Although black and white photography has been the standard for beginning photography students for a long time, at some point every photographer should learn the basics about color photography. Adding color to images brings its own set of complications and requires the photographer to have a firm understanding of the basic elements of photography, but can still be broken down into a few easy to understand elements.

Contrast

In black and white photography, contrast refers to the difference between the lightest and darkest elements of a photograph. Summed up, you can think of it as “how white is white?” Basically, black and white photography only has high, medium, or low contrast. In color photography, contrast gets a little more interesting.. Color photography has color contrast compared to the tonal contrast of black and white.

Color contrast is determined by the way each of the colors interacts with the colors surrounding it. So, although you can still adjust the contrast and push bright colors darker, the colors will look different in the picture depending upon the colors around it. For example, if you have someone sitting in a field of dark green grass wearing a white shirt, the bright white of her shirt will standout against the green grass background.

The Temperature of Your Colors

Any time you’re taking pictures in colors, you have to pay attention to the temperature of the colors. Different lights will result in different color temperatures, in the same way that the sun looks different at different times of day. While there are a lot of technical measurements for color temperature and the way it interacts with actual temperature, we can think of it in terms of tint.

In photography, tint and color temperature are usually referred to as “white balance.” Film and sensors are developed with a certain kind of light in mind, and any time photos are shot in different lighting circumstances it will affect whether or not white looks truly “white.” As an example, you may have noticed that photographs taken under fluorescent lights have a greenish tint; this is a result of the color temperature of those lights.

How to Use Temperature?

Anytime you shoot, you want to understand which tint or color temperature is best for your picture. Reddish, warm tints such as those provided by a sunset are flattering to most human skin tones, while cooler, bluish tints are best for neutral product photography.

You can adjust your white balance several different ways- you can do it with your camera, by using filters, editing the image in the darkroom or by using photo editing software. Similar to aperture and shutter speed, it’s usually a good idea to take a photograph several times with different white balance settings to give yourself the most flexibility after the shoot is over.

Learning how to master colors is a skill that takes lots of practice. The theory behind the use of different colors is a controversial and complex topic as photographers often use different colors to help achieve certain emotions in their photographs.

If you’re just getting started with color, the best first goal is to accurately capture the environment the way that you saw it. Once you’re able to start doing this with color images, you can start using different colors to add emotional impact to your photographic story. And as usual, find what works works best for you and have fun doing it.

Author Bio: Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames. Shop online and see our selection of gold picture frames . Come visit our online selection of stylish gold picture frames and quality anniversary picture frames or call 800-780-0699.

Category: Arts and Crafts
Keywords: color photography