Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory

Selecting Highlights

 Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Fri Jun 23, 2006 2:28 pm (PDT)

I'm a little confused about this selecting the highlight to get the white.

I could never find the "white" in a highlight.

I'm suspecting there is no such thing as a "white" highlight, at least not a pure white.

I'm looking at hightlights in the real world, and I see no white hightlights. If I look at a green cup, and look at it's highlights in the light, I *still* see green within the highlights....there is no white in the highlights, only lighter green. That same green cup in a photograph might look like it has a white highlight, but it doesn't really.

Snow might be white, but it looks prettier with that blue shade.

The color of the Sun is really white not yellow, should I use the Sun as a white highlight just because the Sun is white, or do I view it as it looks, yellow?

There is no white. Now I'm afriad there is no black...the world is just different shades of gray.

Like people. There are no black or white people, everybody is a different shade of brown, or gray with out the RGB.

Hector Davila
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
    Date: Sat Jun 24, 2006 12:24 pm (PDT)
 
Hector,

With the examples you give I wouldn't alter them either. When I decide to alter the color cast in the whites and/or highlights my examples tend to look (or sound in e-mail posts) unnatural and/or unexpected. Same for shadows.

Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Paul D. DeRocco"

If you're trying to correct the white balance, don't use white, use a neutral gray. "White" or anything near it means the camera has clipped one or more channels, so the color has ceased to be meaningful.

If you're simply trying to optimize dynamic range, then all that matters is that you don't significantly clip _any_ channel, not necessarily all three together. The limit may actually occur in a very saturated color, not just white.

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
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Re: Highlights
 Posted by: "J Walton"
    Date: Sat Jun 24, 2006 10:45 pm (PDT)

On 6/22/06, Hector wrote:

  I'm a little confused about this selecting the highlight to get the
white.

I could never find the "white" in a highlight.

You may want to look harder. :-)

I'm suspecting there is no such thing as a "white" highlight, at least
not a pure white.

I'm looking at hightlights in the real world, and I see no white hightlights.
If I look at a green cup, and look at it's highlights in the light, I *still* see green
within the highlights....there is no white in the highlights, only lighter green. That
same green cup in a photograph might look like it has a white highlight,
but it doesn't really.

What about the white cup sitting next to it? Or the piece of paper on the table? Or the guy with the white T-shirt in the background? Or the white car on the street outside?

When you are setting your highlight you're looking to optimize contrast and correct overall cast problems. As I look around my office I find quite a bit of items that would make for a good highlight, including my computer. (Thanks Steve Jobs). Remember, though, that a highlight is not 0/0/0.

Snow might be white, but it looks prettier with that blue shade.

The color of the Sun is really white not yellow, should I use the Sun as a
white highlight just because the Sun is white, or do I view it as it
looks, yellow?
 
I've never thought of the Sun as white before. At any rate, if I used it as a highlight I'd have to factor in that it's a bit yellow.

There is no white. Now I'm afriad there is no black...the world is just
different shades of gray.

With lots of colors thrown in there as well. ;-)

Like people. There are no black or white people, everybody is a different
shade of brown, or gray with out the RGB.

Anyone remember that quote from the movie 'Soul Man'?

-----
J Walton
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: André Dumas
    Date: Sun Jun 25, 2006 10:47 pm (PDT)

Hello Henry,

I have often been critical about the definition of "highlight" given by Dan, but I have made my peace with his definition:  "a highlight is something that we are willing to represent to the viewer as being white". Therefore a highlight IS white.  If you feel that the lightest area in an image is not or should not be white then it should not be called a "highlight".

Dan further suggests that a highlight could have a value of "5c2m2y" for reasons explained in his book.

When the lightest area in one of my image is not really white I often choose to not select it as a highlight.  I give it a color.  For instance, when a subject in a white t-shirt is standing in the shade, surrounded by green foliage, it is quite possible that the lightest area on the t-shirt is slightly green and I can decide to make it print slightly green if I find that more appropriate for the image.

Dan once suggested some numbers to use for "the lightest area" in such images (but I have lost his message).

All this also has a lot to do with color casts ...(?)

Andre Dumas
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1b. Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:51 pm (PDT)

Even a white cup has white highlights! So which white is white? What color is the highlight of the white cup, light white?

And i'm not even trying to be funny, I'm just trying to find white.

Hector Davila
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by:Hector Davila
    Date: Mon Jun 26, 2006 2:01 pm (PDT)

With the examples you give I wouldn't alter them either.
When I decide to alter the color cast in the whites and/or highlights my
examples tend to look (or sound in e-mail posts) unnatural and/or
unexpected. Same for shadows.

Unnatural or unexpected? I would say, "something looks very wrong".

But I guess the operavative word of this list is "theory" in colortheory.

Hector Davila
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Duffy Pratt"
    Date: Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:15 pm (PDT)

White is the color of the paper you are printing on.  The highlight is the darkest part of the photo that you are willing to represent as close to the color of the paper (while still retaining some detail).  Everything brighter than the highlight will be just the paper color.

So, if you want the cup to have some detail, and you want to blow the bright portion of the cup, then the cup is the highlight.  If you want there to be some detail on the brightest part of the cup, then it will be the highlight, and the cup itself will appear as a bright grey.

The short answer is that you don't "find" white.  You "assign" it.

Duffy Pratt
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 Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 8:32 am (PDT)

Hector,

All you have to do is ask. What I recall of your original post was more about how we see whites. With regard to "applied", what is it you'd like to know ???

The way I look and analyze a picture is includes more than the technical content so I can't give you a hard and fast rule.  I've re-done my share of photos by simply ignoring the very essence of what you're wondering about.

Having white whites doesn't matter to me unless them work with the essence of the picture.

Why don't you uplaod some photos and let the members comment on how they apply the ideas about highlight/shadow casts.........

Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
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 Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 4:49 pm (PDT)

Thanks Duffy about the color of the paper theory...

I tried selecting the paper color of the photograph instead of the image area of the photograph and that seems to give the best results.

I tried different areas of the photo image and I could not get good results since there is so much different vararitions of grey in the image. But when I selected the white border of the photo, or the paper color, I got great results, for the first time in history!

I guess the brighest highlight is the color of the paper, as you wrote.

Hector Davila

I notice I have my eye dropper set at 5 by 5 average...I wonder if that is causing me any highlight selecting problems....
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by:André Dumas
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 5:16 pm (PDT)

Hello Henry,

You say "I'm suspecting there is no such thing as a "white" highlight, at least not a pure white."  You may be right in "theory" but can you put that statement in the more practical context of improving an image or a photograph ?

Andre Dumas
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:02 pm (PDT)

Okay, I have a slightly different question...
Here is a Black and White photo that color
was added to....I was wondering...I notice that the finished
photo seems much *brighter* than the original. Was it made brighter
by Curves or Levels or other techniques in Photoshop,
or was some lighting plug-in effect applied to the whole photo?

Before
http://tinyurl.com/kmcrx
After
http://tinyurl.com/fe4np

Hector Davila
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:05 pm (PDT)

If I could answer that question I would be the owner of this list!

Just like I cannot answer why are the primaries colors of light different from the primary colors of paints. How come they are not the same? Of course I do have my own theories about that two.

Hector Davila
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "J Walton"
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:06 pm (PDT)

On 6/27/06, Hector Davila wrote:

  Thanks Duffy about the color of the paper theory...

I tried selecting the paper color of the photograph instead of the
image area of the photograph and that seems to give the best results.

The reason that seems to work is that by zero-ing out on the paper you are basically correcting color casts introduced by the scanning process. That's fine to do, and sometimes without a true highlight you are stuck with that.

But you can do so much more by identifying your lightest area in the image that needs some dot and setting that to be your nuetral highlight (4/2/2/0). If you do the first correction (zero-ing out on paper) sometimes the 2nd correction doesn't do anything, but oftentimes it does wonders.

Remember that in color correction you are basically trying to optimize contrast and fix obvious problems. The highlight/shadow selection is the single most important decision a retoucher can make. Taking it for granted will prevent you from ever becoming an expert.

-----
J Walton
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "mac townsend"
    Date: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:06 pm (PDT)

Insofar as print production is concerned (i.e. someone who is concerned solely with what they look like off a printing press, NOT on a gallery wall or internet site) it is not good practice to select "paper white" as the image highlight because that means it will likely be burned out off the press, and depending on the image, can be uncomfortably noticeable. A 2-3% dot should be preserved in true highlights (not spectral highlights) depending greatly on the stock and the press. Similarly, shadows ought not go all the way to 100% but should stop at between 93 and 95% (also depending on the stock and the press).
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:51 pm (PDT)

on 6/26/06 1:16 PM, Hector wrote:

Even a white cup has white highlights! So which white is white? What color is
the highlight of the white cup, light white?

And i'm not even trying to be funny, I'm just trying to find white.

Hector,

The highlight on the cup can be a specular white (close to zero dot) white or highlight with first printing tone. It depends on the lighting of the scene and if its a hi or lo key photo.

To give the cup a semblance of being a 3-d shape you'll need darker highlight tones. So, a generalization would be, the cup itself can't be one tone of white.

Yes, a specular white could be the lightest white and the highlight could be a lighter white than your cup.

Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Henry"
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:51 pm (PDT)

Wow!  Was color really added to the B&W or was the B&W created from the color photo?

Henry Davis
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "J Walton"
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:55 pm (PDT)

On 6/27/06, Hector Davila wrote:

   Okay, I have a slightly different question...

I would describe this as more than *slightly* different.

Here is a Black and White photo that color
was added to....I was wondering...I notice that the finished
photo seems much *brighter* than the original. Was it made brighter
by Curves or Levels or other techniques in Photoshop,
or was some lighting plug-in effect applied to the whole photo?

Observations:

1. That is a fantastic job of colorizing the image.
2. How are we supposed to know if Curves or Levels were applied?
3. The finished photo doesn't seem *brighter* to me at all.
4. What does this have to do with anything?

-----
J Walton
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 Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:58 pm (PDT)

nevermind...I just asked the artist, she used curves.

Thanks,

Hector
APR
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 Re: Highlights
    Posted by: "Lee Clawson"
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:01 pm (PDT)

on 6/27/06 9:21 PM, Hector Davila wrote:
 
 Okay, I have a slightly different question...

You sure slip through topics.....

 Here is a Black and White photo that color was added to....I was wondering...I
 notice that the finished photo seems much *brighter* than the original. Was it
 made brighter by Curves or Levels or other techniques in Photoshop, or was
 some lighting plug-in effect applied to the whole photo?

I'd guess neither. Looks to me that the coloring didn't match tone, especially in the darker highlights and midtones. The color image looks lighter than the original grays. If this was hand colored it sure is amazing.

Lee Clawson
2/\V/\7 Studio
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Re: Highlights
    Posted by: Hector Davila
    Date: Wed Jun 28, 2006 4:04 pm (PDT)

It's a colorizing contest! Taking black and white photos and colorizing them.
http://tinyurl.com/gv8ga

I just find it more simple to "colorize" if I have to, certain, or all parts of a color photograph than trying to use "color restoring" techniques found in Dan's books. Is that cheating? I hope Dan doesn't mind. It might be against his rules, I don't know....

Hector Davila
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