD extras on productions you\'ll see that there is extremely careful lighting used to prevent/reduce Green reflection on the actors.
The same principle whould have to be used to prevent reflection on a mini, hence why people are recommenting a Colour Neutral background for photography.
Hope that makes sense.
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Green-screening is a piece of piddle in Premiere - just use a chroma key. Unfortunately there\'s no equivalent in Photoshop - the Colour Range selection tool is the closest you get.
Secret with green screening is to use fabric and backlight it. We have a large, opaque perspex window in the studio that we back project colours and backgrounds onto using a video projector. Saves buggering about!
Then hit your subject with lighting from the front. Gives pretty perfect results.
TBH grey cards are a waste of time these days. You\'ve got the opportunity to test and retest your exposure settings with digital very quickly until you get something you\'re happy with. Tethering the cam to your PC is fantastic if your cam comes with the software to do it.
Secret with green screening is to use fabric and backlight it. We have a large, opaque perspex window in the studio that we back project colours and backgrounds onto using a video projector. Saves buggering about!
Then hit your subject with lighting from the front. Gives pretty perfect results.
TBH grey cards are a waste of time these days. You\'ve got the opportunity to test and retest your exposure settings with digital very quickly until you get something you\'re happy with. Tethering the cam to your PC is fantastic if your cam comes with the software to do it.
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Digital workflow people!
Come on, get with the programme!!!
Expose to the right and do it in post.
Come on, get with the programme!!!
Expose to the right and do it in post.
Avelorn
Sven Jonsson
@Scott: It depends if you shoot in RAW. For miniature photography you can probably save the postprocessing settings to be reused as you are likely to use the same setup (I have never used postprocessing in RAW as I still only got a cheap compact). Then grey-card or whatever you use becomes unnecessary. And as you said earlier you can really test your equipment out and get to know it. For other kind of photography with no clear reference point I recon it\'s still a great tool.
For miniature photography you can probably save the postprocessing settings to be reused as you are likely to use the same setup (I have never used postprocessing in RAW as I still only got a cheap compact). Then grey-card or whatever you use becomes unnecessary. And as you said earlier you can really test your equipment out and get to know it. For other kind of photography with no clear reference point I recon it\'s still a great tool.Legacy Account
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For posting to CMON or the web, the resolution required is nothing. You can solve almost all poor camera technique with Photoshop with no visible difference in the quality of the output. Get it reasonably close and tweak it. Even better, open the shot in Adobe Camera Raw and do the edits in there. Some extremely powerful and easy to use tools in there.
People really are making the phototgraphy thing (for posting to web) much more elaborate than it needs to be!
People really are making the phototgraphy thing (for posting to web) much more elaborate than it needs to be!
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Sven, a grey card is simply uneccessary these days. You have instant feedback from the LCD and can manually set your exposure whilst seeing the effects in real time. Why bother, it won\'t make the sensor capture any more information!
And the \'basics\' are that the dynamic range of many scenes is simply not achieveable in one shot using most of the technology that\'s available today whether you use a piece of grey card or not.
You don\'t need to shoot in RAW to use ACR or Lightroom either - both will let you open tiffs and jpegs and save settings out. Camera Raw comes as part of later versions of Photoshop and is well worth having a play with.
And the \'basics\' are that the dynamic range of many scenes is simply not achieveable in one shot using most of the technology that\'s available today whether you use a piece of grey card or not.
You don\'t need to shoot in RAW to use ACR or Lightroom either - both will let you open tiffs and jpegs and save settings out. Camera Raw comes as part of later versions of Photoshop and is well worth having a play with.
Avelorn
Sven Jonsson
We seem to be discussing two different things here: Exposure and whitebalance.
My prime experience is through making movies so I asked a friend to fill in the blanks.
White balance and grey cards
The LCD can\'t tell you much about how the colors are in a picture, for two reasons:
the LCDs are pretty crappy at showing correct colors, and they are definately not
calibrated for the light temperature you are in.
How do you know to set the right colours if you have no white, black or grey reference
object? Yes you use a grey card... or else you need take the computer with you to the
place you took the photo and (if the screen is calibrated) do the editing there. That
is if you are interested in a true representation of what you\'ve shot or if you\'re just
happy that the jungle looks.. \"jungle-like\". It\'s not complicating things - it\'s making it
easier.
So use the grey card as a reference point in postprocessing when you shoot in RAW or
manually white-balance on the spot using a grey card if you want to speed up the post
processing bit. Of course it\'s even more convenient to use a grey card if you shoot in JPEG
(like some prefer on concerts/sports and similar when speed and number of pictures
are a key - burst mode etc.)
http://www.digitalartsphotography.com/instructions.htm
You can try using a white paper as well but it can be more complicated. As I\'ve said the
thing is to use an entirely neutral surface colourwise th 18% or 14% or 12% or whatever
does not really matter when using WB.
Exposure and grey card
For exposure correctness sure - you can use the histogram for that and it\'s a quicker
less of a hassle way. But in certain difficult lightsituation you can still use a grey
card if you don\'t want to test shoot a lot in different exposures (and remember that the
histogram is calculated on the JPEG data)!
I mean full auto is alright in most situations and with a pricey camera will lend you
great results in the majority of cases. If you want to do vacation photography you will
be more then alright. But the blanket statement that grey cards are unecessary is simply
not true.. This goes for pretty much everything from painting to music to photography:
learn the techniques and apply them as you see fit. I\'m sure you don\'t have to use the
grey card a lot but sometimes it is more convenient.
Yes very true! And that\'s one of the reasons why I always recommend people to use a more
neutral background then white for minature photography. Naturally less of a problem if you
shoot in RAW but still an issue if you have a lot of light.
My prime experience is through making movies so I asked a friend to fill in the blanks.
White balance and grey cards
The LCD can\'t tell you much about how the colors are in a picture, for two reasons:
the LCDs are pretty crappy at showing correct colors, and they are definately not
calibrated for the light temperature you are in.
How do you know to set the right colours if you have no white, black or grey reference
object? Yes you use a grey card... or else you need take the computer with you to the
place you took the photo and (if the screen is calibrated) do the editing there. That
is if you are interested in a true representation of what you\'ve shot or if you\'re just
happy that the jungle looks.. \"jungle-like\". It\'s not complicating things - it\'s making it
easier.
So use the grey card as a reference point in postprocessing when you shoot in RAW or
manually white-balance on the spot using a grey card if you want to speed up the post
processing bit. Of course it\'s even more convenient to use a grey card if you shoot in JPEG
(like some prefer on concerts/sports and similar when speed and number of pictures
are a key - burst mode etc.)
http://www.digitalartsphotography.com/instructions.htm
You can try using a white paper as well but it can be more complicated. As I\'ve said the
thing is to use an entirely neutral surface colourwise th 18% or 14% or 12% or whatever
does not really matter when using WB.
Exposure and grey card
For exposure correctness sure - you can use the histogram for that and it\'s a quicker
less of a hassle way. But in certain difficult lightsituation you can still use a grey
card if you don\'t want to test shoot a lot in different exposures (and remember that the
histogram is calculated on the JPEG data)!
I mean full auto is alright in most situations and with a pricey camera will lend you
great results in the majority of cases. If you want to do vacation photography you will
be more then alright. But the blanket statement that grey cards are unecessary is simply
not true.. This goes for pretty much everything from painting to music to photography:
learn the techniques and apply them as you see fit. I\'m sure you don\'t have to use the
grey card a lot but sometimes it is more convenient.
Yes very true! And that\'s one of the reasons why I always recommend people to use a more
neutral background then white for minature photography. Naturally less of a problem if you
shoot in RAW but still an issue if you have a lot of light.
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You\'ve got all the theory Sven, perhaps you just need to go out and put it into practice
