COMPOSITION
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Cinematographers Blueprint 300dpi posterRead 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. 
DESIGN
COLOR
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HDR and ColorRead more: HDR and Colorhttps://www.soundandvision.com/content/nits-and-bits-hdr-and-color In HD we often refer to the range of available colors as a color gamut. Such a color gamut is typically plotted on a two-dimensional diagram, called a CIE chart, as shown in at the top of this blog. Each color is characterized by its x/y coordinates. Good enough for government work, perhaps. But for HDR, with its higher luminance levels and wider color, the gamut becomes three-dimensional. For HDR the color gamut therefore becomes a characteristic we now call the color volume. It isn’t easy to show color volume on a two-dimensional medium like the printed page or a computer screen, but one method is shown below. As the luminance becomes higher, the picture eventually turns to white. As it becomes darker, it fades to black. The traditional color gamut shown on the CIE chart is simply a slice through this color volume at a selected luminance level, such as 50%. Three different color volumes—we still refer to them as color gamuts though their third dimension is important—are currently the most significant. The first is BT.709 (sometimes referred to as Rec.709), the color gamut used for pre-UHD/HDR formats, including standard HD. The largest is known as BT.2020; it encompasses (roughly) the range of colors visible to the human eye (though ET might find it insufficient!). Between these two is the color gamut used in digital cinema, known as DCI-P3. sRGB 
  D65 
  
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RawTherapee – a free, open source, cross-platform raw image and HDRi processing programRead more: RawTherapee – a free, open source, cross-platform raw image and HDRi processing program5.10 of this tool includes excellent tools to clean up cr2 and cr3 used on set to support HDRI processing. 
 Converting raw to AcesCG 32 bit tiffs with metadata.
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StudioBinder.com – CRI color rendering indexRead more: StudioBinder.com – CRI color rendering indexwww.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-color-rendering-index “The Color Rendering Index is a measurement of how faithfully a light source reveals the colors of whatever it illuminates, it describes the ability of a light source to reveal the color of an object, as compared to the color a natural light source would provide. The highest possible CRI is 100. A CRI of 100 generally refers to a perfect black body, like a tungsten light source or the sun. ” www.pixelsham.com/2021/04/28/types-of-film-lights-and-their-efficiency 
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Space bodies’ components and light spectroscopyRead more: Space bodies’ components and light spectroscopywww.plutorules.com/page-111-space-rocks.html This help’s us understand the composition of components in/on solar system bodies. Dips in the observed light spectrum, also known as, lines of absorption occur as gasses absorb energy from light at specific points along the light spectrum. These dips or darkened zones (lines of absorption) leave a finger print which identify elements and compounds. In this image the dark absorption bands appear as lines of emission which occur as the result of emitted not reflected (absorbed) light. Lines of absorption  Lines of emission Lines of emission    
LIGHTING
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How are Energy and Matter the Same?Read more: How are Energy and Matter the Same?www.turnerpublishing.com/blog/detail/everything-is-energy-everything-is-one-everything-is-possible/ www.universetoday.com/116615/how-are-energy-and-matter-the-same/ As Einstein showed us, light and matter and just aspects of the same thing. Matter is just frozen light. And light is matter on the move. Albert Einstein’s most famous equation says that energy and matter are two sides of the same coin. How does one become the other? Relativity requires that the faster an object moves, the more mass it appears to have. This means that somehow part of the energy of the car’s motion appears to transform into mass. Hence the origin of Einstein’s equation. How does that happen? We don’t really know. We only know that it does. Matter is 99.999999999999 percent empty space. Not only do the atom and solid matter consist mainly of empty space, it is the same in outer space The quantum theory researchers discovered the answer: Not only do particles consist of energy, but so does the space between. This is the so-called zero-point energy. Therefore it is true: Everything consists of energy. Energy is the basis of material reality. Every type of particle is conceived of as a quantum vibration in a field: Electrons are vibrations in electron fields, protons vibrate in a proton field, and so on. Everything is energy, and everything is connected to everything else through fields.  
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Convert between light exposure and intensityRead more: Convert between light exposure and intensityimport math,sys def Exposure2Intensity(exposure): exp = float(exposure) result = math.pow(2,exp) print(result) Exposure2Intensity(0) def Intensity2Exposure(intensity): inarg = float(intensity) if inarg == 0: print("Exposure of zero intensity is undefined.") return if inarg < 1e-323: inarg = max(inarg, 1e-323) print("Exposure of negative intensities is undefined. Clamping to a very small value instead (1e-323)") result = math.log(inarg, 2) print(result) Intensity2Exposure(0.1)Why Exposure?Exposure is a stop value that multiplies the intensity by 2 to the power of the stop. Increasing exposure by 1 results in double the amount of light. 
 Artists think in “stops.” Doubling or halving brightness is easy math and common in grading and look-dev.
 Exposure counts doublings in whole stops:- +1 stop = ×2 brightness
- −1 stop = ×0.5 brightness
 This gives perceptually even controls across both bright and dark values. 
 Why Intensity?Intensity is linear. 
 It’s what render engines and compositors expect when:- Summing values
- Averaging pixels
- Multiplying or filtering pixel data
 Use intensity when you need the actual math on pixel/light data. 
 Formulas (from your Python)- Intensity from exposure: intensity = 2**exposure
- Exposure from intensity: exposure = log₂(intensity)
 Guardrails: - Intensity must be > 0 to compute exposure.
- If intensity = 0 → exposure is undefined.
- Clamp tiny values (e.g. 1e−323) before using log₂.
 
 Use Exposure (stops) when…- You want artist-friendly sliders (−5…+5 stops)
- Adjusting look-dev or grading in even stops
- Matching plates with quick ±1 stop tweaks
- Tweening brightness changes smoothly across ranges
 
 Use Intensity (linear) when…- Storing raw pixel/light values
- Multiplying textures or lights by a gain
- Performing sums, averages, and filters
- Feeding values to render engines expecting linear data
 
 Examples- +2 stops → 2**2 = 4.0 (×4)
- +1 stop → 2**1 = 2.0 (×2)
- 0 stop → 2**0 = 1.0 (×1)
- −1 stop → 2**(−1) = 0.5 (×0.5)
- −2 stops → 2**(−2) = 0.25 (×0.25)
- Intensity 0.1 → exposure = log₂(0.1) ≈ −3.32
 
 Rule of thumbThink in stops (exposure) for controls and matching. 
 Compute in linear (intensity) for rendering and math.
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studiobinder.com – What is Tenebrism and Hard Lighting — The Art of Light and Shadow and chiaroscuro ExplainedRead more: studiobinder.com – What is Tenebrism and Hard Lighting — The Art of Light and Shadow and chiaroscuro Explainedhttps://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-tenebrism-art-definition/ https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-hard-light-photography/ 
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Custom bokeh in a raytraced DOF renderRead more: Custom bokeh in a raytraced DOF renderTo achieve a custom pinhole camera effect with a custom bokeh in Arnold Raytracer, you can follow these steps: - Set the render camera with a focal length around 50 (or as needed)
- Set the F-Stop to a high value (e.g., 22).
- Set the focus distance as you require
- Turn on DOF
- Place a plane a few cm in front of the camera.
- Texture the plane with a transparent shape at the center of it. (Transmission with no specular roughness)
 
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Photography basics: Color Temperature and White BalanceRead more: Photography basics: Color Temperature and White BalanceColor 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. (more…)
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