Artwork Photographer Provides Strange Color Files

I occasionally get images to correct where the photographer has given the artist images of their work with color that looked weird. In the above example, the photographer had shot RAW and converted his files to the Prophoto rgb color space. In simple terms, the Prophoto color space has more color information than the Adobe RGB color space which has more color information than the sRGB color space. But you need a color managed program (like Photoshop) to view the Prophoto files properly, otherwise you'll see the image on the right when you should be seeing the image on the left.

Working in the Prophoto color space is fine, but the photographer also needs to understand the limitations of their client. Not everyone has access to a program like Photoshop, which can read the color information and display it accurately. Therefore the image should have been converted to the sRGB color space and before being given to the artist, which is also the default color space for digital jurying for art shows.

The Improved Booth Slide

Almost every artist knows how important a professional looking booth slide needs to be. Though a show may never tell you how it’s going to be used, at the very least it will be used to break a tie if two or more artists have the same jury score. And in the case of work where the size isn't clear, it will be used to give the jurors a sense of scale.

To improve their booth slide, I work with artists having them set up their booth in their house or backyard and then e-mail me the images while the booth is still set up. Then I make suggestions on the placement of the items in the booth, camera position or how the exposure can be improved enough for me to do the final post processing and make it look like a professional display photo. The result gives them a better chance of getting into shows. Click here to read the entire article.

The original booth slide