We shoot in Adobe 1998 Colour Space because it allows us access to 16.8 billion colours, and this is achieved through each of the Red, Green and Blue channels, having 256 levels of colour shades available x 28 (2 to the power of 8).
All colour is made up of primary colours: Red, Green and Blue and its a combination of each of these channels at any one of these levels between 0 and 256 that create a wide variation of colour in the pixels.
The colour mode can be selected under Image -> Mode in Photoshop; it is possible to select RGB, CMYK or Grayscale and 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bits per channel colour depth. My images were shot as JPEGs, and therefore can't support higher than 8-bit in colour depth. It is possible to edit in 16-bit as a .tiff file, but this results in much bigger filesizes due to its large colour depth and gamut, which is unnecessary for the file types that I have produced.
If your monitor is colour calibrated it is possible to embed a custom colour profile from the Edit menu in Photoshop. Convert to Profile ensures that when an image is on the screen, it will be replicated by a printer attached to the monitor accurately. It is essential to calibrate both the monitor and the printer to ensure an accurate colour management workflow. A few examples of different types of Colour Calibration systems available are:
Colour Munki
Spyder Pro
Gretag Macbeth
I used a variety of resources to improve my knowledge in colour management, colour theory and general Photoshop techniques such as blogs, youtube videos and tutorials. A few examples of resources that helped me with this assignment include:
Basics of Colour Theory: http://www.snap2objects.com/2009/03/color-theory-101/
Photoshop Colour Management: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHuIfoN5cV4
Photoshop techniques and tutorials: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/tag/photoshop/
www.smashingmagazine.com is a great resource for keeping up to date with new techniques, plugins and software improvements and is a website I use regularly to keep my skills up to date.
Embedding Metadata into images is important because it allows the photographer to exert their rights over how the image is reproduced, once the files have been handed over. Any data can be input, such as Time & Date, Technical Specifications (lenses used, camera used and how the image was shot) and Copyright. EXIF data can show focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO ratings, as well as data about the lens type used. This information is helpful because it can be used by Photoshop to correct lens aberrations.
Use of a camera with a high resolution, for example the Canon 650D (18 Megapixels), allows more flexibility in the editing process, particularly when it comes to cropping. Being able to crop in to detail within the image allows maximum flexibility with composition. Use of a sturdy tripod has also been important when using slow shutter speeds out on location, and especially constant Ellinchrom lighting for the studio based images in my portfolio. All of my images have been edited using Adobe Photoshop CS4, the industry standard imaging software.
Shooting RAW files also allows maximum flexibility as this is just pure data captured by the camera's sensor. Once converted by Adobe RAW converter, the images can be output to any of the following file formats: PSD, DNG, TIFF (16 & 8-bit), high-resolution JPEG or JPEG optimised for the web. A PSD file is flexible for editing in Photoshop and allows Alpha Channels. TIFFs are graphics files and can be compressed or uncompressed as well as contain Alpha Channels. JPEGs are flexible as the allow use on the web due to small file sizes, but can also print fine detail at full resolution. DNG files are for future proofing and archiving.
