Lightroom How-to: Batch Color Balance Using Munsell Color Checker

One of the great things about Adobe Lightroom is the ability to batch color balance photos. We include a Munsell (Macbeth) Color Checker in every shot. Here's how I color balance using the eyedropper tool.

 Open a representative image

Our photographers shoot hundreds of pictures in a day. The camera settings and lighting is always the same which makes color balancing batches of images easy. The color checker is always in the same location.

Zoom in to 100% magnification (press the 1:1 over the navigation)

Select the eyedropper tool

Position the eyedropper and click

You'll want to find a neutral tone. For some reason I find the second lightest square to work best for me. Make sure you are only selecting the grey area. And click. That's it! It's color balanced.

Return the color picker

I kind of wish that once you make a selection by clicking that the eyedropper tool would return to it's original place. It doesn't. Make sure to put it back. If you don't navigation can get a little confusing.

To batch process, select all the pictures (CTRL A) and use the SYNC command.

Select-all thumbnails (they'll be highlighted when selected)

Sync brings up the synchronize menu - I sync all the global adjustments

Confirm

Once the adjustments are synchronized, you'll see the little +/- symbol in the corner of the thumbnails. This means the picture was edited.

Double check

It's a good idea to double check some of the images - just to make sure they look okay.

No Methyl Iodide

Methyl iodide is a nasty chemical. It is a known neurotoxin and endocrine disruptor, and scientists in labs handle only small amounts using special protective equipment because it is so toxic. But do you know where else it is used? As a pesticide on strawberries and other food crops.

The battle against methyl iodide is being fought on several fronts. Last summer, Washington state banned the use of the pesticide. Unfortunately, the pendulum swung the other way in California, when despite more than 53,000 public comments submitted by CREDO activists and our allies, the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the chemical for agricultural use last December.

But the ultimate power to regulate pesticides lies with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has just decided to reconsider its approval of methyl iodide -- approval that was granted during George W. Bush's administration.

I just submitted a public comment to the EPA, demanding that they ban the agricultural use of methyl iodide. If you care about keeping our food safe, you should do the same. Click HERE to take action.

More Free New York Botanical Garden Herbarium Wallpaper

Due to popular demand, more free wallpaper from the New York Botanical Garden Herbrium's Virtual Herbarium. This one is Booth's willow, or Salix boothii.

Click on the image to download wallpaper or desktop art for your computer or iPhone.

iPhone

Widescreen

1280x1024px

1600x1200 px

Photography by Matthew Pace.

Free New York Botanical Garden Desktop Art

While the specimens in the Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden are preserved for the sake of research, a lot of them are very pretty. Take this Nama aretioides, or purple nama, for example. Really. You can take it and use it as your computer wallpaper or iPhone background. Click on the size below to download the full resolution.

iPhone background

1280x1024 wallpaper

1600x1200 wallpaper

Photography by Matthew Pace

Stardate 64786.9 - Renaming Files

If you have ever had to rename a lot of files at once, you know what a time consuming and tedious process it can be. And, if you are like me, you have probably looked for a way to do it faster and easier. If so, take a look at ReName. Fast, easy, and free.

Oh, and an exhaustive explanation of how to calculate the Stardate.

Copy-Stand Photography

The traditional repro-photography set up is usually a camera mounted on a copy stand with two lights set at 45 degree angles to the shooting surface. Usually the simplest solutions work the best.

Here is our newly refurbished copy-stand at The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium:

The camera is a Canon Eos 1ds Mark II, the lights are Speedotron Black Line strobes with Chimera soft-boxes to diffuse the light and eliminate any shadows. Since this photo was taken, the camera has been replaced with a Canon Eos 1ds Mark III producing 21 megapixel shots.This set-up is a significant upgrade over its predecessor.

When I started at the Herbarium, this is what it looked like this:

This set-up was once used for specialized purposes. The lights were bare bulbs and there was a white plastic diffusion tent with top had removed and strings holding the side walls up - of course, this meant that the lights could not be moved. Unfortunately, the light was not very even. You can see where people had tried to cut the light by taping pieces of paper and neutral density filters to the diffusion tent.

We now have two stations like the one shown up top. By standardizing our two shooting stations, any special training or operator skills have been eliminated - leaving the photographers to focus their attention on the subject matter. The f-stop, shutter speed, and color balance is the same for both stations, which means that the photographer can just come in and start shooting at either station. The standardized results from the two shooting stations means that image processing and quality control goes much faster. The need to re-shoot specimens for quality reasons has been all but eliminated and productivity is up over 25%.

Update - Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Bussy Saint-Georges Scanning Facility

I have updated the information in the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle - Bussy Saint-Georges Scanning Facility presentation and reposted it. The new presentation includes a better description of the role of the contractors and a more accurate cost per specimen.


Thanks to Odile Poncy and Simon Chagnoux for their input.

Click here for the updated presentation.

Digitization Special Interests Group Meeting - METRO.org

Digitization Special Interests Group

Last week I attended Metro's Digitization Special Interests Group meeting. The discussion panel included  John Mignault from The New York Botanical Garden, Andrea Buchner from the Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory at the Center for Jewish History, and Jennifer Vinopal from New York University.

It was a very informative meeting and there are some take away thoughts posted on Metro's tech blog.

Jennifer Vinopal mentioned that at NYU they make a distinction between archive and preservation and I find the distinction to be helpful. The archive guarantees bits. You put bits in, you get the same bits out in the same bit order. There is no guarantee of the viability of the file format. Preservation, she said, is an institutional commitment that requires human vigilance. 

I like that. It makes me feel brave.