When There’s No Clear Reference

When There’s No Clear Reference

The previous examples have contained fairly clear black,
white, and gray values in the foreground and background
elements. Life, of course, is not always so simple.

The technique still works in this case, but it may require
more in the way of trial and error, or artist’s intuition.
Looking at each individual color channel, only green is
even close to a plausible match right off the bat; the red
channel contains blown-out whites, and the blue channel is
so dark (and grainy) it hardly exists.
Once again, just try to get the brightness and contrast
adjusted, working channel by channel, and you get an
initial result something like. Considering how
subjective the adjustments are by necessity in this case, this
isn’t half bad; and fi ne adjustments to the RGB channel
can bring it where it needs to go.
The ability to match color without seeing an image in full
color is so powerful that it can seem almost magical the
fi rst few times you try it. Why, then, do so few artists work
this way? I would have to say that laziness and ignorance
are the main culprits here. Switching channels seems like
a pain, and few untrained artists clearly realize that color
works like this.