Photographic software, particularly editing software, has been dominated by adjusting the RGB Red Green Blue numbers. But human perception of colour is slightly more complex in capturing filtered colours on a light sensor under bayer filters or viewing a screen of LEDs light emittingdiodes, coloured red green and blue-ish . Further many graphic artist had complained mixing coloursd in graphic software, doesn’t necessarily create the same colours that you would expect in a mix using pigment paints.
In the end I had to just live with these limitations.
However things are changing a few graphic applications will now
more naturally mix pigments for graphic software. What I wish to discuss here
is a surprise addition to the update 1.21 to Lumina Neo. It includes a new
section called Color Harmony. The two top sliders will be very familiar to ligthroom
Photoshop users but with slight different colours on the top slider, which is
not called Tint but Brilliance. Instead of starting at green and moving to a
magenta it runs for a bluish grey green to a red. I suspect is colour harmony
is very much inspired/controlled by the NCS system which still dominates many
European countries.
Colour Contrast is something I will also discuss later as it deserves a bit more investigation.
Split colour versions of pigments, as warmer or cooler versions
when mixing intermediate colours, have been a long standing practise of how
artists have traditionally bought a lot of drama and harmony into their artisticworks. On a flat surface, like
a painting or photograph, cool colours tend to recede warm colours tend to come
forward.
Portrait photographs have known this even back in the film
days. Using various filters of coloured lights to enhance their work and bring
the sitter to life. In the smartphone world there are “warmify” apps to liven
your selfie and deeply buried option on most digital cameras to alter th colour
temperature of the photo output. Cannon is renowned for their “warmer” sensors.
These digital tools usually apply to the whole image
Why these Split Colour Warmth sliders are different they change warm and cool
components of your picture separately. This is a bigger deal than I originally
thought. Here is a simple example of a young bougainvillea “bloom”, actually
just new leaves that are orange before turning magenta, taken at my studio window. I’m
a little amazed how much impact can be achieved when you separately adjust the
whoops and cool have on the photo. I’m expecting to have a lot of fun with these
sliders.
Colour Balance adds nuanced refinements, combining
tonal/luminance steps with more detail colour adjustments. It is also an area I
wish to explore further.
