Color Perception

[KmH]

Approximately 7% of all men are color-blind, but only about 0.4% of women.

To most color-blind people a red fire engine, green grass, and all 3 traffic lights appear yellow.

In rare instances, some people are yellow/blue color-blind, and unable to tell the difference between the two colors.

In the most extreme form of color-blindeness, a person perceives only shades of gray and the world looks much like a black-and-white television does to most other people.

 

[Josh66]

Interesting...

 

[themedicine]

My father is yellow-blue color blind. Never even knew it until he was like 35 or so. haha. He didn't believe them at first either.

 

[Garbz]

If anyone is interested in what their reality looks like to these people, Photoshop CS4's soft-proofing options contain profiles that immitate both R-G and Y-B colour blindness. Try it on some of your images.

Also definitely try it if you're making business cards or 7% of males won't be able to read them

 

[themedicine]

^^ haha, thats a great point!

 

[thoughtcryme]

I'm color blind and it isn't like that at all.
Red is still red, green is still green.
This must be the most misunderstood thing that exists.
Because people have all different ideas about what the world looks like to a person that's color blind.
To me, the only difference is that I sometimes have to ask someone if I'm seeing the color right.
In my mind, the world I envision that non color blind people see is that some specific colors look more distinct than they look to me.

My problem is subtle "shades" of some reds and greens.
Colors never appear to be other colors entirely, and there are no colors that I can't see.
Certain light temps give colors a different appearance.
Like muted greens sometimes look like dull gray.
Colors like maroon can sometimes look purplish.
In some cases I can identify every color that makes up a specific shade of color.
Like violet, violet isn't a specific color to me.
It's a light blue with subtle hints of light red.
Purple to me is dark blue and red.

I often find myself trying to get closer to the light source, or seeking other types of light when trying to judge problem colors, and it takes a little while for me to feel confident with some images.
And that is basically the extent of my color blindness.
People often think that being color blind means you see in black and white-LOL...
Most of the men in my family are also color blind but it seems more severe with them.
My case might be much less severe than most.
A side effect is that I can't trust my perception of color in some cases.
I 2nd guess myself, even though in many cases I was right to begin with.
And that's the worst part.
But I don't see myself as not seeing colors "correctly", because who decides what that is?
I'm fully aware that I don't see colors like the majority of others.
But that's how I am about everything.

So being color blind to me, is business as usual.
The only thing it keeps me from doing is being able to read the numbers in the color blindness Ishimura test.
Yeah, I couldn't be a pilot because of it, or an air traffic control worker, probly several other things too.

Just because we see colors differently doesn't mean you're right and i'm wrong.
To me, photography, digital paintings, these things are about a persons view of the world around them.

I've never had a complaint about a photo not having proper colors or had anyone besides the person that I asked tell me it was off.
I'm not afraid to ask someone else if I have colors correct or not.
Once I do, in most cases I can remember that color or shade and the one I confused it with.


Photoshops color dropper and the apple color meter are always the very first items in the dock.

I'll answer any questions regarding it.
Don't think you have to skirt around it now.
If i have a photo up for criticism tell me the truth about it, even if the colors are screwed.

 

[whirl]

I am Red Green colour blind and interested in photography, Sometimes I find it frustrating when faced with a colourful image, trying to make sure that I do not over saturate it during Post processing.

I was speaking to a friend of mine who introduced me to a New product from X-Rite called the ColorChecker Passport which also has a built in LightRoom 2 Plugin.

Although not designed for the colour blind photographer, he explained the advantages of it and how it could help me during my Post Processing.

I took a gamble and made a purchase from the webite he recommended and after a few hours of experimenting with it under various conditions, I was blown away at the results and how easy it is to use.

I got my partner to arrange a bunch of flowers which contained lot of colour which I would normaly not be able to distiguish.

Took a shot of the ColorChecker Passport under the sane lighting conditions, imported the images into Lightroom and created a custom camera profile.

The results were amazing, No colour cast and all the colours of the flowers according to my partner were 100% accurate. All I had to do was bump up the B;acks a little to give the image a bit more depth and leave the Saturation alone.

For anyone who is concerned with Colour, this tool is higly recommended.

I bought mine from

http://www.perfectink.co.uk/product/xrite-colorchecker-passport-camera-dng-profiles

Regards.

 

[lvcrtrs]

That looks pretty cool and somewhat easy to use. (Things always look easy in the promo).

 

[rocdoc]

thoughtcryme, that's a great description and clarification. I'm in this elite club too, and indeed most of the men afflicted (the 7% estimate is a vague approximation btw, varies across the world) are in the situation you describe. I had no idea I had any color discrimination deficit until around age 17 when I saw Ishihara plates for the first time (Ishihara Test for Color Blindness ; Ishihara color test - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Daily life is not impacted in the least. The deficit varies though, and some people indeed have true achromatism, with complete loss of color perception - there are many, many types of color "blindness" - but the most common one is the one you describe. There are various evolutionary explanations for the prevalence in men vs women (most of them delightfully politically incorrect...).
What's interesting is that the more I learn about photography and get into it, the more attracted I am to B&W. I wonder if it's a subconscious preference given slight color discrimination difficulty...

 

[KmH]

(the 7% estimate is a vague approximation btw, varies across the world) ...

Yes, well

Approximately 7% of all men are color-blind, but only about 0.4% of women.

doesn't claim any geographical limitations and thus is a worldwide approximation and accounts for local variations. :lmao:

 

[thoughtcryme]

All the lights in my house are "natural lights".
I found it really helps when trying to judge colors.
Interesting that you have a situation with oversaturation whirl.
It's got me thinking now about a few things.

I have a friend who said on several occasions that the color of the sky in some of my flickr photos seems off, and that he thought it was from my color perception problem.
Finally I made him point them out to me.
And every photo he brought to my attention had a color treatment applied, so the "off" colors were meant to be that way.
I'm a big fan of treatments like silver tint(bleach-bypass), urban acid(modified cross process), and frequently create my own variations of these.
I do like some photos that have full-vibrant-color, but only when the photo itself calls for it.
Which isn't that often, usually only when the color itself will be the subject/s of the composition.
I prefer modified color tints, dull earth tones, and selective coloring instead of direct full color.
I like B/W, but prefer some hint of color in it.