MY DESIGNER IS COLOR BLIND

And so are you! You aren't supposed to insult your audience and I would not say that if considered it an insult.

Can You Be and Artist and Be Colorblind?

What do you do with your art when you don’t see eye to eye with your buyer, decorator, or designer? Or more precisely, what do you do when you don’t see “color” to “color”. For the most part, if an artist creates a piece he or she is proud of and if someone does not like it, that person does not consider using in a home or business. They just pass. The potential buyer just moves on. Sometimes the reason for the difference of opinion color is color blindness, more accurately termed color deficiency. It may be the artist, the decorator or even the home owner. More likely, it is all of them to some degree.

Total inability to see color (achromatopsia) is quite rare. But we often refer to color deficiencies as color blindness. Almost everyone has some sort of color deficiency. This happens when the cones in our eyes are not perfect. Men have more severe color deficiencies at a higher rate than women. Barbara, who sees color excellently, tells me men have imperfections beyond their cones, but that won’t be discussed here. Tests show that I have a minor form of red-green color blindness, but I can still distinguish over 1,000,000 colors. There are various long scientific names for color blindness, better termed color weakness. Mine is protanopia, meaning I have more difficulty when certain shades of red are adjacent to other shades, especially shades that have the same brightness level. About one-third of those with protanopia have a more severe form where reds become darker, almost black. The green form is called deuteranopia. Similar to the red form, those more severely affected have greens that looks muddier and are hard to distinguish from greys. Just what does this color deficiency mean for the photographer or designer. For me, It means I have a harder time distinguishing color when shades of greyish-green are next to shades of greyish-red. At the very least, it means it is uncomfortable to look at combinations like the first one below. Completely color blind individuals will see the second image because their brightness (value) is very similar. The third image is an extreme example of what to avoid when if you want your viewer to visualize what you are trying to display. That one takes real effort for me to read! Is it easy for you?

I have noticed (occasionally it has been pointed out to me) that it is easy for me to slip in some extra magentas and reds in some of my images. When I do see it, it is easy to see. But it is important that I double check before putting any print out for sale. For those of you who are more seriously color deficient, this may mean using a spouse to help out or relying on your histogram in photoshop. 

If you put the two colors next to each other with a distinct edge (black line), I will be able to tell you easily that the one on the left is red side and the one on the right is on the green. 

But jumble them all up like the one on the right below and I am at a loss to see the "hidden" number. 

There are other types of color blindness. One more common type is blue-yellow color blindness. 

How about you? Are you sure that you see all colors like everyone else does. I can pretty much tell you “you don’t”, either because you see things perfectly and they don’t or vice versa, but most likely neither you nor your client has100% perfect color vision. 

Many photographers use calibrated monitors that allow them to see colors the way they will be printed on paper. The profile of their monitors can be given to the lab so excellent reproduction is achieved. Calibrated monitors do not fix our color deficiencies, however. If you have a client who you know has a severe color weakness, try using the adjustments available in Photoshop that are meant to help these individuals more clearly see color separations. You will find them under the View/Proof Setup tab.

Let’s get into this thing called color a bit more without getting complicated. All the colors we see on computer screens are composed of reds, greens and blues. Yes, yellow is composed of red and green! We generally think of the color element as the hue or chroma. But there is also the intensity of color, referred to as saturation and the lightness/darkness of a color referred to as the value. For most of us with some degree of color deficiency, the problem occurs primarily when the level of saturation and the value are identical…only the hue is slightly different. Oddly, when I took the Farnsworth color blindness test regarding my ability to distinguish hues, I scored 100%, but Barbara had a couple in the wrong spot, which sort of made up for her beating me in Wordle again today. Being able to distinguish hues is a good thing for me, especially since my patients used to depend on me to get colors right on their front teeth veneers. 

Reflected light

Just as the clouds above a placid lake produce colors in the lake at sunset, the light we view a piece of art in will affect the colors we see in a print. Even viewing a computer monitor in daylight will result in different colors than viewing that same monitor under artificial incandescent light. And, if you are looking on your monitor and the customer is looking on her monitor, you may be seeing colors calibrated in two different ways. Even with calibration, I suggest the decorator and artist view images on the same monitor and prints under the same lighting conditions.

There is nothing wrong with being color deficient or even color blind. Many famous artists, photographers and, I presume designers, are in this category. it turns out the differences between me and my designer are primarily because of my color vision. But now we know what to do about it. Since there is nothing to fear, you should take some tests if you are in a profession that works with color. You can do a search for color blindness tests, but many of these will result a resulting bombardment of ads for color correcting glasses on your Google or Facebook feeds. I have not tried such glasses, but am eager to hear from any of you who have as to their effectiveness.

Go to this site and take these tests. I don't think you will get many ads for those magic glasses, but you might talk to your optometrist if you have an issue to address:

https://www.colorblindnesstest.org/

Ishihara Test - Most of these were very easy for me, but a few challenging ones; I did better with my brightness turned up.

Cambridge Color Test - Similar, but a bit more challenging for me. This one showed I had some degree of Protanopia, meaning reds tend to look a bit softer and greener. This is why I can’t follow my salmon egg in a stream as well as the successful fishermen.

Farnsworth 100 Hue Test - this is particularly fun…just takes a few minutes.

RS