eli5 what color cards are in photography and what they do?
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Imagine a simple portrait shoot.
In order to make sure that the subject’s skin tone and hair color come out looking as accurate to reality as possible, some various things can be done during the shoot to help with the final processing of the image.
A pure white card gives someone using photoshop a white point that they can use to get a perfect white balance off of.
A pure black card can give them a black point that helps to define the subtle shadows on one’s face, since those little detail add realistic depth to a picture. (Perfect smoothness looks fake.)
And various color cards can be used to dial in the exact color temperature and warmth of one’s skin tone and hair color and eyes and wardrobe.
It just makes post-processing easier all-in-all by giving concrete references instead of using trial and error, and the photos turn out looking more real.
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