Quote:
Originally Posted by h0ughy
well now that you have mentioned the war -
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...but did we get away with it?
I voted yes, but so is artistic licence. If you want to show true colours, colour balance is critical. If you want to show detail, maybe enhanced colour or narrowband monochrome is the way to go - both are extreme examples of artistic licence. Monochrome has been around for so long, that I bet a lot of people don't think of it as "artistic licence" - the colours certainly aren't true!
In terms of the basics of photography though, colour balance is up there with focus, composition, exposure, etc. So I see it as important, and then if you want to exercise your artistic licence after you've got the basics - go right ahead.
Sometimes a technically true image just doesn't cut it. If what you are after are the true colours then it has to!... but if you are after an aesthetic image, and even to highlight some detail, sometimes artistic licence helps. Example - last year I posted some views in the Blue Mountains. Mike commented on how green the country looked, so I fessed up. I had used the selective colour tool to add more yellow to the greens to give it a bit of kick. It made a drab drought photo look lush and appealing. The effect was what I wanted, it was obviously interpreted as I wanted, but technically the colours were not true and criticism of that would have been valid. It depends on the intended purpose of the photo... obviously colour correctness is very important in forensics, but for some forensic work enhanced colour is used to bring out details.
I know I'm a little off topic, but I see colour balance as a photographic basic to get right before before applying artistic licence, but I also admit sometimes some great pieces of art are the result of a mistake that's best left uncorrected.
Al.