About To Be Some Colorful Language Up In Here

My team is having a really hard time color correcting a textile product in some photos that were taken by a novice in a natural setting, with the sun coming in and out behind the clouds on the day of the shoot. Obviously, the product is not going to look the same in every photo because how could it be under that many variables?

The person approving is in no way trained in design or color theory, and can’t seem to connect the dots between how a color will look in sun versus in shade. Despite that, they’re asking for “a smidge more warmth here” or a “notch of darkness there” and seem to be completely bewildered that doesn’t translate to a single button in Photoshop, like an Instagram filter.

To further the woe, I found out that this person is basing approvals on how the product looks on an iPad screen as viewed under a fluorescent “natural sun” light… A digital screen, under a harsh light, with a swatch beside it. And everyone expects that to somehow translate to the same look on every end-user’s differently calibrated screen… And as if textiles don’t have dye-lots that shift the color every single run.

But I digress: WHAT IS A DESIGN STUDIO TO DO? Three people with the accumulative design experience of a natural lifetime raise this issue to our head, that we’re constantly redoing work and up against unattainable perfections that can in no way be quantified or standardized… and the response? We’ve been issued a Hue 100 test to make sure we’re not colorblind. Thanks for the help!