by scouserjoe2 » Sat Oct 08, 2016 6:19 pm
After what must be a five-year absence from these boards I could not subdue the impulse I had to pass comment once again upon this colour issue. So, I shall say this again, and hopefully settle this argument once and for all. As a photographer I deal with images, light and colours every day. Take it from me, when viewing any item or image, the colour you see will always depend on the light in which you see it and, in the case of print or on-screen media, the material upon which you are viewing it.
Firstly, let me deal with colour temperature. The whiteness, or brightness of light is described in terms of temperature. On a very bright, blue sky sunny day, the colour temperature of light can be as high as 7,000 degrees K. When the sun is rising or setting, the temperature can be as low as 3,000 or 4,000 degrees K. It’s like a red hot poker .. the hotter it is, the brighter or lighter the colour gets. This is why we landscape photographers go out in the ‘Golden Hours’ - an hour either side of dusk and dawn. The light is warmer and the colours of the countryside are very different and more interesting than those that are seen at, say, midday.
It therefore follows that when you see a coloured item in say bright white daylight, or even bright white fluorescent light, it will appear different to when you see it in a yellow light, say that of a lightbulb in a house.
So, in the case of a Fiesta Red Stratocaster, the colour will appear different depending upon in which light you are viewing it. That’s why under some stage lighting Hank’s Strat will look pink, whilst under other lighting it will look pillar box red - or even yellower.
When images are captured on film, the recorded colour will often depend on the light sensitive qualities of the film itself. Most films have some kind of colour bias, towards green. blue or red. The older the film, most likely the worse the problem. Then there is the issue of converting a colour negative into a colour print. Once again the printed image from a negative will depend on the paper used but also the way the printing technician chooses to set his filters when making the print. He can introduce a colour bias and he can remove it in the print process also.
The same issues arise with digital cameras. All files in all digital cameras have some kind of bias and these are usually adjusted for at the digital development stage. However, not everyone knows how to do this, so images which retain that colour bias are often published on the internet.
Finally, anything produced as a print on a sheet of paper or viewed on a screen can have colour bias, depending upon the quality of the print and the quality and set up of the computer screen.
So, in summary, NEVER EVER judge the colour of an object based on an image you have seen in print or on a screen. There are too many ways it could have been mis-represented.
Personally, I do not believe one jot in the ‘Flamingo Pink’ or ’Salmon Pink’ theories. Your traditional Fiesta Red Stratocaster can look so very different depending on how and where you look at it. And I believe that this was what happened when Hank first saw his first Stratocaster. He probably opened the case in a room with a particular type of lighting and the coloured lining of the case would also have reflected onto the guitar to affect its apparent colour. His first impressions could well have been that the guitar looked pink .. but those first impressions might have been different if he had opened the case in a different location.
Finally, if you don’t believe any of this, then type Fiesta Red Stratocaster into Google Images and go and have a look at all the pictures that come into view. Just look at how many variations you can see of ‘Fiesta Red’ there are. Everyone has been produced through some kind of digital print process and you can see just what a variety of results you can achieve.