MPI305

Colour constancy November 1, 2006

I found this little piece of information rather interesting so I thought I’d post it up.

Have you ever wondered why you get orange tinted photographs when they were taken inside under florescent lights? Why can’t the human eye see the orange tinge that the film can? the answer is that you don’t see the orange tinge because the human eye has colour constancy.  

“Colour constancy, sometimes referred to as “discounting the illuminant”, is the tendency to perceive objects as having a constant colour, even if the lighting conditions change.” (Real world colour management p.46)

My understanding of this is that your eye changes its colour response depending on the light in the scene. Cameras don’t have colour constancy that’s why you get orange tinted photographs. However, today’s digital cameras allow you to change the white balance, which changes the cameras response to the illumination in the room. This is something that I have had a chance to do and yes by changing the white balance on your digital camera you get rid of the orange tinge and get a more true to life (or at least the human eye) representation of colour.