COMPOSITION
DESIGN
COLOR
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THOMAS MANSENCAL – The Apparent Simplicity of RGB Rendering
Read more: THOMAS MANSENCAL – The Apparent Simplicity of RGB Rendering
https://thomasmansencal.substack.com/p/the-apparent-simplicity-of-rgb-rendering
The primary goal of physically-based rendering (PBR) is to create a simulation that accurately reproduces the imaging process of electro-magnetic spectrum radiation incident to an observer. This simulation should be indistinguishable from reality for a similar observer.
Because a camera is not sensitive to incident light the same way than a human observer, the images it captures are transformed to be colorimetric. A project might require infrared imaging simulation, a portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum that is invisible to us. Radically different observers might image the same scene but the act of observing does not change the intrinsic properties of the objects being imaged. Consequently, the physical modelling of the virtual scene should be independent of the observer.
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Sensitivity of human eye
Read more: Sensitivity of human eyehttp://www.wikilectures.eu/index.php/Spectral_sensitivity_of_the_human_eye
http://www.normankoren.com/Human_spectral_sensitivity_small.jpg
Spectral sensitivity of eye is influenced by light intensity. And the light intensity determines the level of activity of cones cell and rod cell. This is the main characteristic of human vision. Sensitivity to individual colors, in other words, wavelengths of the light spectrum, is explained by the RGB (red-green-blue) theory. This theory assumed that there are three kinds of cones. It’s selectively sensitive to red (700-630 nm), green (560-500 nm), and blue (490-450 nm) light. And their mutual interaction allow to perceive all colors of the spectrum.
http://weeklysciencequiz.blogspot.com/2013/01/violet-skies-are-for-birds.html
Sensitivity of human eye Sensitivity of human eyes to light increase with the decrease in light intensity. In day-light condition, the cones cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 555 nm. In darkness condition, the rod cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 507 nm.
As light intensity decreases, cone function changes more effective way. And when decrease the light intensity, it prompt to accumulation of rhodopsin. Furthermore, in activates rods, it allow to respond to stimuli of light in much lower intensity.
The three curves in the figure above shows the normalized response of an average human eye to various amounts of ambient light. The shift in sensitivity occurs because two types of photoreceptors called cones and rods are responsible for the eye’s response to light. The curve on the right shows the eye’s response under normal lighting conditions and this is called the photopic response. The cones respond to light under these conditions.
As mentioned previously, cones are composed of three different photo pigments that enable color perception. This curve peaks at 555 nanometers, which means that under normal lighting conditions, the eye is most sensitive to a yellowish-green color. When the light levels drop to near total darkness, the response of the eye changes significantly as shown by the scotopic response curve on the left. At this level of light, the rods are most active and the human eye is more sensitive to the light present, and less sensitive to the range of color. Rods are highly sensitive to light but are comprised of a single photo pigment, which accounts for the loss in ability to discriminate color. At this very low light level, sensitivity to blue, violet, and ultraviolet is increased, but sensitivity to yellow and red is reduced. The heavier curve in the middle represents the eye’s response at the ambient light level found in a typical inspection booth. This curve peaks at 550 nanometers, which means the eye is most sensitive to yellowish-green color at this light level. Fluorescent penetrant inspection materials are designed to fluoresce at around 550 nanometers to produce optimal sensitivity under dim lighting conditions.
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About green screens
Read more: About green screenshackaday.com/2015/02/07/how-green-screen-worked-before-computers/
www.newtek.com/blog/tips/best-green-screen-materials/
www.chromawall.com/blog//chroma-key-green
Chroma Key Green, the color of green screens is also known as Chroma Green and is valued at approximately 354C in the Pantone color matching system (PMS).
Chroma Green can be broken down in many different ways. Here is green screen green as other values useful for both physical and digital production:
Green Screen as RGB Color Value: 0, 177, 64
Green Screen as CMYK Color Value: 81, 0, 92, 0
Green Screen as Hex Color Value: #00b140
Green Screen as Websafe Color Value: #009933Chroma Key Green is reasonably close to an 18% gray reflectance.
Illuminate your green screen with an uniform source with less than 2/3 EV variation.
The level of brightness at any given f-stop should be equivalent to a 90% white card under the same lighting. -
Photography basics: Why Use a (MacBeth) Color Chart?
Read more: Photography basics: Why Use a (MacBeth) Color Chart?Start here: https://www.pixelsham.com/2013/05/09/gretagmacbeth-color-checker-numeric-values/
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-color-checker-tool/
In LightRoom
in Final Cut
in Nuke
Note: In Foundry’s Nuke, the software will map 18% gray to whatever your center f/stop is set to in the viewer settings (f/8 by default… change that to EV by following the instructions below).
You can experiment with this by attaching an Exposure node to a Constant set to 0.18, setting your viewer read-out to Spotmeter, and adjusting the stops in the node up and down. You will see that a full stop up or down will give you the respective next value on the aperture scale (f8, f11, f16 etc.).One stop doubles or halves the amount or light that hits the filmback/ccd, so everything works in powers of 2.
So starting with 0.18 in your constant, you will see that raising it by a stop will give you .36 as a floating point number (in linear space), while your f/stop will be f/11 and so on.If you set your center stop to 0 (see below) you will get a relative readout in EVs, where EV 0 again equals 18% constant gray.
In other words. Setting the center f-stop to 0 means that in a neutral plate, the middle gray in the macbeth chart will equal to exposure value 0. EV 0 corresponds to an exposure time of 1 sec and an aperture of f/1.0.
This will set the sun usually around EV12-17 and the sky EV1-4 , depending on cloud coverage.
To switch Foundry’s Nuke’s SpotMeter to return the EV of an image, click on the main viewport, and then press s, this opens the viewer’s properties. Now set the center f-stop to 0 in there. And the SpotMeter in the viewport will change from aperture and fstops to EV.
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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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GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle Gray
Read more: GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle GrayThe human eye perceives half scene brightness not as the linear 50% of the present energy (linear nature values) but as 18% of the overall brightness. We are biased to perceive more information in the dark and contrast areas. A Macbeth chart helps with calibrating back into a photographic capture into this “human perspective” of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_gray
In photography, painting, and other visual arts, middle gray or middle grey is a tone that is perceptually about halfway between black and white on a lightness scale in photography and printing, it is typically defined as 18% reflectance in visible light
Light meters, cameras, and pictures are often calibrated using an 18% gray card[4][5][6] or a color reference card such as a ColorChecker. On the assumption that 18% is similar to the average reflectance of a scene, a grey card can be used to estimate the required exposure of the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorChecker
The exposure meter in the camera does not know whether the subject itself is bright or not. It simply measures the amount of light that comes in, and makes a guess based on that. The camera will aim for 18% gray independently, meaning if you take a photo of an entirely white surface, and an entirely black surface you should get two identical images which both are gray (at least in theory). Thus enters the Macbeth chart.
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Note that Chroma Key Green is reasonably close to an 18% gray reflectance.
http://www.rags-int-inc.com/PhotoTechStuff/MacbethTarget/
No Camera Data 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/CIE1931xy_ColorChecker_SMIL.svg
RGB coordinates of the Macbeth ColorChecker
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0e03/251ad1e6d3c3fb9cb0b1f9754351a959e065.pdf
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Tobia Montanari – Memory Colors: an essential tool for Colorists
Read more: Tobia Montanari – Memory Colors: an essential tool for Coloristshttps://www.tobiamontanari.com/memory-colors-an-essential-tool-for-colorists/
“Memory colors are colors that are universally associated with specific objects, elements or scenes in our environment. They are the colors that we expect to see in specific situations: these colors are based on our expectation of how certain objects should look based on our past experiences and memories.
For instance, we associate specific hues, saturation and brightness values with human skintones and a slight variation can significantly affect the way we perceive a scene.
Similarly, we expect blue skies to have a particular hue, green trees to be a specific shade and so on.
Memory colors live inside of our brains and we often impose them onto what we see. By considering them during the grading process, the resulting image will be more visually appealing and won’t distract the viewer from the intended message of the story. Even a slight deviation from memory colors in a movie can create a sense of discordance, ultimately detracting from the viewer’s experience.”
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VES Cinematic Color – Motion-Picture Color Management
Read more: VES Cinematic Color – Motion-Picture Color ManagementThis paper presents an introduction to the color pipelines behind modern feature-film visual-effects and animation.
Authored by Jeremy Selan, and reviewed by the members of the VES Technology Committee including Rob Bredow, Dan Candela, Nick Cannon, Paul Debevec, Ray Feeney, Andy Hendrickson, Gautham Krishnamurti, Sam Richards, Jordan Soles, and Sebastian Sylwan.
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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/
LIGHTING
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Tracing Spherical harmonics and how Weta used them in production
Read more: Tracing Spherical harmonics and how Weta used them in productionA way to approximate complex lighting in ultra realistic renders.
All SH lighting techniques involve replacing parts of standard lighting equations with spherical functions that have been projected into frequency space using the spherical harmonics as a basis.
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cs4162/slides/spherical-harmonic-lighting.pdf
Spherical harmonics as used at Weta Digital
https://www.fxguide.com/fxfeatured/the-science-of-spherical-harmonics-at-weta-digital/
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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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Neural Microfacet Fields for Inverse Rendering
Read more: Neural Microfacet Fields for Inverse Renderinghttps://half-potato.gitlab.io/posts/nmf/
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