Color rich image
To spark an interest I’ve gathered a mood-board on Pinterest – Blue & Yellow
Let’s talk a bit in a different way, through a prism of physics, rather than color theories (wheels, triangles, opposite or matching colors, etc.).
What is light?
Visible light, for human eye, is just a portion of electromagnetic spectrum, wavelengths that range approximately from 400 to 700 nanometers.
If You take a look at all of this range at once, You would observe neutral light (or white light as we used to call it). If You start spliting and/or blocking certain parts of that spectrum other colors would appear.
What is Color?
We see objects being colored in a certain way because they reflect just a certain part of that visible spectrum and our eyes pick that (for instance sky is blue, because atmosphere scatter shorter wavelenghts of visible spectrum and this portion reaches our eyes). White surface reflect most of it, while black seem to absorb all waveleghts very good – let’s say that is enough for the basic theory (as in reality it gets more complicated the deeper You dive). That serves as a reminder: everything we see around is light (including color properties) and all we record on a photograph, digital or artificial image (visualisation) is light.
In my opinion, light simulation, distribution and rendition are the most important parts that form the mood of any image.
Color rich image for me is one that keeps as wide lighting spectrum as possible but still manages to look natural (You can always go crazy with light, but just because You can, doesn’t mean that You should).
In nature You can observe natural phenomena with properties that especially landscape photographers fell in love with. Golden Hour is one of those moments – early morning/late evening, when the sun is almost touching the horizon, sun light looses it’s intensity and it’s light gets on the warmer side (because of scattering & absorbtion going on in the atmosphere).
After the sun goes down – dusk comes. You can get just enough bluish tinted natural light and mix with more warm artificial lighting (if You took a glimpse into the mood-board – this is the main scenario).
In the end it really doesn’t matter what theory You choose (as long as it works for You – use it!). For me a bit more physical approach works good enough not to mess with color theories and good portion of reference always helps.
We always look back to nature for the most beautiful things in life – that’s why I love physics as it simply tries to explain how things work.
So, what’s next?
I’m looking to make an intro (inside Octane Render StandAlone) on how to set the white balance, choose and tweak lights to get desired look – not only realistic, but also pleasant for observer. See You soon!
P.S. If You wish other similar topics to be covered, please feel free to drop me a line.