will47 Loc: Indianapolis, IN

I have a small but inconsistent problem with some colors being, in my opinion, oversaturated. Mostly this color I am referring to is green. How can I make them less saturated? The camera I use is either a 6D Mark ll or a 90D. In the example photo I believe was taken with a 7D mark ll (which I traded), but still on occasion, I have this problem. Any help will be appreciated.

(Download)

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Are you shooting RAW or jpeg?
If shooting jpeg do you have any picture styles activated?

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

You can desaturate one color in many post processing programs.

I use LightRoom and the HSL adjustment pane is for Hue, Saturation and Luminance. You can even apply specific changes to highlights or shadows.

I'm sure there are other ways.

will47 Loc: Indianapolis, IN

RAW only.

bleirer

Try using vibrance rather than saturation in Lightroom. Maybe put saturation-2 or less. Saturation raises all colors, vibrance leaves alone those that are already saturated.

You could also dial in a different profile. Check out Adobe color or Adobe standard, or your camera profile.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

The image looks overcooked to me and according to the Exif (which can at times be incorrect) it suggests it has had the following PP work on it;

Vibrance +12
Contrast 2012 +11
Highlights 2012 -61
Shadows 2012 +62
Whites 2012 +44
Blacks 2012 -11
Clarity 2012 +26
Dehaze +17
Texture +42

R.G. Loc: Scotland

You'll find that both yellow and green are players in this scenario. They can both be darkened and desaturated in the HSL section of most editors. If it's still not to your liking you could try tint-shifting yellow towards orange a bit and green towards blue a tiny bit. The blue of the sky can be similarly tweaked (but not so much in your example because the sky is a mixture of extremes - bright and dark, strong blue and wishy-washy blue. With your image I would select the sky and give it its own adjustments).

Part of my usual workflow is that I turn up Vibrance to a point where I know it's just a bit too high then target the problem colours in the HSL section, desaturating and adjusting brightness (and sometimes tint) to suit. Then when I go back to the main edit I may use the Saturation slider to desaturate the whole image slightly. This procedure usually produces good results provided nothing's overdone.

Also be aware that extreme adjustments in the HSL section can in some cases introduce a form of noise/grain that doesn't respond well to the usual denoise treatments (this is especially true of jpegs).

Vegetation becoming garish is a common problem. I suspect it's because some cameras are set up to render yellow relatively strongly, even with raw files.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Frankly, if I look at the real scene here at the condo, the lake is indeed an oversaturated Yuck green and the trees deep-green. Only the sky is darker than here. While living in Phoenix, the sky was alway phony looking color.. light Cerulean Blue Hue.

Summary: i think your photo looks real, only our minds/eye thinks it is less than real.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

I've found that in shooting raw an essential first step in post processing is to make sure that the white balance is set properly before doing anything else to the image.

Then other adjustments will have the desired effect

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

I can't speak for your other images, but this image looks good. I don't see an oversaturation here. However, I don't know what your artistic intent was. We have a park lake very similar to yours in this image, with reeds and green algae covering most of the lake that we walk daily. In reality, the green hues vary greatly depending upon the general lighting, time of day, time of season, direction of light, etc. The greens can easily be much more saturated or less less saturated than this image.

I see a slight green color cast in this image. By only removing the color cast, the greens become slightly less saturated. However, not seeing reality, either way would be well with the range of what I see daily.

There are many ways to desaturate a specific color. HSL, curves, levels, etc. In PS under image/adjustments is a wold menu of options to affect the color in your images.

Steve758

There wasn't much data to work with. I was trying some things to see what might work without
effecting the rest of the image. Because of the very close colors both on the moss and the trees and foliage I used the green channel to mask just the moss area. Then used the HUE and Contrast tools to tone the yellow down. I'd reprocess the RAW data and watch the saturation an hue.
This was fun, thanks.

will47 Loc: Indianapolis, IN

Here's another one, same place, same camera (6D Mark ll). To me I didn't have the same problem.

(Download)

Brokenland

If one is shooting in RAW and the image ends up over saturated, then it was done this way via post processing. First place I would look is to see if your computer monitor has been color calibrated. Because if it looks fine to you without adjusting anything.. yet post process or editing would accentuate the colors but appear to look normal on your monitor. Lastly, both images appear to have been pushed beyond a safe level of contrast.

Steve758

Nice image, I see what you mean. Without the ability to see the RAW data everything I could suggest is just a WAG. Because you shoot RAW the WB associated with your images may be off or, has been suggested that something in PP is causing it. I'd run some tests. I would like to know what you ultimately find.

larduggan Loc: Burlington, VT

In my experience, many Canon cameras often have problems with greens. I typically change the hue of "green" toward yellow in the HSL window (selecting hue) of ACR when editing a RAW file. Desaturating (selecting S) the green a little may also help, as might changing the luminence, darker, usually (selecting L).
It may also help to warm the white balance a bit.