Color Calibration with film.

[DeadEye]

About 35 years ago I had several photogs take pictures for me that had to be exact in there color. I was very young at the time and remember holding up there color card beside the subject wile they took the pictures. Every print failed to match in color from every photographer that tried. In the end we had an artist to hand paint it to get the required result. After all these decades Im still wondering how should this be done ?

 

[Christie Photo]

That's a color balance problem. This can occur either when exposing the film or making the print. If the desired result was photographic prints, it's likely the photographer chose negative film for the job. The color card was meant as a guide for the lab when printing.

If the job was shot on reversal film (transparency film), a color meter should have been used to determine the necessary color compensating filters to achieve accurate results if the actual color temperature of the light source was unknown. The same CC filter(s) would have helped negative photography too, especially if the color temperature of the light was quite differnt from the color balance of the film, ie: daylight with type L film.

I hope this helps.

Pete

 

[ksmattfish]

Another issue is that different films will reproduce some colors very accurately, and other colors not so accurately. A particular filter combo may be perfect for one color, and wrong for the next. In my experience it's pretty much impossible to exactly match every color on a color checker card. If you get this red block just right, then the blue block will be slightly off. You have to pick which colors are most important to get exactly right, and accept that others will be off to varying degrees.

It would be easier, cheaper, and less time consuming to do exact color matching digitally. Whether it's shot on film and scanned, or shot with a digital camera, once you are in Photoshop you can go in and select specific areas for individual color correction, or even select particular hues for adjustment.

 

[DeadEye]

Another issue is that different films will reproduce some colors very accurately, and other colors not so accurately. A particular filter combo may be perfect for one color, and wrong for the next. In my experience it's pretty much impossible to exactly match every color on a color checker card. If you get this red block just right, then the blue block will be slightly off. You have to pick which colors are most important to get exactly right, and accept that others will be off to varying degrees.

It would be easier, cheaper, and less time consuming to do exact color matching digitally. Whether it's shot on film and scanned, or shot with a digital camera, once you are in Photoshop you can go in and select specific areas for individual color correction, or even select particular hues for adjustment.

Thank you much for the detailed reply. In those days I dont belive anyone even had a PC. 1975 I think it was.
In retrospect its best the photo idea was a wash as it was for a glass eye, the artist was going to paint the eye from the photo but none were close enough so it was made by sitting many many hours in front of the painter . In the end it was perfection in paint. :thumbup:.
Its amazing how much technology has changed since then.

 

[ksmattfish]

There are also materials added to pigments and dyes that can greatly affect their appearance. Photo paper doesn't have these materials, and so can't reproduce their qualities.

When I worked in a photo lab we had a guy come in with an advertisement page he'd put together, and needed photo copies. He'd used some sort of florescent orange paper in the ad, and we couldn't get anywhere near a match. There was stuff in the paper he used that made it florescent, but that stuff isn't in any kind of photo paper or the dyes used in photo paper.