Look familiar?
It should. We gave one of these away in Oct. and we are happy to start off the new year with another one.

There is no excuse not to get the true color of your photographs. At least as your starting point. Tweak away as you like once you get the basics.

How about we help make it easier for you?

This weeks giveaway is an XRite ColorChecker Passport, one of the best tools we’ve seen to get the job done.

Easy to carry, can be used in a one person operation, multi-faceted so you can use it for a white balance for video also. ( you may be adding that to your skill sets)
The solid protective casing allows you to throw in in your camera bag, and always carry with you. Plus it’s design acts as stand to make it easier to place in the scene.

Now this product just came out a short time ago and we did a much larger explanation of it’s uses. You can check that here.

But essentially, by adding a color chart to your scene, you have added a standard map for you or your digital lab to follow.
Here is a cool site that shows you color charts in use.

The ColorChecker Passport would have made all of these easier.
The colors and tones are acknowledged to be true, and all post production programs will recognize this.
By shooting a frame showing the way the light falls onto the color chart, you can color correct that particular sequence of shots in a flash by copy/pasting the adjusted settings.

Plus if you are shooting an assignment, like a wedding with 2 camera bodies, or you are part of a crew of photogs, this tool can help calibrate them all so the images will be color consistent throughout, after post. Trust us, this will make your life so much easier and less frustrating. Each camera, even the same model, will have a different color cast. Not a hard thing to do, the calibration, but necessary.

And the software included with this package simplifies the process: you can do sample shots, with your camera of choice, in a variety of of lighting conditions.
Sunlight, mixed sun and artificial, flash, shadow, or whatever may be your preferred lighting.
The software can set up profiles for your post production edit software, like Lightroom, and then when you load in your project, you can click on that profile to adjust the entire shoot.
And it works for RAW or Jpeg, although RAW will give you the most latitude.

We do want you to remember that there is another part of the equation here. Or 2.
You should be calibrating your monitor to ensure that it is showing you the true colors on the screen.
Whether you use, Eye-1, Color Munki, or a Huey (love that for the laptop on the road) you should make that a regular part of your workflow.
Very easy to do.

Last fall , they offered a free webinar on color managment and using the ColorChecker.
It’s available here. As you start your new year of image making, take 30 mins and check this vid out. this info will save you time in the post process.

To be eligible to get one of these XRite ColorChecker Passports for free, you must be subscribed to our weekly NEWSLETTER.
No charge to sign up, and it gives you a round up of articles from the past week on the site, and some things that may never hit the site.
Plus the instructions on how to get the goodies for free are included.