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Written by Tina EisenAkwesi Baah is a commercial, food, beverage and product photographer based in Ghana.

His attention to detail and understanding of harmonising colors has recently caught our eye and we had the pleasure to (virtually) sit down for an interview with him this week!

These images posted below were all treated with a little love from our Infinite Color panel!

1. Akwesi, what are your primary sources of inspiration?

I draw inspiration from a vast variety of sources like my environment, mentors, Instagram, Pinterest, the list is endless. I pay attention when I go out and see print ads and campaigns, I draw some inspiration from there as well, but mostly my background in film and advertising plays a very significant role in giving me inspiration for my work.

2. Many creatives don’t believe they have their own style even though others might see it, do you believe you have a particular style and how would you define it?

Lol… I think I belong to the crop of creatives who don’t believe they have a particular style, although, come to think of it, I seem to be drawn mostly to a lot of drama. I find myself trying to create drama within my work and in so doing, detaching myself from “catalog” imagery.

 

3. What role does color grading play in the execution of your vision? Do you think it’s a necessary part of the process?

Because I’m drawn to a lot of dramatic imagery, color obviously plays a very crucial role in creating that drama I may be seeking to achieve. I can create either a very happy, bright theme or a moody and dark theme simply by lighting right and grading to the specific theme I’m going for.

4. Does the direction you go with color grading change based on certain factors? How do you know where to go with it?

The direction I go with color grading may change or may not change based on what I may be working on, sometimes clients can influence the kind of color grade for the final look. Otherwise, based on my mood during a particular edit, I may choose a different color grading path.

 

 

5. I’ve seen your work with Infinite Color and we’re so happy you’ve decided to use us to help with your color vision! How would you say the tool helps you in what you’re looking to accomplish?

I used to fret about how fast and effective I can be during my color grading sessions. Grading alone sometimes takes hours or even days to finish just one image. Sometimes it demands taking a break, and stepping out simply just to refresh your view and clear from your mind the colors your eyes have become used to. There have been times I recorded and saved my colors to use them later but unfortunately, they seem to always change. I heard about Infinite Color Panel and started reading and watching the tutorials on YouTube. Then quite sincerely, after trying it hands on, I realised I could save a whole lot of time during the coloring process. The various color profiles come in handy, as alternating between or tweaking colors and even combining different color profiles makes the panel more intuitive, easy and convenient to use.

 

 

6. Would Infinite Color be something you’d recommend for other creatives as well? What are some of your favorite features and what will they find when using it too?

Most certainly! I recommend and endorse Infinite Color. I love the ergonomics and design of the whole panel and how easy it is to use, and most of all, how simply you can build or combine different color tones to create your desired look/mood. This is what I choose to call “Color Grading Made Easy!”

Tried! Tested! and Boom! Love it!

More of Benedcit’s work can be seen on his Instagram!

Have you tried the panel yet? We’d love to see your creations! Get in touch on Instagram @infinitecolorpanel or the Facebook Infinite Color Panel group and show us your work.

If you haven’t tried the panel yet, get started here:  https://infinite-tools.com/infinite-color-plugin/

 

written by Tina EisenI met Umbar nearly 10 years ago and her talent and beautiful, kind nature made me never want to take my eyes of her ever evolving work during the years to follow.

Umbar Shakir is a beauty and fashion photographer based in London, UK. She’s no stranger to collaborating with the creative talent the city has to offer, from agency models to make up artists and designers.

While during the earlier days of her career Umbar was more of a studio photographer, she is now drawn to shooting outdoors and on location a lot more.

Umbar pins her distinct happy, colorful style partly on her Pakistani heritage and partly on her love for all things nature and flowers.

“Growing up in London, against an urban backdrop, and a riot of colour at home, I was either going to rebel against color or embrace it – and embrace I did!”

When we asked Umbar about the inspiration to her images she told us passionately about the difference between ‘pics’ and ‘images’.

Imagery is a piece of art, created through the medium of photography and serves a much more deliberate purpose than a picture, which is but a capture. For Umbar her conscious color choice plays a big role in making that transformation from a pic to an image.

“Pics can be nice, but an image will move me, impact me, be thought provoking and aspirational!”

Over the years we have realised that many creatives don’t believe they have their own style even though others can clearly see it, so we were intrigued to see if Scott believes he has a particular style and how would he define it.

Scott told us:

“I would define my style as warm and peaceful. Because I live in Arizona, we have a lot of warm tones to start with, so it was always easy to harness that style. As I’ve progressed as a photographer I’ve continued to emphasize those tones to create more of a feeling with my images, instead of just an aesthetic style. And hopefully, that feeling is peacefulness because I am convinced that within the sweetest, most intimate moments with our significant others, we will find peace.”

Which leads us to the question what role color grading plays in the execution of Scott’s visions and whether he believes it to be a necessary part of the process.

Scott considers grading crucially important in conveying those feelings and maintaining his style. He has worked hard over the last few years to hone in on that style through editing and feels like he’s gotten to a really great place.

We were keen to find out if the direction Scott takes with color grading changes based on certain factors and how he knows where to go with it?

“It all has to do with the general color palette of the image, and the emotion that I am trying to convey. So if there are a lot of softer, muted tones already present in the image, I just focus on accenting those colors without overpowering anything. But, with images that are vibrant and contain bright colors, I focus on balancing those colors without desaturating anything too much because I think life should be full of color, so why rob photographs of the color they deserve! Ha!”

After seeing Scott work with Infinite Color and we’re delighted he’s chosen to use the panel to help with his color vision.

Scott tells us how the tool helps him accomplish his unique results in two ways.

Some of the time he starts out by dialling in most of his colors in Lightroom and then bringing over select images to Photoshop to tweak the tones with the Infinite Color panel. He likes the subtlety and easy tweaking the panel offers, which helps Scott not to stray too far away from his previous RAW adjustments.

However, as an alternative to the first method, Scott also likes starting from scratch with Infinite Color. He starts off by using Lightroom for image normalizing, then exports his images over to Infinite Color to see what options the panel comes up with. This is a great way to find new color toning styles and it helps Scott discover more about how to edit tones in Photoshop, which is a nice bonus!

Lastly we asked Scott if Infinite Color would be something he’d recommend for other creatives, too, and what some of his favorite features were.

“Duh! It’s a no brainer! They really dialed it in, so that the toning is pleasant, yet still stylized, which most plugins seem to have a hard time finding that balance. It’s so easy to use, and the ability to adjust the layers after the fact, it’s so great for fine tuning!”

Thank you very much for giving us an insight into you world of photography and colour toning, Scott!

More of Scott’s work can be seen on his website and Instagram.

Have you tried the panel yet? We’d love to see your creations! Get in touch on Instagram @infinitecolorpanel or the Facebook Infinite Color Panel group and show us your work.

THE WINNER IS…

Our contest had an amazing turnout, with over 630 votes!

With 31% of the votes, the winner was number 10, Darryl Pascoe! Congratulations Darryl, your work is beautiful!

I kept the poll live so you can click on “see results” to see how everyone else did. As you can see, it was a pretty close competition with second place!

Below is the original post, where I’ve labelled the names of everyone who made the top 12. Also, in a future post I’ll be sharing  bunch of other submissions so you can see a full gamut of images!

We’ve been thrilled on the response of Infinite Color and the community that has already developed in a month that we decided to have our first contest! In case you missed it, check it out here.

The image for the contest was provided to us by London based photographer Indy Sagoo!
(Model Naina Mall)

ORIGINAL IMAGE

How We Decided

Indy and I both picked a few of our favorites. We went by the ones we felt had enough variation and were still visually pleasing. On Indy’s side, he decided which ones stood out to him based on his taste. Once the contest is done, Indy will state the reasons why he picked the ones he did as well.

Anonymous Voting

To keep it fair, we have left the names out. Once the contest is finished, we’ll share the names of who did what, along with presenting a gallery of all the other entries too!

Rules, Deadline, and Prizes

The rules are simple. Look at the images presented below (click on them to see them in full screen). Pick your favorite one, and vote for the number you liked the best!

Voting effectively ends on June 8th, 10 p.m. Eastern Time Zone! The winner gets to keep the panel for free (a full reimbursement), plus $200 in cash, and a spotlight feature and interview about them on our website.

 

Which image was your favorite?

 

 

 

Image 1 – Jennifer Carter

Image 2 – Ruli Koto

Image 3 – Preet Uday

Image 4 – Muffadal Abbas

Image 5 – Marco Verna

Image 6 – Laura Sheridan

Image 7 – Kassie Jackson

Image 8 – Carolina Zapata – Second Place

Image 9 – Jerry Fredriksson

Image 10 – Darryl Pascoe – Winner

Image 11 – Kaela Speicher

Image 12 – Alex Baker

If you haven’t tried the panel yet, get started here:  https://infinite-tools.com/infinite-color-plugin/

Written by Tina Eisen

Written by Tina Eisen

California based Christyl O’Flaherty, self taught and following the footsteps of her photographer grandfather, inspires us in many ways. Her passion to create magical, enchanting moments and her incredible eye for the beauty in others and her surroundings shines through her mesmerising, fairytale like work.

Christyl’s latest work tells a story of a carefree, fun loving dame on her throne enjoying the luxuries she’s surrounded with… meet “Lady Binx”!

The idea started with a beautiful wedding gown Christyl found on a social site that belonged to one Margaret Howe McCaffery. Margaret wore her dress while strutting down the aisle in 1942 Beverly Hills, California.

Margaret Howe McCaffery’s wedding in 1942, Beverly Hills, California.

It’s time for our first color grading contest! Are you ready to suit up and battle? Let’s see how your taste in color compares with others in our first fun contest!

With the launch of Infinite Color Panel, it’s been incredibly inspirational seeing people’s work and their taste in color finally come through with the help of it to guide them there. So it got us thinking, what would happen if everyone worked on the same image? What color choices would people make? What direction would they go and how would they color grade this image? What look would people collectively like the most? All the questions!

Hence the contest was born.

THE IMAGE FOR THE CONTEST TO COLOR GRADE

This image was provided by London based photographer Indy Sagoo!
(Model Naina Mall)

To download the PSD image to work on, go here:

Download PSD

Open the PSD image in Photoshop upon downloading to start working.