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Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> Challenge 58: Dominant Color (host: Lonnit Rysher) >> CSLR Challenge 58 Exhibition > Gerbera
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AJ

Gerbera


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Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 06:43
Victor, your arguments have me thinking...though I have not brought the analytical rigor that you have to this question, just my naked eye, I tend to agree with you and find the blue/black in this image to be...purely incidental. FWIW. Best Wishes, Traveller
ctfchallenge12-Jan-2006 06:37
Victor, you're logic is totally flawed! When you base this on saturation levels you are claiming my walls as fully saturated red - they are not! They were red when the image was captured, but I processed all shaded red areas down to zero them out to black, so they are not highly saturated reds, they are blacks. You can't count them as reds! ~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 06:16
Lonnit, I wasn't talking about the black. I thought of trying to eliminate the black but I decided not to. Saturation with reference to black and white is meaningless (think of it as undefined if you like). This is because of the polar coordinates of the HSL system (as opposed to the rectangular coordinates of RGB). So I just left it as is. However, it IS meaningful for shades in between. That's also one of the reasons I included the picture with the channels swapped.

For what it's worth, I showed these pictures to my daughter, and she thought both red versions were more distracting, i.e., the unchanged lamp and the changed Gerbera. I'm really starting to suspect there's some viewer-specific perception going on here. Speaking just for myself, the first thing I noticed about your lamp picture was the red. Then I noticed the green of the lampshade. Both are unusual to me, and the picture is very striking. -- Victor
Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 05:21
Victor, you're logic is totally flawed! When you base this on saturation levels you are claiming my walls as fully saturated red - they are not! They were red when the image was captured, but I processed all shaded red areas down to zero them out to black, so they are not highly saturated reds, they are blacks. You can't count them as reds! ~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 02:22
Maybe I should have posted both pictures with the same color channel transformation applied to each. Both still have the same color information. The channels are just swapped. Now which one looks like the odd color is distracting? I'm partly serious about this, by the way, because I think this reveals something about perceptions.



-- Victor
Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 02:12
I was afraid that was going to happen. Pbase evidently doesn't put PNG images inline. You'll have to click the link. Perhaps right-clicking and opening in a separate window would be a good idea so you can see the picture and read what I wrote. I forgot to mention that that picture is separated into three sections separated by black lines. The left section is from the lamp picture. The right section is from the Gerbera picture. The middle section is the Gerbera picture with channels switched thus: B->R, R->G G->B.
-- Victor
Canon DSLR Challenge12-Jan-2006 02:05
Oh, I disagree. And I think I can prove it, too. I'll be curious to see how you defend yourself against impartial evidence. Enter Paintshop Pro (since I don't know how to do this with Photoshop. These two pictures are so similar to each other in terms of color information that a direct comparison of palettes serves to be an impartial tiebreaker in this controversy.

I took both images and first looked at just the saturation channel of each.


What immediately comes across to me is the most saturated part of your image is the red. The lamp shade, which is allegedly the part with the dominant color, is not as saturated as the wall. In AJ's picture, on the other hand, clearly the flower is the most saturated, the blue being a muted blue in comparison, although still quite saturated.

But let's look at the palettes. I took Paintshop Pro and reduced each picture to 256 colors. Then I took screenprints of the palettes sorted in order by hue. I made a minor adjustment to the hue order in order to put the "dominant" color on the top and the other colors on the bottom.

To anlyze your claim that AJ has more colors in the dominant portion of the picture, look at the top about 2/3 of the palette. Your picture has greens, yellows, whites, and blues. AJ's has reds, oranges, and yellows.

I did one other thing, though. I took the color palette for AJ's picture and swapped RGB channels allowing for a comparison with roughly the same hues. That's what the middle palette is.

http://the-light.com/Photography/dpreview/rules/palettes.png

Clearly, AJ's dominant color is more dominant than yours, and her other colors are less dominant than yours.

So how can the blue be more dominant? Either you're perception of red is reduced (maybe from being around red walls too much?), your perception of blue is heightened, there is some compositional effect, or there is some psychological effect.

Or, maybe you're simply pulling our legs on this one.

-- Victor (posted in the nature of the sparring I think you claim to like)
Canon DSLR Challenge11-Jan-2006 19:21
Victor, that red is less dominant than this blue. If there was no black here, the blue would have less dominance. Also, the variations in tones from yellow to orange, to burnt orange weakens the overall orangy impact. In my lamp image, Green is the most dominant color, no doubt, and the red is the afterthought that you glance at and then ignore. Here there is a definite battle between the the blue and black for dominance - my eyes keep flipping back and forth between them. I knew one of you guys were going to call me on this, but I still stand firm. :) ~ Lonnit
Guest 10-Jan-2006 19:04
Stunning. And, uh, err, I rather think it's very on topic. -Michael
Canon DSLR Challenge09-Jan-2006 23:47
I think this would be a good place to put a picture for comparison. -- Victor
Canon DSLR Challenge01-Jan-2006 18:27
Each time I return, I notice the blue less and less. The thing is, the blue is so vibrant that it draws a lot of attention, which in turn detracts from the dominance. Yes, indeed, there is no doubt that the yellowy-orange color is dominant. However, the blue is so strong that it caused my first reaction to be,"Ooooooh, FANTASTIC contrasting colors shot!!!". What I was looking for in the entries is for one's first reaction to be that s/he shouts out, "WoW that's red!!!!" or "WoW, that's green!!", not "WOW, those colors are amazing together. This shot is awesome. I love it! There's AJ again with those incredible images!! Man, she's great!". So, much as I love it, "Wow, love the COLORS" didn't qualify because my reaction was to colors, plural, not COLOR, dominant. So, that's why. :) ~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge01-Jan-2006 14:23
To be clear, I *was* trying to be argumentative, as this is my nature and I consider it a form of recreation (particularly with Lonnit hosting). We clearly differ on the meaning of "dominant" and I'm right. :-P --Mr. Biscuit
Canon DSLR Challenge01-Jan-2006 09:04
Lonnit,

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I promise. But in the main thread, you stated, "Yes, there can be bits of other colors in there, meandering about, but it's got to be obvious that the main point of the image is the dominant color." In my view, the black here poses little, if any distraction. The blue serves mainly to enhance the yellow, which is obviously the focus of the picture. Anyway, that's how I see it. -- Victor
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Dec-2005 23:34
Well, Bisky, like I said, I think it's the blue and black that thow me here. If at least the blue wasn't there, this by all means would be perfection for the topic. :) ~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Dec-2005 19:56
Lonnit: You're the host, so run things as you see fit, but I see it differently. Unless we are to avoid things like directional light and the occasional shadow, there will be differing tones of the same hue. Dimes to donuts that, under uniform (i.e. uninspiring) light, those flowers are one color. If this one doesn't qualify with a dominant color, then I'm thinking the reins ought to be loosened a bit. This image practically stains my retinas. --Mr. Biscuit
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Dec-2005 19:26
Just GORGEOUS Angela. One silly little question though.... what's the dom color? Yellow and orange are pretty equal here. Maybe, if there were no blue, and black we could get away with calling this orangy-yellow, but stunning as it is, I'm not feeling a dominance. You do realize it just kills me to say this, don't you? Sigh... ~ Lonnit
Canon DSLR Challenge30-Dec-2005 14:26
Never ceases to amaze me just how distinct your signature is. Is your entire world soft and inviting? If so, I'll be over shortly [*WiNk*]. --Mr. Biscuit