I received an email from a woman wondering why she couldn’t get good color accuracy photographing t-shirts for an e-commerce site with her i-phone. With the internet awash in mediocre photography, many people think that taking a good photo is easy. However, if you want a good product image and good color accuracy, you will need to invest in more than a point-and-shoot camera and mentality.
First, invest in a good monitor. I am a big fan of Ezio and I currently have the CG223W model. However, if an Ezio is out of your price range, look for something that has a wide color gamut. Some very expensive models cover 100% RGB but I have heard from other photographers that companies such as Dell make some good monitors for much less. For instance, at $549 the Dell Ultrasharp U2410 claims to get 96% Coverage in Adobe RGB.
Next you will need to invest in a monitor color calibrator. I use and older Eye-One by X-Rite. These colorimeters come with calibration software. Some expensive monitors also have software that work in conjunction with various colorimeters. You may want to do some tests to see what works the best.
If you are photographing in a “studio” you will need to keep you lighting consistent. My workspace has north facing windows with no direct sunlight. When I use studio strobe lights, I don’t need to black out my windows. My strobes over power any indirect daylight so I can use the same gray point throughout the day. However, I test my gray point each time I change my lighting set-up.
To test my gray point, I photograph a QP card. These black, gray, and white cards are small, inexpensive, and come in a light protective case that keeps them from fading. I place a card in the spot where I am going to photograph my product. I shoot all my images in Adobe RGB RAW with my camera set at a custom white balance of K5200. I use K5200 because it best matches the color temperature of my studio lights. If your camera has “picture styles”, landscape may not be the best choice because the colors might actually be too saturated. If this is an option on your camera, you may want to do some test shots to see what setting works the best. The most important thing is to keep all your images consistent. Never use AWB (Auto White Balance) and process all the images the same for color consistency.
I process the QP card image in Photoshop with Adobe Camera Raw and use the White Balance Tool to establish my gray point. I click in the center of the white square rather than the gray square. If your photo isn’t overexposed, then the white square should be somewhat gray. I then save this setting so that all my images photographed with this set-up can be processed using this gray point setting.
Once you open the image in Photoshop, double check that you are working in a large color space such as Adobe RGB or Pro Photo RGB. If you process your images in sRGB, you are eliminating color from your image. Your goal is to retain as much detail and color as possible for the original image.
Congratulations! Now you can get to work on capturing those product images with good color accuracy!
