Have you ever gotten back a photograph that was either really blue or really orange?
Every photographer should know the importance of color temperature, color calibration and then color correction.
In a Nutshell, Color temperature has to do with the color of the lighting used to illuminate the scene. Two of the best examples are your traditional light bulbs that tend to be orange/yellow and an overcast day that tends to be blue. Professional photographers often have to change their camera settings and use colored gel over their flashes to adjust for the different lighting temperatures and then color correct after their shoot.
When color correcting it is very important that the photographer is able to see the colors correctly through their monitors. All computer screens are different and the screen’s colors tend to shift over time. Which means the photographer has to have a piece of hardware that actually reads the color of the monitor and adjusts the color temperatures. Then when the photographer goes to make a print the photographer will need to apply a print profile to the image which corrects the color for the printers.
Recently I was hired by a business to photograph some products along with these products the colors had to be printed perfectly.
When I look at these images without using the printers profile the colors look really off however the prints are perfect.