There are a number of factors that affect the accuracy of the colors coming out of the camera. One is the temperature of the light itself, which is measured in degrees Kelvin. Candle light is about 1850° while full sun is 5000-6000°. The higher the temperature, the cooler and bluer the light. Cameras can be set to adjust to these different lighting conditions. This is called setting the white balance. The goal of this setting is to make neutral colors truly neutral. A truly neutral color has equal red, green, and blue (RGB) values.

Virtually all cameras have mechanism for making generalized settings such as sun, shade, and flash. Some cameras have an automatic setting, which will attempt to set the white balance based on what it sees in the image. Higher end cameras even allow you to manually set the white balance. This method will always give you the most accurate result, but it takes the most work.

Even after an accurate white balance has been set, the other colors in an image may not be correct. To correct all colors, a calibrated color card must be photographed under the same conditions as the rest of the photographs taken in a session. Such cards come in many sizes and are produced by several companies. The images you see here are of the X-Rite Color Checker Passport, a handy folding card in a hard case. The card also comes with software that produces color profiles.

The first two images you see were made from the same exposure and have identical adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw with exception of the color profile. The first one uses the standard Adobe profile.

The second image at the right was imported into the color checker application. The software then adjusts the colors in the image to correct values. You then use the resulting profile to set the color in all the images taken at the same time. The primary difference is the blue square in the bottom row. More subtle differences can be seen in some other squares.

One other factor to keep in mind is that computer monitors also have to be calibrated. If the images don’t look right to you, it may be a result of your monitor calibration being off.

In the full image of the card below, you can see a second panel of the left. This is used to creatively set colors to a variation of the true values. For example, you might want to make the image appear warmer than it actually is. Not shown is another panel that is used to manually set the white balance.

For early November, it was an unusually beautiful day in the high 70′s with no wind. It was my first visit to this area of the Cloverdale Ranch since the burn on 27 October. See my previous post for more information on the burn.

The purpose of this visit was to establish a photographic baseline of the return of the area to its post-burn state. Botanist Neal Kramer with Kramer Botanical and I established 13 photo points to track different aspects of the burn. Some areas burned lightly while others burned intensely. Some areas didn’t burn at all due to the moisture in the ground as this image of a pond shows.

Here’s an example of an area that was intensely burned. According to Neal, the flames leaped 30 to 40 feet in the air. As you can see, it was a complete sweep. This area used to contain Coyote Bush, wild berry vines, and grasses.

If you have a sharp eye, you may have noticed a speck of green near the bottom of the image.

In the two weeks since the burn, with some rain and lot of sun, something has emerged. What you see is the Soap plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum). It is also known as amole. Here’s a close up of another example.

POST obtained the first USFWS Enhancement of Survival Permit ever issued to make the burn possible. One of the benefits is improved habitat for two federally endangered species: the California Red-legged Frog and the San Francisco Garter Snake. It will be very interesting to see the progress.