I struggle with reds.
Apr 24, 2021 17:52:34 #
These roses are SO vivid and beautiful. But my images print like red blobs. When I tone down the red enough to get some detail, then they lose their pop and the colour is actually wrong. I have LR 6.14. My standard treatment is to up clarity and contrast. On these I actually take the saturation DOWN quite a few points, trying to get detail, and the highlights down a lot. I know other people post images of reds that are beautiful. If you have suggestions for me, please let me know.
(Download)
This one should be more orangey red, but to get detail I had to tone it down and now it's a pinky red. That's NOT the correct colour.
(Download)
Apr 24, 2021 17:58:00 #
I have the same issue sometimes. I find that having the right light makes a lot of difference. And that ain't easy to find! I have the same issue with yellow flowers in bright light. I seem to blow out the highlights consistently. I just keep changing settings until I get close.
Apr 24, 2021 18:12:02 #
kpmac wrote:
I have the same issue sometimes. I find that having the right light makes a lot of difference. And that ain't easy to find! I have the same issue with yellow flowers in bright light. I seem to blow out the highlights consistently. I just keep changing settings until I get close.
Thanks, Ken. Once I took the exposure down a couple of points in the camera, but then they were too dark. These were all in good morning sunlight.
Apr 24, 2021 19:55:36 #
Apr 24, 2021 20:12:18 #
UTMike wrote:
How are you toning down the red color, Kathy?
I took the overall saturation down a peg. Then took it down further in the red channel. It gets too dark before I get the detail I'm looking for. I tried taking the luminosity of the red down, but that REALLY made it look dark.
Apr 24, 2021 20:33:05 #
AzPicLady wrote:
I took the overall saturation down a peg. Then took it down further in the red channel. It gets too dark before I get the detail I'm looking for. I tried taking the luminosity of the red down, but that REALLY made it look dark.
I usually have my best luck with the HSL sliders and then tweaking the three choices.
Apr 24, 2021 21:06:30 #
UTMike wrote:
I usually have my best luck with the HSL sliders and then tweaking the three choices.
Yeah, that's where I go. It occurs to me that I didn't try the red tint. Maybe I need to try that also.
Apr 25, 2021 00:18:23 #
AzPicLady wrote:
These roses are SO vivid and beautiful. But my images print like red blobs. When I tone down the red enough to get some detail, then they lose their pop and the colour is actually wrong. I have LR 6.14. My standard treatment is to up clarity and contrast. On these I actually take the saturation DOWN quite a few points, trying to get detail, and the highlights down a lot. I know other people post images of reds that are beautiful. If you have suggestions for me, please let me know.
Cameras typically balance out all colors to decide the white balance setting. That means, when there is too much of a single color, like when you almost fill the full frame with the red flower, the camera will adjust the white balance and that can lead to color issues.
Also have in mind that the bayer matrix used by the majority of digital cameras has only 25% pixels dedicated to capture red color same as the blue pixels. Solid red & blue colors are harder for the camera to capture.
Learn to use manual with balance & greycards to set the correct white balance and expose accurately.
One other thing that could be a great help is to learn how to shoot in RAW correctly and process afterwards.
Shooting RAW based on the jpeg setting/output in the rear screen, is shooting RAW slightly underexposed and will not provide the most data possible.
Apr 25, 2021 03:51:29 #
AzPicLady wrote:
These roses are SO vivid and beautiful. But my images print like red blobs. When I tone down the red enough to get some detail, then they lose their pop and the colour is actually wrong. I have LR 6.14. My standard treatment is to up clarity and contrast. On these I actually take the saturation DOWN quite a few points, trying to get detail, and the highlights down a lot. I know other people post images of reds that are beautiful. If you have suggestions for me, please let me know.
Are both your monitor and printer calibrated would be my first question...
Apr 25, 2021 07:01:05 #
AzPicLady wrote:
Thanks, Ken. Once I took the exposure down a couple of points in the camera, but then they were too dark. These were all in good morning sunlight.
It's hard to tell by looking at the processed JPEG but the exposure in full sunlight may have been about 1 stop too much. It's 1 stop brighter than Sunny 16.
Because you were using aperture priority the camera was basing the exposure mainly on the green channel and that may have pushed the red channel over the top. There are also a lot of deep shadows among the leaves which would also lead to too much exposure.
The only way to be sure is to open the raw file in RawDigger and look at the red channel to see if some of it is blown.
You should probably work with the darker image and brighten it with post processing.
Apr 25, 2021 07:35:00 #
I have this same problem with Cardinals, sometimes. Have you tried changing the color temperature? I've found that if I cool it down a bit, the reds look a little truer. Hope you find a solution.
Patty
Patty
Apr 25, 2021 07:49:53 #
Yellow, reds...same problems. Sometimes I think it’s nature’s/God’s way (your choice) of saying: “Try all you want. There are some things I’m keepin’ for myself.”
Apr 25, 2021 08:22:26 #
Reds are indeed difficult; they are probably my biggest color problem, so I’m interested in the answers here.
Apr 25, 2021 08:29:36 #
Wallen wrote:
Cameras typically balance out all colors to decide... (show quote)
Thanks, Wallen. I do shoot in RAW. I do underexpose a bit. Hadn't thought about the overabundance of a single colour affecting the white balance. I'll look into that.
Apr 25, 2021 08:32:06 #
selmslie wrote:
It's hard to tell by looking at the processed JPEG... (show quote)
I've never heard of RawDigger. LR didn't find the red as blown, and its histogram does separate the channels. I usually underexpose red flowers by 1/2. Perhaps that's not enough.
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