CHG_CANON wrote:
Interesting question. I did a quick scroll via the site's new images feature. I went a few pages with only a few obvious examples of heavy saturation. Possibly the thumbnail aspect downplays the saturation issue ... If I was forced to provide a theory for images where the saturation is well beyond my own tastes, I'd point to uncalibrated monitors (or overly brightened) as the root-cause for pushing the saturation too far rather than a conscious decision by the photo editor.
Personally, I've developed a workflow that is totally dependent on my own personal choice of tools as well as one "best practice". In terms of best practice, the increase in global saturation is a function of the higher ISO values used when capturing an image. As the sensor signal is amplified at higher ISOs, the richness of color is lost at higher and higher ISOs. I have a series of defaults for saturation, noise and sharpening that are all ISO-value based for processing in both DPP and LR. The goal is to achieve an end-result that is roughly uniform regardless of the ISO used when capturing the image. Some might say I'm seeking to mask the use of a higher ISO?
I believe, SS, that I know from your posting history that you prefer Canon's Standard Picture Style and auto WB. Personally, I prefer a more saturated look and will default most work, where applicable, to the Landscape profile and a Daylight WB balance as an initial step in RAW processing. (I capture in Standard / Auto WB, all in RAW.) For those unfamiliar with Canon's Picture Styles, Landscape ups the saturation of Blues and Greens within an overall bump in saturation to the image. By default I add another 0.5 of Canon DPP saturation to all images, regardless of Picture Style.
The Daylight WB is a pretty broad stroke of "warm paint" and many times I'll spend time in DPP determining a more exact Kelvin value to adjust images prior to the RAW conversion to 16-bit TIF. When the resulting TIFs are imported into LR, another set of LR defaults exist for images at every discrete ISO value from ISO-100 to my upper limit of ISO-5000. In LR I use primarily the Vibrance adjustment in values ranging from 1 to 10, based on ISO. More saturation is added, but in values that range from 1 to 5 on LR's -100 to +100 range of slider values.
For discrete color updates rather than global, this occasionally becomes a complex, image-specific interplay of updates within LR to the temp & tint of the White Balance along with Saturation, Luminance and Hue updates typically focused only on the blueness of the sky via the HSL sliders. I've become less accepting of an unrealistic Azure Blue of a sky as well as modifying the too Turquoise or too Cyan initial results after the LR import and application of the ISO-specific default profiles.
Summary: My edit workflow is 100% based on personal and purposeful decisions using a calibrated monitor. Saturation is subtle in a 2- or 3-step process in my workflow based primarily on Canon's Picture Style settings. You might say my end-results is in the range of +0.5 to +1.0 cumulative increase in saturation based on Canon's in-camera Picture Style range of -4 to +4 values for Saturation. I've observed the Canon DPP software as well as the Canon "camera" profiles are all richer / more saturated than the Adobe Standard profile as presented via Adobe Camera Raw or the Camera Calibration section in Lightroom. Hopefully, this long-winded response is in-line with the "how" aspect of your post. Hopefully too, my work didn't fall into your dragnet of over-saturated recent posts ...
Interesting question. I did a quick scroll via the... (
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