FAQ
- What is color management and how Perfect-Pixs can help you improve color?
- How Perfect-Pixs is used?
- What makes Perfect-Pixs different than the other color, gray and custom white card products available?
- Why is it so important to have my computer monitor properly adjusted for tone and color?
- How do I use my Perfect-Pixs cards to visually adjust my computer monitor?
- Why is there no 18% gray block on Perfect-Pixs cards?
- What is Perfect-Pixs custom white balance card used for?
- What topics are covered in the Perfect-Pixs Manual?
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What is color management and how Perfect-Pixs can help you improve color?
Color management is simply a system that gets all of your devices to represent color in a consistent and predictable way. Your need to use a color management system because your scanner, digital camera, computer monitor and printer all display colors differently. Your color management system makes the 'translation' of color from one device to another happen in a consistent and predicatable manner. Although there are many ways to set up color management, without real references and a properly adjust computer monitor, color management can be difficult to impossible to implement.
This is why Perfect-Pixs should be an essential addition to your color management tool kit! Perfect-Pixs gives you the tools to visually adjust you monitor for brightness, contrast and tone and in conjunction with your monitor gamma adjustment program lets you ensure your monitor is visually optimized for viewing and printing. Perfect-Pixs reference card give your the real world color and gray references that help analyze, compare and an tweak your color management system.
How Perfect-Pixs is used?
The objective behind Perfect-Pixs is to give photographers an affordable tool set that will let them take better pictures, adjust colors easier using their computer and print colors more consistently. To accomplish these objectives we developed a family of color rendition, gray tone and custom white balance cards and we provide simple easy to understand instructions in a 30 page manual included with our card kit that explains how to use each of cards.
* Taking Better Digital Photographs
The photographer simply takes a photos of the Perfect-Pixs gray tone card using their digital camera's meter. These test shots will tell the photographer which gray tone is really neutral gray for their camera and illustrates to the photographer how their camera captures the gray tone range. Once the correct gray reference has been determined, the photographer can use that reference for future spot metering measurements.
The Perfect-Pixs custom white balance card is used with a digital camera's custom white balance option. Using this card allows the photographer to correctly set the white balance point accurately for the particular light source that they are taking pictures under. Correctly used this should eliminate color casts in their digial photos that can be caused by an incorrect auto white balance setting.
The Perfect-Pixs Color Patches card lets the photographer include some know standard colors in their photo or in a test photo taken under the same lighting conditions. This provides the photographer with known colors and a middle gray point that is then used when editing their images later. Including a known color reference in photo lets the photographer properly process the image for color later. Without a known reference the photographer is guessing during processing stage.
* Adjusting Colors Easier When Editing
In any good color management system, your monitor is the most critical component. If your monitor is incorrectly adjusted for tone and color then all bets are off for how your image will look on other monitors and when printed. Perfect-Pixs Card Kit includes detailed instruction on how to use the reference cards and the included image files to let photographer more accurately adjust their monitors for better color. The cards are used to visually verify monitor setup.
When a photographer includes either the zone card or the color card in their photo or has taken a test image of the cards, the photographer has a known tone and color reference to use to set the proper middle gray point using their photoediting software. This technique is explained in the instructions and greatly improves image color. The cards also provide known colors that can be compared to the image that the photographer can use for hue, tone and brightness adjustments.
* Printing Colors More Consistently
Perfect-Pixs reference cards when used to take better photos, correctly adjust a monitor and edit images in your photoediting program inevitability leads to better color in your prints. However, the use of the cards doesn't stop there. The cards provide known tone and color references that can used to with your printer to help you find the right settings on your printer for printing color more accurately or to a least determine how you printer handles color so that you can make the necessary adjustments when editing your images to ensure that you get consistent printmaking results.
* Priced Right
Because Perfect-Pixs was originally developed for photography students, the cost of the cards needed to be lower. Perfect-Pixs cards are priced far below what other reference card manufacturers charge.
What makes Perfect-Pixs different than the other color, gray and custom white card products available?
The Perfect-Pixs family of colour rendition, gray tone and custom white balance cards were initially created to use as teaching aids and to help our fine art reproduction clients produce their own digital files with known color references.
The objective was to provide easy to understand and easy to use visual color references at an affordable price that would be useful to any and all digital photographers.
Unlike 'natural color' reference cards, Perfect-Pixs Color cards use the primary colors used by digital photographers; RGB: Red, Green, Blue; CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. RGB are the colors used by your digital camera, scanner and monitor. CMYK are the colors used by most digital printers.
Perfect-Pixs Gray and Zone cards are based on an 11 zone system. The 11 zones provide the necessary references for monitor brightness and contrast adjustment and provides photographic gray points that make Perfect-Pixs ideal for exposure measurement with calibrated and uncalibrated digital camera spot meters.
Perfect-Pixs reference cards are premium reference cards. Every card is printed at high resolution on a 1mm thick precise matte imageboard using archival inks. Properly handled and cared for Perfect-Pixs will last for years withour color fading or color shifting.
Why is it so important to have my computer monitor properly adjusted for tone and color?
The ultimate purpose of monitor adjustment is to properly display colors and a full range of tones as accurately as possible on your computer monitor.
If your monitor is NOT properly adjusted, images can look bleached out, too dark or simply be the wrong color. If you have an unadjusted monitor and edit images using it, then it is very likely that prints of your images will be wrong and that your images will display incorrectly on other computer monitors.
In order to visually adjust your monitor your need a real world reference like Perfect-Pixs to adjust brightness, contrast and something called 'gamma'. Since the display intensity of every pixel from your image (the input) is not displayed on your monitor (the output) exactly the same way, a gamma or an intensity adjustment of each of red, green and blue colors is needed to correct for the differences. Gamma in the simpliest terms means intensity. Gamma correction controls the overall brightness of an image and the ratio of red to green to blue used to display your images. Perfect-Pixs cards are used during your monitor calibration process to help you make your visual adjustments are as accurate as visual adjustments can be.
Without a properly adjusted monitor, all bets are off when it comes to properly displaying or printing your images!
How do I use my Perfect-Pixs cards to visually adjust my computer monitor?
Perfect-Pixs cards and support files are used in conjunction with a software program (like Quick Gamma or Adobe Gamma) to visually adjust your monitor.
Your monitor's brightness and contrast controls are adjusted first using the Perfect-Pixs Zone or Gray Card then in conjunction with your gamma program the Perfect-Pixs Patches or Graduated cards are used to adjust the individual settings for red, green and blue.
Why is there no 18% gray block on Perfect-Pixs cards?
An 18 Percent Gray Card is a simple gray-coloured card which is supposed to uniformly reflect 18% of the light which falls upon it.
Gray cards can be used as a reference to set the camera exposure when your light meter and camera is calibrated. Unfortunately with many digital cameras, they are not perfectly calibrated to 18% gray and other variations in camera tolerences can make using an 18% gray target impratical.
Perfect-Pixs Zone and Gray cards were designed to provide digital photographers with 11 zones of gray allowing the photographer to use the gray zone that is right for them and their digital camera's 'sweet spot'. With just a couple of test shots, the photographer can identify, the right gray zone for their camera.
What is Perfect-Pixs custom white balance card used for?
Digital cameras attempt to find a white point in a scene and adjust all other colors in the scene using this white point as the reference. Sometimes, like all electronic devices, the results are imperfect and images may have a blue, yellow or green color cast or the colors may simply look off.
This is why many digital cameras have a 'custom white balance' option or feature. This feature allows the photographer to measure a known white object to properly set the anchor for the image's white point.
The Perfect-Pixs Custom White Balance card is a uniform precise matte white target that provides the photographer with a known white reference target for custom white balance measurement.
What topics are covered in the Perfect-Pixs Manual?
The Perfect-Pixs Card Kit includes a 30 page manual and support file on CD.
The manual is divided into three main sections and covers these topics.
Section One - Monitor Adjustment Using the Zone and Patches Cards
This section walks you through how to adjust your monitor to get better colors and gray tones. Read though this section before you start the process.
Section Two - Basic Perfect-Pixs Techniques
This section is an introduction to the basic uses of Perfect-Pixs to help you get started and to get immediate benefits from Perfect-Pixs.
- Improving Exposure
- Using the Custom White Balance Card
- Using the Zone and Patches Cards as Gray and Colour References
- Adjusting Your Images Using the Zone and Patches Cards
- Basic Printing Using the Zone and Patches Cards
Section Three - Advanced Perfect-Pixs Techniques
This section contains the more advanced techniques and uses of Perfect-Pixs.
- Using the Zone Card with Your Digital Camera’s Spot Meter
- Using the Patches Card with your Digital Camera’s Spot Meter