COMPOSITION
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Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi poster
Read more: Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterThe 300dpi digital poster is now available to all PixelSham.com subscribers.
If you have already subscribed and wish a copy, please send me a note through the contact page.
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Photography basics: Camera Aspect Ratio, Sensor Size and Depth of Field – resolutions
Read more: Photography basics: Camera Aspect Ratio, Sensor Size and Depth of Field – resolutionshttp://www.shutterangle.com/2012/cinematic-look-aspect-ratio-sensor-size-depth-of-field/
http://www.shutterangle.com/2012/film-video-aspect-ratio-artistic-choice/
DESIGN
COLOR
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A Brief History of Color in Art
Read more: A Brief History of Color in Artwww.artsy.net/article/the-art-genome-project-a-brief-history-of-color-in-art
Of all the pigments that have been banned over the centuries, the color most missed by painters is likely Lead White.
This hue could capture and reflect a gleam of light like no other, though its production was anything but glamorous. The 17th-century Dutch method for manufacturing the pigment involved layering cow and horse manure over lead and vinegar. After three months in a sealed room, these materials would combine to create flakes of pure white. While scientists in the late 19th century identified lead as poisonous, it wasn’t until 1978 that the United States banned the production of lead white paint.
More reading:
www.canva.com/learn/color-meanings/https://www.infogrades.com/history-events-infographics/bizarre-history-of-colors/
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Photography Basics : Spectral Sensitivity Estimation Without a Camera
Read more: Photography Basics : Spectral Sensitivity Estimation Without a Camerahttps://color-lab-eilat.github.io/Spectral-sensitivity-estimation-web/
A number of problems in computer vision and related fields would be mitigated if camera spectral sensitivities were known. As consumer cameras are not designed for high-precision visual tasks, manufacturers do not disclose spectral sensitivities. Their estimation requires a costly optical setup, which triggered researchers to come up with numerous indirect methods that aim to lower cost and complexity by using color targets. However, the use of color targets gives rise to new complications that make the estimation more difficult, and consequently, there currently exists no simple, low-cost, robust go-to method for spectral sensitivity estimation that non-specialized research labs can adopt. Furthermore, even if not limited by hardware or cost, researchers frequently work with imagery from multiple cameras that they do not have in their possession.
To provide a practical solution to this problem, we propose a framework for spectral sensitivity estimation that not only does not require any hardware (including a color target), but also does not require physical access to the camera itself. Similar to other work, we formulate an optimization problem that minimizes a two-term objective function: a camera-specific term from a system of equations, and a universal term that bounds the solution space.
Different than other work, we utilize publicly available high-quality calibration data to construct both terms. We use the colorimetric mapping matrices provided by the Adobe DNG Converter to formulate the camera-specific system of equations, and constrain the solutions using an autoencoder trained on a database of ground-truth curves. On average, we achieve reconstruction errors as low as those that can arise due to manufacturing imperfections between two copies of the same camera. We provide predicted sensitivities for more than 1,000 cameras that the Adobe DNG Converter currently supports, and discuss which tasks can become trivial when camera responses are available.
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Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Read more: Capturing the world in HDR for real time projects – Call of Duty: Advanced WarfareReal-World Measurements for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
www.activision.com/cdn/research/Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
Local version
Real_World_Measurements_for_Call_of_Duty_Advanced_Warfare.pdf
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Photography basics: Color Temperature and White Balance
Read more: Photography basics: Color Temperature and White Balance
Color Temperature of a light source describes the spectrum of light which is radiated from a theoretical “blackbody” (an ideal physical body that absorbs all radiation and incident light – neither reflecting it nor allowing it to pass through) with a given surface temperature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
Or. Most simply it is a method of describing the color characteristics of light through a numerical value that corresponds to the color emitted by a light source, measured in degrees of Kelvin (K) on a scale from 1,000 to 10,000.
More accurately. The color temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal backbody that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source.
As such, the color temperature of a light source is a numerical measurement of its color appearance. It is based on the principle that any object will emit light if it is heated to a high enough temperature, and that the color of that light will shift in a predictable manner as the temperature is increased. The system is based on the color changes of a theoretical “blackbody radiator” as it is heated from a cold black to a white hot state.
So, why do we measure the hue of the light as a “temperature”? This was started in the late 1800s, when the British physicist William Kelvin heated a block of carbon. It glowed in the heat, producing a range of different colors at different temperatures. The black cube first produced a dim red light, increasing to a brighter yellow as the temperature went up, and eventually produced a bright blue-white glow at the highest temperatures. In his honor, Color Temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin, which are a variation on Centigrade degrees. Instead of starting at the temperature water freezes, the Kelvin scale starts at “absolute zero,” which is -273 Centigrade.
More about black bodies here: https://www.pixelsham.com/2013/03/14/black-body-color
Details in the post
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No one could see the colour blue until modern times
Read more: No one could see the colour blue until modern timeshttps://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-blue-and-how-do-we-see-color-2015-2
The way that humans see the world… until we have a way to describe something, even something so fundamental as a colour, we may not even notice that something it’s there.
Ancient languages didn’t have a word for blue — not Greek, not Chinese, not Japanese, not Hebrew, not Icelandic cultures. And without a word for the colour, there’s evidence that they may not have seen it at all.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/211119-colors
Every language first had a word for black and for white, or dark and light. The next word for a colour to come into existence — in every language studied around the world — was red, the colour of blood and wine.
After red, historically, yellow appears, and later, green (though in a couple of languages, yellow and green switch places). The last of these colours to appear in every language is blue.
The only ancient culture to develop a word for blue was the Egyptians — and as it happens, they were also the only culture that had a way to produce a blue dye.
https://mymodernmet.com/shades-of-blue-color-history/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-recreate-lost-recipes-for-a-5-000-year-old-egyptian-blue-dye/ar-AA1FXcj1
Assessment of process variability and color in synthesized and ancient Egyptian blue pigments | npj Heritage ScienceThe approximately 5,000-year-old dye wasn’t a single color, but instead encompassed a range of hues, from deep blues to duller grays and greens. Artisans first crafted Egyptian blue during the Fourth Dynasty (roughly 2613 to 2494 BCE) from recipes reliant on calcium-copper silicate. These techniques were later adopted by Romans in lieu of more expensive materials like lapis lazuli and turquoise. But the additional ingredient lists were lost to history by the time of the Renaissance.
McCloy’s team confirmed that cuprorivaite—the naturally occurring mineral equivalent to Egyptian blue—remains the primary color influence in each hue. Despite the presence of other components, Egyptian blue appears as a uniform color after the cuprorivaite becomes encased in colorless particles such as silicate during the heating process.
Considered to be the first ever synthetically produced color pigment, Egyptian blue (also known as cuprorivaite) was created around 2,200 B.C. It was made from ground limestone mixed with sand and a copper-containing mineral, such as azurite or malachite, which was then heated between 1470 and 1650°F. The result was an opaque blue glass which then had to be crushed and combined with thickening agents such as egg whites to create a long-lasting paint or glaze.
If you think about it, blue doesn’t appear much in nature — there aren’t animals with blue pigments (except for one butterfly, Obrina Olivewing, all animals generate blue through light scattering), blue eyes are rare (also blue through light scattering), and blue flowers are mostly human creations. There is, of course, the sky, but is that really blue?
So before we had a word for it, did people not naturally see blue? Do you really see something if you don’t have a word for it?
A researcher named Jules Davidoff traveled to Namibia to investigate this, where he conducted an experiment with the Himba tribe, who speak a language that has no word for blue or distinction between blue and green. When shown a circle with 11 green squares and one blue, they couldn’t pick out which one was different from the others.
When looking at a circle of green squares with only one slightly different shade, they could immediately spot the different one. Can you?
Davidoff says that without a word for a colour, without a way of identifying it as different, it’s much harder for us to notice what’s unique about it — even though our eyes are physically seeing the blocks it in the same way.
Further research brought to wider discussions about color perception in humans. Everything that we make is based on the fact that humans are trichromatic. The television only has 3 colors. Our color printers have 3 different colors. But some people, and in specific some women seemed to be more sensible to color differences… mainly because they’re just more aware or – because of the job that they do.
Eventually this brought to the discovery of a small percentage of the population, referred to as tetrachromats, which developed an extra cone sensitivity to yellow, likely due to gene modifications.
The interesting detail about these is that even between tetrachromats, only the ones that had a reason to develop, label and work with extra color sensitivity actually developed the ability to use their native skills.
So before blue became a common concept, maybe humans saw it. But it seems they didn’t know they were seeing it.
If you see something yet can’t see it, does it exist? Did colours come into existence over time? Not technically, but our ability to notice them… may have…
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Willem Zwarthoed – Aces gamut in VFX production pdf
Read more: Willem Zwarthoed – Aces gamut in VFX production pdfhttps://www.provideocoalition.com/color-management-part-12-introducing-aces/
Local copy:
https://www.slideshare.net/hpduiker/acescg-a-common-color-encoding-for-visual-effects-applications
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What light is best to illuminate gems for resale
Read more: What light is best to illuminate gems for resalewww.palagems.com/gem-lighting2
Artificial light sources, not unlike the diverse phases of natural light, vary considerably in their properties. As a result, some lamps render an object’s color better than others do.
The most important criterion for assessing the color-rendering ability of any lamp is its spectral power distribution curve.
Natural daylight varies too much in strength and spectral composition to be taken seriously as a lighting standard for grading and dealing colored stones. For anything to be a standard, it must be constant in its properties, which natural light is not.
For dealers in particular to make the transition from natural light to an artificial light source, that source must offer:
1- A degree of illuminance at least as strong as the common phases of natural daylight.
2- Spectral properties identical or comparable to a phase of natural daylight.A source combining these two things makes gems appear much the same as when viewed under a given phase of natural light. From the viewpoint of many dealers, this corresponds to a naturalappearance.
The 6000° Kelvin xenon short-arc lamp appears closest to meeting the criteria for a standard light source. Besides the strong illuminance this lamp affords, its spectrum is very similar to CIE standard illuminants of similar color temperature.
LIGHTING
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Photography basics: How Exposure Stops (Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO) Affect Your Photos – cheat sheet cards
Read more: Photography basics: How Exposure Stops (Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO) Affect Your Photos – cheat sheet cardsAlso see:
https://www.pixelsham.com/2018/11/22/exposure-value-measurements/
https://www.pixelsham.com/2016/03/03/f-stop-vs-t-stop/
An exposure stop is a unit measurement of Exposure as such it provides a universal linear scale to measure the increase and decrease in light, exposed to the image sensor, due to changes in shutter speed, iso and f-stop.
+-1 stop is a doubling or halving of the amount of light let in when taking a photo
1 EV (exposure value) is just another way to say one stop of exposure change.
https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/what-is-a-stop-of-exposure-in-photography
Same applies to shutter speed, iso and aperture.
Doubling or halving your shutter speed produces an increase or decrease of 1 stop of exposure.
Doubling or halving your iso speed produces an increase or decrease of 1 stop of exposure.
Because of the way f-stop numbers are calculated (ratio of focal length/lens diameter, where focal length is the distance between the lens and the sensor), an f-stop doesn’t relate to a doubling or halving of the value, but to the doubling/halving of the area coverage of a lens in relation to its focal length. And as such, to a multiplying or dividing by 1.41 (the square root of 2). For example, going from f/2.8 to f/4 is a decrease of 1 stop because 4 = 2.8 * 1.41. Changing from f/16 to f/11 is an increase of 1 stop because 11 = 16 / 1.41.
A wider aperture means that light proceeding from the foreground, subject, and background is entering at more oblique angles than the light entering less obliquely.
Consider that absolutely everything is bathed in light, therefore light bouncing off of anything is effectively omnidirectional. Your camera happens to be picking up a tiny portion of the light that’s bouncing off into infinity.
Now consider that the wider your iris/aperture, the more of that omnidirectional light you’re picking up:
When you have a very narrow iris you are eliminating a lot of oblique light. Whatever light enters, from whatever distance, enters moderately parallel as a whole. When you have a wide aperture, much more light is entering at a multitude of angles. Your lens can only focus the light from one depth – the foreground/background appear blurred because it cannot be focused on.
https://frankwhitephotography.com/index.php?id=28:what-is-a-stop-in-photography
The great thing about stops is that they give us a way to directly compare shutter speed, aperture diameter, and ISO speed. This means that we can easily swap these three components about while keeping the overall exposure the same.
http://lifehacker.com/how-aperture-shutter-speed-and-iso-affect-pictures-sh-1699204484
https://www.techradar.com/how-to/the-exposure-triangle
https://www.videoschoolonline.com/what-is-an-exposure-stop
Note. All three of these measurements (aperture, shutter, iso) have full stops, half stops and third stops, but if you look at the numbers they aren’t always consistent. For example, a one third stop between ISO100 and ISO 200 would be ISO133, yet most cameras are marked at ISO125.
Third-stops are especially important as they’re the increment that most cameras use for their settings. These are just imaginary divisions in each stop.
From a practical standpoint manufacturers only standardize the full stops, meaning that while they try and stay somewhat consistent there is some rounding up going on between the smaller numbers.
Note that ND Filters directly modify the exposure triangle.
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Photography basics: Lumens vs Candelas (candle) vs Lux vs FootCandle vs Watts vs Irradiance vs Illuminance
Read more: Photography basics: Lumens vs Candelas (candle) vs Lux vs FootCandle vs Watts vs Irradiance vs Illuminancehttps://www.translatorscafe.com/unit-converter/en-US/illumination/1-11/
The power output of a light source is measured using the unit of watts W. This is a direct measure to calculate how much power the light is going to drain from your socket and it is not relatable to the light brightness itself.
The amount of energy emitted from it per second. That energy comes out in a form of photons which we can crudely represent with rays of light coming out of the source. The higher the power the more rays emitted from the source in a unit of time.
Not all energy emitted is visible to the human eye, so we often rely on photometric measurements, which takes in account the sensitivity of human eye to different wavelenghts
Details in the post
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Magnific.ai Relight – change the entire lighting of a scene
Read more: Magnific.ai Relight – change the entire lighting of a scene
It’s a new Magnific spell that allows you to change the entire lighting of a scene and, optionally, the background with just:
1/ A prompt OR
2/ A reference image OR
3/ A light map (drawing your own lights)https://x.com/javilopen/status/1805274155065176489
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Ethan Roffler interviews CG Supervisor Daniele Tosti
Read more: Ethan Roffler interviews CG Supervisor Daniele TostiEthan Roffler
I recently had the honor of interviewing this VFX genius and gained great insight into what it takes to work in the entertainment industry. Keep in mind, these questions are coming from an artist’s perspective but can be applied to any creative individual looking for some wisdom from a professional. So grab a drink, sit back, and enjoy this fun and insightful conversation.
Ethan
To start, I just wanted to say thank you so much for taking the time for this interview!Daniele
My pleasure.
When I started my career I struggled to find help. Even people in the industry at the time were not that helpful. Because of that, I decided very early on that I was going to do exactly the opposite. I spend most of my weekends talking or helping students. ;)Ethan
That’s awesome! I have also come across the same struggle! Just a heads up, this will probably be the most informal interview you’ll ever have haha! Okay, so let’s start with a small introduction!Daniele
Short introduction: I worked very hard and got lucky enough to work on great shows with great people. ;) Slightly longer version: I started working for a TV channel, very early, while I was learning about CG. Slowly made my way across the world, working along very great people and amazing shows. I learned that to be successful in this business, you have to really love what you do as much as respecting the people around you. What you do will improve to the final product; the way you work with people will make a difference in your life.
Ethan
How long have you been an artist?Daniele
Loaded question. I believe I am still trying and craving to be one. After each production I finish I realize how much I still do not know. And how many things I would like to try. I guess in my CG Sup and generalist world, being an artist is about learning as much about the latest technologies and production cycles as I can, then putting that in practice. Having said that, I do consider myself a cinematographer first, as I have been doing that for about 25 years now.Ethan
Words of true wisdom, the more I know the less I know:) How did you get your start in the industry?
How did you break into such a competitive field?Daniele
There were not many schools when I started. It was all about a few magazines, some books, and pushing software around trying to learn how to make pretty images. Opportunities opened because of that knowledge! The true break was learning to work hard to achieve a Suspension of Disbelief in my work that people would recognize as such. It’s not something everyone can do, but I was fortunate to not be scared of working hard, being a quick learner and having very good supervisors and colleagues to learn from.Ethan
Which do you think is better, having a solid art degree or a strong portfolio?Daniele
Very good question. A strong portfolio will get you a job now. A solid strong degree will likely get you a job for a longer period. Let me digress here; Working as an artist is not about being an artist, it’s about making money as an artist. Most people fail to make that difference and have either a poor career or lack the understanding to make a stable one. One should never mix art with working as an artist. You can do both only if you understand business and are fair to yourself.
Ethan
That’s probably the most helpful answer to that question I have ever heard.
What’s some advice you can offer to someone just starting out who wants to break into the industry?Daniele
Breaking in the industry is not just about knowing your art. It’s about knowing good business practices. Prepare a good demo reel based on the skill you are applying for; research all the places where you want to apply and why; send as many reels around; follow up each reel with a phone call. Business is all about right time, right place.Ethan
A follow-up question to that is: Would you consider it a bad practice to send your demo reels out in mass quantity rather than focusing on a handful of companies to research and apply for?Daniele
Depends how desperate you are… I would say research is a must. To improve your options, you need to know which company is working on what and what skills they are after. If you were selling vacuum cleaners you probably would not want to waste energy contacting shoemakers or cattle farmers.Ethan
What do you think the biggest killer of creativity and productivity is for you?Daniele
Money…If you were thinking as an artist. ;) If you were thinking about making money as an artist… then I would say “thinking that you work alone”.Ethan
Best. Answer. Ever.
What are ways you fight complacency and maintain fresh ideas, outlooks, and perspectivesDaniele
Two things: Challenge yourself to go outside your comfort zone. And think outside of the box.Ethan
What are the ways/habits you have that challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone and think outside the box?Daniele
If you think you are a good character painter, pick up a camera and go take pictures of amazing landscapes. If you think you are good only at painting or sketching, learn how to code in python. If you cannot solve a problem, that being a project or a person, learn to ask for help or learn about looking at the problem from various perspectives. If you are introvert, learn to be extrovert. And vice versa. And so on…
Ethan
How do you avoid burnout?Daniele
Oh… I wish I learned about this earlier. I think anyone that has a passion in something is at risk of burning out. Artists, more than many, because we see the world differently and our passion goes deep. You avoid burnouts by thinking that you are in a long term plan and that you have an obligation to pay or repay your talent by supporting and cherishing yourself and your family, not your paycheck. You do this by treating your art as a business and using business skills when dealing with your career and using artistic skills only when you are dealing with a project itself.Ethan
Looking back, what was a big defining moment for you?Daniele
Recognizing that people around you, those being colleagues, friends or family, come first.
It changed my career overnight.Ethan
Who are some of your personal heroes?Daniele
Too many to list. Most recently… James Cameron; Joe Letteri; Lawrence Krauss; Richard Dawkins. Because they all mix science, art, and poetry in their own way.Ethan
Last question:
What’s your dream job? ;)Daniele
Teaching artists to be better at being business people… as it will help us all improve our lives and the careers we took…
Being a VFX artist is fundamentally based on mistrust.
This because schedules, pipelines, technology, creative calls… all have a native and naive instability to them that causes everyone to grow a genuine but beneficial lack of trust in the status quo. This is a fine balance act to build into your character. The VFX motto: “Love everyone but trust no one” is born on that.
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