In this episode of Workflows, Scott Wyden Kivowitz shares his inspiring journey as a colorblind photographer. Overcoming hereditary colorblindness, Scott navigates the world of photography, tackling struggles and roadblocks along the way. Discover the tools and techniques that have helped Scott achieve accurate color in her work, including Imagen’s innovative Lite Personal AI Profiles. Tune in to hear Scott’s story and gain insights into creating stunning visuals.
Key Lessons:
1: Overcoming Colorblindness – Discover Scott’s personal experience as a colorblind photographer and how it initially posed challenges in their career.
2: Assistance from Professionals – Learn how Scott’s college professor guided them in the darkroom and later in Photoshop to achieve accurate color representation.
3: Essential Tools for Color Accuracy – Explore the tools Scott relied on, such as the ColorChecker Passport and ColorMunki, to calibrate colors in-camera and on their monitors.
4: Leveraging a Unique Perspective – Find out how Scott’s wife, with her extraordinary ability to perceive colors, became an invaluable resource in ensuring accurate color reproduction.
5: Introducing Lite Personal AI Profiles – Dive into an exciting new technology that allows photographers to create personalized AI photo editing profiles based on their preferred Lightroom presets, resulting in dynamic and intelligent adjustments.
Join the Imagen Community and share your photo editing struggles with other Imageners. Learn from each other’s experiences and enhance your photography workflows.
Show transcription
There was a time in my life when I didn't think I could be a photographer. You see. I am colorblind. I am a color blind photographer. I [00:01:00] have been colorblind obviously, or maybe not, obviously, my entire life. My biological father was colorblind. My grandfather, his father was colorblind. Yes, it is hereditary. It is. So my entire life. I would not match my outfits. I would put colors together that didn't make sense. And I didn't understand why until my mother explained it to me, and I was old enough to finally understand. And with all of that said, when I decided to change career trajectories, during college, from music recording. To photography. I knew that I would have some struggles. Some roadblocks to have to get past. It took multiple things to make that possible. In college, my professor helped me in the darkroom to ensure I got accurate color. I would do work in the [00:02:00] darkroom. I'd come out. With a print and he would say, "Okay, this needs adjustments. This needs adjustments" and so on. So I go back and I make those adjustments. Now once I switched to digital, he helped me do the same in Photoshop. And this is way before Lightroom existed too, by the way. It also took some other tools. Tools that eventually when they came out. I was able to get my hands on. When these didn't exist obviously I couldn't do anything with it, but once they existed, boy, did they change everything for me. One of the tools is the ColorChecker Passport. At the time it was made by X-Rite. They're now owned by Calibrate. This ensured, accurate white balance practically in camera. See you, you could actually do a custom white balance using that tool in camera, but you didn't have to.
So what I would do, is, I would have the client hold this [00:03:00] color swatch, and then at the computer, either in its standalone app or in Lightroom, I would use its software to automatically calibrate the color to that ColorChecker Passport. And it would create what's called a creative color profile. It was previously called a custom color profile in Lightroom until Lightroom started adopting the whole LUT profiles system. And now it's called a creative color profile.
So that would ensure very accurate color. And I could adjust the tone of where I wanted the skin tones to be. I also use a ColorMunki. I believe it's been renamed since then, since I purchased mine, but it was also from X-Rite originally, now, Calibrate. But I would use my ColorMunki to calibrate my monitors. I've two monitors at all times I have for years. And I would calibrate both every other week.
Now I am doing it every month because I'm not editing manually as much, so I don't need to do it as much. But I still do it [00:04:00] so that I always know that my monitors are producing the most accurate color. You also have to do it less often when your monitors are newer, the older monitors lose colors faster. And finally, when I met my wife many years ago, as it turned out, she has this magic ability to see colors in unique ways. She can see a color today. And then from a month from now, She could pick a paint swatch and paint the wall to match that color perfectly. It's always amazing and it amazes me that she can do this. So because my wife has this keen sense of color. I've always relied on her to ensure accurate colors as well. So those are all the things that I've had to do over the years to ensure good color. Now when Imagen came into my life it meant that I had a really, really accurate color out of the gate. Really [00:05:00] really consistent white balance and color out of the gate. I didn't have to do anything. You see, I was using a Talent AI Profile for so long because I did not have previous edits that were consistent enough to build my own Personal AI Profile. But what's really interesting. Is that for years I was using a film replica from a preset company. And I was using that for so long that I had so many edits with it and I loved the look of it. I came from film, right? So it makes sense for me to love film replications. But I couldn't build a Personal AI Profile from it. Due to my inaccuracies, my inconsistencies of the edits. Lightroom presets are great. But they are also not perfect. Now Imagen just came out with the Lite Personal AI Profiles. That is L I T E not L I G H T.
Lite Personal AI Profiles are trained based on [00:06:00] Lightroom presets, combined with a handful of questions. When you're going through the process. First, you select the Lightroom preset that you want to train the profile from it then asks you nine questions. It is actually three different questions. Three different times. What do you prefer for your exposure? And then we show you a bunch of photo examples. Which photo do you prefer for your temperature? We then show you a bunch of examples. And which photo do you prefer for tint? We then show you a bunch of examples. Once you get through that process which takes less than 10 seconds. You instantly have a brand new Personal AI Profile to use. But it doesn't end there because although this is a very simple Personal AI Profile, literally it is white balance and temperature and tint that adjusts based on your needs on a per photo basis. But the rest of it is basically a static field based on the Lightroom preset. These parameters that are [00:07:00] fixed in place based on the Lightroom preset. So it's a combination of your preferences and what is learned from the preset. It's really intelligent. It's really smart. It's a really good way for anybody and everybody who is unable to create a Personal AI Profile before but really wanted to who has used Lightroom presets in the past and wants to use those to start using Imagen. That is what and who this is for.
And the most beautiful thing, the most amazing part of this is that like a classic Personal AI Profile that requires the previous edits, Lite Personal AI Profiles learn from you over time. You can edit. Upload those final edits. And eventually you'll be able to Fine-tune that profile. And once that happens, that Lite Personal AI Profile that you started; it gets smarter and smarter and now all the parameters are dynamic. Now [00:08:00] they all adjust as needed. So Lite Personal AI Profiles are just a quick way for you to get started. So if you want to get started with Imagen, and if you have some sort of disability like I do with color or something else like that, and you have a Lightroom preset, or a bunch of Lightroom presets that you want to get started with then know that Imagen has your back. Lite Personal AI Profiles. They're available now for every Imagener. Get started today. Give it a shot. We hope you enjoy it.
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