The Colorblind Photographer Thread

[Tadpole]

Hey Everyone,

I thought of this thread whilst searching the posts and happening upon another member who was colorblind. My self being colorblind also, I thought that perhaps we could all band together and learn/help each other out :) .

For my part, the story goes like this.... I was a happy child, but that all came crashing down one fateful day when my elementary school teacher brought me out into the hall to discuss my coloring of Santa. Well, I thought that I had done a marvelous job of staying within the lines and everything but the teacher insisted on asking me over and over "Why did you color Santa like this? Santas suit isn't brown, it's red" Finally I cried. Turns out that I am red-greed colorblind and if the wrappers are missing off the crayons, I'm screwed.

I never had a problem with shooting film but since starting digital I've found that the automatic modes just don't cut it for good photography (IMO). That said I shoot some Auto, some P, a little Tv, but mostly Av. I've strived to get things like exposure and white balance right "in camera" because I feel that these are some of the most important aspects of getting the colors to look true. While it is fun to PP for the obvious reasons, I can never fix color cast, etc... due to my eyes.

Thus the story ends (for now). I am not touchy or insecure with my colorblindness and I am still a happy child. I am however curious if there are any other members with similar problems? I'd be grateful for any tricks/advice that you can offer. Thanks for listening. :D

Peace,
A.J.

[GyRob]

intresting story ,iv seen lot's of shots in the forum that makes me think some are color blind but not really given a thought for those that really are ,i hope you mange to get things sorted out.
Rob
Ps why did you type the thread in pink ;)

[Tadpole]

Hah, hah Rob! I'll put that one away with the 5000 "so what color is my shirt?" comments. :p

[GyRob]

bUMP.
Guess there are not many color blind photographer's in the Forum .
AS for your shirt blue but thats Green to you ;)
Rob.

[Alastair]

I'm colourblind, I blame my Dad, he is too and also managed to pass it to my two sisters, as you'll probably know it's much rarer for women to be colourblind.

I've had years of "what colour's this", "what colour pen am I holding", "why do you have on a pink shirt" comments too - HAHAHA. Everyone's a comedian, none of them funny ;) I live with it fine though, it's hardly a disability in life is it so nothing to get down about.

When it comes to photography I just take pictures I like the look of. I've been doing Autumnal shots this month and have been struggling a lot, it really helps to have my girlfriend around when I'm post processing them though, I can never tell if the reds/greens look at all realistic or are completely over saturated.

I do like black and white photography a lot, maybe the colour issues go a long way to explaining why!

[KCMO Al]

I posted a question like this a while back and did not get many responses. People who do not have our defect simply can't understand what we experience or even what we mean. I just bought a 5D and will, for now rely on in-camera processing which I think is very good, although many on this forum wouldn't consider not PP. I will do some sharpening and minor color correction, but as you know, I can't trust my eyes with color accuracy. I show my stuff to my wife, and if she likes it, then I know it's close enough for most people. So far the color accuracy of the 5D is really wonderful. I went to the market this weekend and shot fruits and vegetables in the stands exactly for this purpose--to see how it handled wide ranges of colors and it passed with flying colors...if you get what I mean.

[Tadpole]

Wow! I was starting to think that I was the only one, darn....there goes my singular uniqueness :p . What is really neat is how everyone so far has mentioned someone of the female persuasion that helps out with the color. My wife happens to be the head colorist at a hair salon, she's my resident expert and I drive her crazy on a regular basis reviewing my PP attempts!

[Tadpole]

Oh yeah, my shirt is blue today! Rob has ESP.

[JSkinner]

My elementary school color epiphany came when I colored the ocean green. When the teacher pointed out my error I showed her the "sea green" crayon I used but she just thought I was being difficult. No one could understand why I had trouble finding a red frisbee in the green grass. I was once stopped for running through a blinking red light that I thought was yellow. The cop was not impressed with my "colorblind" explaination. You learn to adapt to color deficiency but sometimes you just can't overcome it. I was trying to add some blue to a photo with a washed out sky and when I showed it to my wife she said it was violet. It looked fine to me. So now anytime I'm editing color in a photo I have to ask her "Does this look OK?"

People who do not have our defect simply can't understand what we experience or even what we mean.

Here is a website that shows what it is like to be colorblind:
http://colorvisiontesting.com/what%20colorblind%20people%20see.htm

The site shows a photo and then what that photo looks like to a colorblind person. All the photos look the same to me.

[JSkinner]

How about this one: "What color does this look like to you?"

[theflyingkiwi]

I got around this problem by shooting in B&W

I don't have to worry about colours, just the contrast. :)

[Quad]

Well I am another colour blind one. The OP had a very nice teacher I just got beaten for trying to make a fool of the teacher, those grade 2 kids are such devious ones. One teacher did suspect and asked me things like "What colour is this apple?" "That tree?" Even grade 1's knew the answers to those questions. I didn't even have to look to answer. In a blazing display of my early psychic abilities I got them all right. Therefore I was trying to make them all look like fools. Lesson learned, don't make nuns look like fools. People now don't understand colour blindness all that well, it is not part of their experience so why should they and 45 years ago they understood it even less.

I have also come to the conclusions that most people don't have a great colour sense. My family cannot spot a yellow green hue (as an example) for what it is with any great accuracy. So people will have to put up with my colour (or sometimes auto color correction tool's) interpretation.

If I could find a B&W paper I liked I would probably go back to that but maybe not as I have grown somewhat fond of color in the last few years. Still grey is my favorite colour apparently as my wife asks me if I like some fabric or another (she forgets that that is a foolish question to ask me) and I always seem to like the grey one the most.


A couple of other things I have noticed. It is not so much I don't see colours but that some colours (mostly red/green but there are others at times) are muted so I have learned to keep things a bit muted or it is just garish/over saturated to other folks. I have also discovered that on first glance people like over saturated so you have to be careful to listen to people's responses to your photos as over saturated is like candy looks great on a quick view but gets tiresome soon.


Something else that has helped me is a very good monitor and colour calibration of that device. Even though I don't see all the colours correctly it helps me get a good print.