Color Temperature Crash Course Article

[Ryan Patrick OHara]

Hello everyone. I just finished writing a crash course article covering color temperature.

 

I am posting it here so that many can hopefully take something away from it, and more importantly so knowledgeable people may note my mistakes, or have something to add.

 

I will be editing it up fairly soon, but only in the flow of language, not really in topics, facts, or etc.

 

So please let me know what you think, what I can add, and what I might have just made up. lol

 

 

Thanks!

 

Article can be found here: http://ryanpatrickohara.blogspot.com/2009/...ure-basics.html

 

Best,

 

-Ryan

[Mike Williamson]

It looks like a good resource Ryan, it's nice of you to put it up.

 

I was glad to see you talked about the green/magenta color axis, I think it's possible to elaborate on that a bit more. When talking about color, I often point out that color temperature is a linear measurement which is not enough information if you are trying to create a specific color (matching an existing light source for example). You need to add in a second axis to be able to find that color which is where the green/magenta axis comes in (would be nice if there was a term for this). This is why color space models have to be at least two dimensional (perhaps some are 3D?), so maybe if you had a graph of REC-709 color space you could show how that works and how color temperature is a part of that.

 

A simple example of this idea would be to show two photos of a subject with matching color temperatures, one lit with a tungsten lamp with CTO, the other lit with same lamp but using CTS instead. The color temperatures would be matched, making the differences in the green/magenta axis apparent.

[Sean Lambrecht]

Hey! Looking forward to reading this later! Your previous blog about geared heads helped me out immensely, thanks for taking the time.

[Ryan Patrick OHara]

I was glad to see you talked about the green/magenta color axis, I think it's possible to elaborate on that a bit more. When talking about color, I often point out that color temperature is a linear measurement which is not enough information if you are trying to create a specific color (matching an existing light source for example). You need to add in a second axis to be able to find that color which is where the green/magenta axis comes in (would be nice if there was a term for this). This is why color space models have to be at least two dimensional (perhaps some are 3D?), so maybe if you had a graph of REC-709 color space you could show how that works and how color temperature is a part of that.

 

A simple example of this idea would be to show two photos of a subject with matching color temperatures, one lit with a tungsten lamp with CTO, the other lit with same lamp but using CTS instead. The color temperatures would be matched, making the differences in the green/magenta axis apparent.

 

 

I'll see what I can do. I tried to hammer home that color temperature is not green magenta values but rather those are 'color compensation' the only term I could really find that described what they were called.

 

I'll try to work more images in, when I have the time to take them. Right now I'm simply grabbing photos of google, or making my own charts in photoshop. I'll try to make the article more visual.

 

Somebody on another forum suggested trying to make an online calculator or interactive tutorial. I'll see if I'm that talented. Haha.

 

 

Thanks again

That is a good idea.