How You Perceive Color

I’ve done ‘OK’ as a freelance photographer. Often my wife will tell me “that’s not the colour I remember”!!

Example. - I did a lot of work for motorbike museum. Sold a lot of prints through their store. One image sold well and I had many repeat orders. On about the 5th reorder I revisited my original file only to discover a real flaw in the colour of one bike. I fixed the colour and supplied the prints. Not one person picked up the error. The first 3 - 4 batches were wrong yet no one noticed. The next few batches were correct and yet no one noticed. And these prints went to folks who knew their bikes.

Moral? Well colour is very subject to the individuals perception. What you think is right may not be right. There again it may be right and everyone else is wrong!!!

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As far as the print goes, the forgiving piece is most people do not expect an exact color match in a photo. Their experience tells them to expect variances.