Guides and Downloads

For Your Inspiration

Everyone has his style and preferences, and during media production it is sometimes a good idea to bring along some quick facts. We hope, our work can be of help or inspiration for someone else in the field, which is why we decided to share a few documents here in the resource area.

Download Documents

Feel free to download, print or store any of these documents for your own, personal use. If you would like to share a document, please consider linking to this page with:
http://www.shorescanada.com/support/resources

Some documents may be in form of a .pdf file and can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat® Reader. Pictures are in the popular .jpg format and could easily be brought along on your mobile device for quick reference.

Color Temperature Chart

Light plays an important role in both, photo and video creation. To gain more control over the characteristics of visible light we need to know the different types of light sources and what color of light these emit. As a help of interpretation we have compiled a chart showing the color temperature measured in "kelvins" for different situations, both in- and outdoors. We also added a reference for popular white balance settings on the camera.

Shores Canada's Color Temperature Chart

18% Grey Reference Card

To achieve the most possible natural colors many of us digital photo- and videographers often walk an extra mile and reach out for fancy tools, or sometimes for simpler ones such as the grey card.

Shores Canada's 18% Grey Reference Card

Setting a custom white balance with help of these cards is challenging, because factors such as changing light conditions, reflections of light from the card or from surrounding objects, the placement of the card and the physical properties of the card itself make an accurate reading difficult.

But there is some extra help if your camera is offering an RGB histogram function. Grey cards can be designed that way, that these generate distinctive spikes in the histogram view. This will enable you to understand the dynamic range of your reference photo by looking at the outer edges, left for blacks and right for whites. Plus, the high spikes will help you to assess the quality of your setting. The spikes should line up straight over all 3 channels.

Canon's RGB Histogram View

Find below our grey card design if you are interested in printing your own reference card.

We suggest, that

• your software and printer driver do not color manage or enhance the print
• the printer driver is set to »Black & White« mode
• your paper has a high brightness and a uniform surface and is not too thin
• your print reveals all 16 shades of grey.