Les Jardins de Métis with Colours Calibrated (bonus: seals and sunsets!)

One of the great things about shooting digitally, especially in RAW format, is the vast amount of information in the image files for post-processing, but it's also one of the challenges, especially for those not deep into the workings of Lightroom. All that data allows great flexibility in getting to a final image, but the options are nearly endless. What if I just want the final image to look like what I saw with my own eyes on the day I captured the image?

There are many videos on YouTube with recommendations on how best to ensure your white balance is nailed and that your colours are correctly calibrated. There are nearly as many opinions on these topics as there are videos.

But what I did find recently was a very simple and handy tool to take the guesswork out of this. I got my hands on a Spyder Checkr 24, a card with greys on one side and a grid of 24 colours on the other. Photographing the card and using a plug-in for the Lightroom program allows you to calibrate the colours to perfection.  

Essentially, this creates a preset for Lightroom, which calibrates the colours for exactly the light as captured from the grid.  So long as the light does not change during a photoshoot, an image of the grid is all you need to calibrate.

Below are images captured on a Nikon D850 with a Sigma Art DG 24-105 mm F4 lens. We visited the Jardins de Métis in mid-late August, later in the season than usual. Despite the overcast conditions, with the colours calibrated, these images are true to what I saw through the viewfinder.

Large-format black-and-white photos shot on the Tachihara will be coming soon once I find the time to develop them for the film blog.

As a bonus, here are some pictures of the seals that hang out on the rocks opposite the cottage at Pointe au Naufrage (Shipwreck Point)...

...some fun with long-exposure...

...and the always-spectacular sunsets, as seen from the dining room.

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