[alt-photo] Re: Another tricolor...

[Katharine Thayer]

Well, interesting the assumptions we base our judgments on.  I was  
assuming the pavement and doorsill  were stone, which often has a  
slight blue cast, especially in the States where slabs that size  
(even on the west coast)  are most often cut from Pennsylvania  
bluestone.  But even concrete generally has a slight blue cast in  
shadow, so I wasn't concerned about the slight blue in the pavement;  
that seemed natural to me.  After reading Loris's comment about the  
image being heavy-handed on blue, I downloaded the picture into  
photoshop and played with adjusting the color curves.  Adjusting the  
blue or red curve even a tiny bit to less blue or less cyan just  
shifted the image to a yellow or red cast in the image, suggesting to  
me that the blue/cyan layer was fine as it was, whereas adjusting the  
green curve to very slightly less magenta made the image more neutral  
overall.   And looking at individual CMY values in areas I thought  
should be neutral, like the doorsills,  gave values that were skewed  
toward M, not C.   Not a totally scientific way to judge the color  
cast of a print, but enough to satisfy me that I could trust my eye  
when it saw no blue or cyan cast in the image.

"Heavy-handed" is a pretty strongly negative term;  I probably  
wouldn't use the term "heavy-handed"  to refer to the color balance  
of a tricolor gum even if there were a strong and unmistakable cast,  
rendering the yellows as green, the oranges as grey and the reds as  
purple; I'd probably just say the print had a strong color bias.      
As I said, I do see a slight  magenta cast, but so slight that it  
isn't really even worth mentioning, and I never would have mentioned  
it except in response to the "heavy-handed" comment about the blue.   
I'm glad to read that in spite of the criticism, Loris does think  
that the print was well-done.




On Jun 7, 2010, at 4:25 AM, Diana Bloomfield wrote:

> Hi Loris,
>
> I went back and looked at the image; I see what you mean, but  
> because the upper part of the image is so light (bright white at  
> the top), and it seems to gradually darken as you get to the lower  
> part of the image,  my thought was that there was a shadow cast on  
> the sidewalk, which would give that concrete gray a somewhat blue  
> cast. So, on my screen, it all looked very natural to me.   Either  
> way, as you way-- they are beautiful images and really well done.
>
> Diana
>
> On Jun 7, 2010, at 3:21 AM, Loris Medici wrote:
>
>
>> Well, Paul knows it better for sure (both in terms of the original  
>> scene and
>> how he wanted to depict it), but my comment about (a little  
>> strong) blue was
>> based on the pavement - which I presume is concrete. Here in  
>> Turkey (and
>> wherever I have visited in Europe) concrete is usually neutral  
>> gray, can't
>> speak for the States...
>>
>> I completely agree with the below comments that both prints are  
>> well done /
>> beautiful and that Paul is doing pretty well. (I like better #2...)
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Loris.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: alt-photo-process-list-bounces at lists.altphotolist.org On  
>> Behalf Of
>> Katharine Thayer
>> Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:34 AM
>> To: The alternative photographic processes mailing list
>> Subject: [alt-photo] Re: Another tricolor...
>>
>> I have to agree with Diana about the blues, in fact I meant to  
>> comment on
>> that before in response to a comment  on the earlier one you  
>> posted but have
>> been buried in a project and just didn't get to it.  It's  
>> dangerous of
>> course to draw firm conclusions about color cast from an electronic
>> reproduction, but I saw no blue cast in that picture (the bricks and
>> doorways)  at all; if there was a cast  I'd say it had a very  
>> slight magenta
>> cast, but not enough to be concerned about.  If the blue were too  
>> strong,
>> the bricks in the middle couldn't have been the saturated orange  
>> that they
>> are but would be much more neutralized, unsaturated, as a result  
>> of the blue
>>
>> neutralizing the orange.   I love the deep rich colors in both
>> prints; you're doing just fine.
>>
>>
>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 4:09 PM, Diana Bloomfield wrote:
>>
>>
>>> ...
>>> Also, I love the rich blue in this one, too-- as I did in the
>>> other (and didn't think the blue in your first one was too blue,
>>> or too saturated-- at all.)
>>>
>>
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