Monitor Callibration - how to test if your monitor is properly callibrated?

This is something that I've always struggled with - whenever I read anything about it I get bored senseless and fall asleep! By the time I've woken up the world has moved on and my monitor is still deliriously uncallibrated.

So I thought I'd post on a few photography forums for some help. I asked for short sweet and simple. So far the best has to be: "Get a Spyder". Which leaves me to wonder how an arachnid is going to fix my computer.

No, I'm not that stupid, but I am that facetious. I don't really know what a Spyder is or how it works which is partly what I was hoping to get out of posting in the first place.

In desperation I re-searched for Spyders and screen callibration and came across this dandy article http://www.imaging-resource.com/ARTS/MONCAL/CALIBRATE.HTM on how to check if your screen needs callibration (I'm happy to say that I didn't fall asleep and the world has not moved on and left me behind). I haven't read the link on that page about Spyders (I am weary of a creeping sloth that seems to slither over me when my mouse goes near the link) but I think it might be worth brazening out. I'll let you know if I make it through alive!

Chrissi in the light

I did this of Chris, a dear friend of mine, at a wedding we were both at (she as a guest, me as photographer). We were actually on our way to the loo and I got distracted by the lights which had turned a particular shade of dirty red from the fires (which I think have been in Grabouw and the smoke is coming all the way through here) and figured Chrissi's gorgeous dress would look awesome with that as a backdrop. So it was a slow shutter and freezing her face with the flash. Being in a hurry - to get to the loo before the speeches started - I just left the flash on my other camera, propped the whole thing (5D and 70-200 lens and speedlite) in a tree stump and set it to slave. The flash on my wide angle I just angled back (there was nothing behind me) and off we went. The hardest part was getting the slave to see its master, but it did eventually!

Focus

I took portrait pics of Jimmy and Patricia and their little daughter Pearl a while back. Patricia's not so keen on having her photo taken. Can't blame her, neither am I. She did this thing almost every time I took a shot where she'd look down at Pearl and away from the camera. A modern day Madonna and child. So when I got this one of her looking straight at the camera and got the focus on Pearl and not on her I wasn't sure whether to be delighted or distraught: when I look at just the image I want her face to be in focus, but when I think of Patricia, and how she slipped out of my focus (metaphorically) through out the shoot, it's fitting that she's not in focus here. And I have to say that I quite enjoy the play between her direct gaze and the soft focus on her, and Pearl's looking away and the sharp focus on Pearl.

The real kings and queens!

I've decided that seeing as though there are those out there who know a crap load more about photography than I do, that it seems a little . . . arrogant? . . . to write about my processes at this point. So - check out the links on the side of this blog for some really incredible photographers and photographer stuff.

The Red Glasses!

So I finally capitulated and did the 'colour object and the black and white photo!' Never thought I would, but I guess I was asked by the right client as so far my answer has always been no. Nico and Erna were in Cape Town to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary - they're just the nicest, most down to earth people that you're ever likely to meet - and when they asked if I could do the 'colour thing' with the 'black and white photo thing' . . . I said . . . yes.

So here's an example that I'm actually quite happy with. I spent quite a bit of time making sure that the transistion from black and white to colour was smooth - so once I'd picked up the glasses on the layer mask I put a 250px gausian blur on the mask so that there's a fairly big area around the glasses that has a tiny blush of colour. Then I carefully repainted the glasses on the layer mask and put a light gausian blur on - this time about 2px. I find that otherwise the line between black and white and colour is too sharp. And if you look closely at the colour (or the black and white image) you'll see that the distinction between the glasses and the other objects around it is not sharp. The other thing that I did was put a fairly light red photo filter over the whole image, but making it lighter in the centre and heavier on the edges. Again just so that the red isn't too jarring.