Of the 12 essential creative options, the second six revolve around manipulating the data created on your camera’s sensor in support of your vision.
In Support Of Your Vision
Once you’ve built a solid foundation, it’s time to move onto manipulating the digital information (the raw data) that your camera’s sensor creates. This is accomplished by adjusting six in-camera color and character options. These include the white balance, tint, hue, contrast, saturation and sharpening; the same options that many people today change after the fact in the computer. We prefer, however, to adjust these settings while in the field, before we create the image. We believe that you are more in tune with how you feel when you’re in the moment, rather than a few days later when sitting behind the computer.
Thanks to the in-camera supporting features found in most DSLR cameras today, you can simply dial-in how you feel, adjusting the images’ color and character options (its supporting features) to taste. By simply taking advantage of the supporting features you already paid for and cleaning your light first (building a solid structure), you can create the most spectacular images of your life, right in the field, right when the inspiration strikes … and you’ll never need to edit a thing later!
In Support of your vision lies the color and character options inside the camera. These options affect the data your sensor creates (not the light you captured). These adjustments are done before the pixels are made (before the final image is saved). They include your intrinsic color options: white balance, tint, hue/color tone and your expressive character options: contrast, saturation and sharpening.
Intrinsic Color Options
- White Balance — adds blue or amber.
- Tint — adds green or magenta.
- Hue/Color Tone — mixes red or yellow.
Expressive Character Options
- Contrast — increases or decreases the overall contrast (the difference between brights and darks) in the image.
- Saturation — increases or decreases the richness of the colors present.
- Sharpening— intensifies or softens the edges of the pixels.
Again, it’s important to remember that all six supporting features deal specifically with the data your sensor creates. They have nothing to do with the light you captured and therefore have nothing to do with your image’s structure. If your picture is blurry, too dark, too bright or full of glare … these settings are not to blame and can not help. You must ensure that the structure of your image is solid.
The best part of adjusting the supporting color and character options is that it’s easy and the results are immediate. To learn them well, however, you will need to practice with them. The next few lessons go over what they offer. Please take a moment after each to explore what they do. Change a few settings, play with your in-camera options. You’ll love what they offer.
Next: Essential Creative Option #7 – The White Balance Control
This is post #9 of 16 of In Camera Magic: The 12 Essential Creative Options, a free online photography course for creating spectacular images right in the camera.