Learning the Tricks to Color Photography

With the huge explosion of digital photography, color photography is over taking black and white as the new learning medium for beginning photographers. Using color photography properly can be challenging, so its important to master the basic elements of color photography so you can make your images really stand out.

It Begins with Contrast

In black and white photography, contrast refers to the difference between the lightest and darkest elements of a photograph. In essence, you can think of contrast as "how white is white?" With black and white photography, there are really only three tones: low contrast, medium and high contrast but with color photography it gets a little more complicated. Unlike black and white that has a tonal contrast, color photography has a color contrast.

Color contrast is determined by the way each of the colors interacts with the colors surrounding it. So, although you can still adjust the contrast and push bright colors darker, the colors will look different in the picture depending upon the colors around it. One example is to think of a baseball sitting in some brightly colored green grass - That picture will have high color contrast because the bright white of the ball will stand out sharply against the green grass.

Your Color Temperatures

Any time you're taking pictures in colors, you have to pay attention to the temperature of the colors. One thing that will impact the color temperature of your photograph significantly are the different types of lights that you use while taking your picture. Although there are lots of technical measurements of color temperature the simplest way to think of it is in terms of tint.

Color temperature and tint are actually referred to as "white balance" in photography. How this works is that film and sensors are made with a specific kind of light in mind and anytime a picture is taken in a different lighting situation it impacts whether or not the white looks truly white. One example, is the greenish tint that you get when you take pictures under fluorescent lights; this is caused because of the light's color temperature.

How to Use Temperature Properly

When shooting in color, it is important to understand which color temperature or tint is best for the image you're trying to create. Reddish, warm tints such as those provided by a sunset are flattering to most human skin tones, while cooler, bluish tints are best for neutral product photography.

You can adjust your white balance several different ways- you can do it with your camera, by using filters, editing the image in the darkroom or by using photo editing software. When using color, it's often a good idea to shoot a picture multiple times with different white balance settings in order to give yourself the most flexibility afterwards.

Color theory is a complicated art that many professional photographers spend decades mastering. Using colors can be a controversial and complex topic as there are many different ways to use colors in order to achieve specific emotions in your photographs.

If you're just learning photography using color, then your first assignment is to first get good at capturing the image the way you see it. When you can start doing this consistently with color photography, you can start using these colors to add to the message of your photographs. And as usual, find what works works best for you and have fun doing it.

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