Bryan Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I'm not sure if this is a real issue, but I've noticed that vivid colours, particularly reds, over saturate on images taken with a Sony NEX. Today I spotted a tree with impossibly bright red berries, from a distance it looked like Holly in overdrive. Getting close up I saw that it was blossoming with knitted red poppies, and situated next to the local war memorial. I took some shots and followed my normal practice of shooting in raw, converting to TIFF in LR and processing in PS. The levels layer showed over exposed highlights and under exposed shadows, vertical lines to the extreme left and right of the graph. Looking at the actual pixels view the poppies looked a tad fuzzy, while the supporting (green) string was razor sharp. I used a saturation layer to very slightly reduce the intensity of the reds and this brought everything back within the range of the levels layer. I couldn't see any difference in terms of the fuzziness of the image. Do I need to be concerned about this, is over saturation a cause for QC failure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Contributors sometimes pump up saturation purposely, so I doubt that it would be a cause of QC failure. I've occasionally submitted shots taken using Sony's "vivid" setting and haven't had any problems. However, I'm not a big fan of increasing saturation. Buyers can always do that if they want to. Many of the photos that you see on POD sites have extreme saturation, so I guess a lot of people really like it. Personally, I often find the results "artificial" looking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I don't see any special over-saturation problems with the color red in these RX-10 images. I didn't post any images I might have added some saturation. Oh, I'm sorry, Bryan -- you were referring to your NEX images. I'm gonna take a look at some of my NEX stuff and get back to you later. Now if you're talking about politics, that's different. Internationally, Red is too Left for me, while here in the States, Red is the Republican Party's color, so too Right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynn Palmer Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I took some images of red berries and apples with my NEX 6 last week and must agree the reds were VERY saturated. I toned them down slightly in Photoshop and plan to submit them even though they are still slightly more saturated than they appeared in real life. I figure it makes for a vibrant, impactful image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 I used Sony's "vivid" setting for this one. It was shot with the NEX-3. The reds do "pop" but I don't think they are over the top. No takers yet, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 That looks like it was shot late afternoon or very early morning, John, so there's a warmer light effect. Even so the colors do not look overly vivid. I like a little color and brightness in my thumbnails. These below were shot on a NEX-7 or maybe a NEX-6. By the way, after looking at several video reviews and making notes, I've decided to keep the NEX-7 and forget the a6000: the 7's viewfinder is superior and a lot of the newer tricks are not useful to me. And I have them in my RX10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 That looks like it was shot late afternoon or very early morning, John, so there's a warmer light effect. Even so the colors do not look overly vivid. I like a little color and brightness in my thumbnails. These below were shot on a NEX-7 or maybe a NEX-6. By the way, after looking at several video reviews and making notes, I've decided to keep the NEX-7 and forget the a6000: the 7's viewfinder is superior and a lot of the newer tricks are not useful to me. And I have them in my RX10. Yes, the bicycle shot was taken late in the day when there is more red light. Your thumbs look good. Bright still rules in the world of stock. Hanging on to the NEX-7 sounds like a wise idea. One of the things that I don't like about the digital age is the constant pressure to "upgrade." During film days, I used my cameras for years, even decades. However, it's easy to forget how expensive film was. I can remember spending as much on film before going on a long trip as I do now on a camera body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Rooney Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 You're right about the downside of film, John. Many downsides, really: the slow ASA (ISO) of high-quality color film, moving 500 to 600 rolls across borders, being subjected to having your film X-rayed, being careful not to overshoot, the noisiness of shooting and advancing. I get frustrated by the multitude of complexities of these digital marvels, but I do not miss film at all. Want to watch 2015 arrive in Time Square live? http://newyears.earthcam.com/ Of course you Europeans will have to get up before dawn after your own celebrations. No, I won't be watching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustydingo Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 Want to watch 2015 arrive in Time Square live? http://newyears.earthcam.com/ Of course you Europeans will have to get up before dawn after your own celebrations. No, I won't be watching. Edo, NYE is so . . . well, so 11 hours ago but thanks for the link. Welcome to 2015 in a couple of hours, we've been here for over 11 hours so the novelty has already worn off . . . HNY to all dd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 1, 2015 Author Share Posted January 1, 2015 I used Sony's "vivid" setting for this one. It was shot with the NEX-3. The reds do "pop" but I don't think they are over the top. No takers yet, though. I can imagine that both the reds and yellows are off the scale, but it certainly stands out. One for the new year perhaps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 1, 2015 Author Share Posted January 1, 2015 Re film, don't think that I would go back, but I've been unable to achieve the tonality of B&W film using digital. I'm pretty sure that it's possible, but the technology is currently beyond me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 I'm not sure if this is a real issue, but I've noticed that vivid colours, particularly reds, over saturate on images taken with a Sony NEX. Today I spotted a tree with impossibly bright red berries, from a distance it looked like Holly in overdrive. Getting close up I saw that it was blossoming with knitted red poppies, and situated next to the local war memorial. I took some shots and followed my normal practice of shooting in raw, converting to TIFF in LR and processing in PS. The levels layer showed over exposed highlights and under exposed shadows, vertical lines to the extreme left and right of the graph. Looking at the actual pixels view the poppies looked a tad fuzzy, while the supporting (green) string was razor sharp. I used a saturation layer to very slightly reduce the intensity of the reds and this brought everything back within the range of the levels layer. I couldn't see any difference in terms of the fuzziness of the image. Do I need to be concerned about this, is over saturation a cause for QC failure? A better way to control the over-saturation of the red might be to work on the raw image in Lightroom using the HSL panel in the development module. You can control the saturation/lightness of the red (or any other colour) in this much better than by using a HSL layer in Photoshop and even save it as a default for the camera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 I used Sony's "vivid" setting for this one. It was shot with the NEX-3. The reds do "pop" but I don't think they are over the top. No takers yet, though. This is just a personal thing and NOT a criticism of John's image, but I would have toned down the yellow channel a tad using MDM's method above. This would have made the reds appear more red than orange/red as they do in your image John. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 1, 2015 Author Share Posted January 1, 2015 I used a saturation layer to very slightly reduce the intensity of the reds and this brought everything back within the range of the levels layer. I couldn't see any difference in terms of the fuzziness of the image. A better way to control the over-saturation of the red might be to work on the raw image in Lightroom using the HSL panel in the development module. You can control the saturation/lightness of the red (or any other colour) in this much better than by using a HSL layer in Photoshop and even save it as a default for the camera. Thanks for that MDM, I'll give it a try, but why is it better than using the HSL layer in PS? I sometimes find a discrepancy between the two programs. Images which appear within tolerance in LR show as being over or under exposed in PS, while, on occasion, only the shadows/highlights command in PS will do the business, the sliders in LR running out of steam. My copy of PS is almost as old as me, well not quite, but it predates my version of LR by a few years, maybe that has something to do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 I used a saturation layer to very slightly reduce the intensity of the reds and this brought everything back within the range of the levels layer. I couldn't see any difference in terms of the fuzziness of the image. A better way to control the over-saturation of the red might be to work on the raw image in Lightroom using the HSL panel in the development module. You can control the saturation/lightness of the red (or any other colour) in this much better than by using a HSL layer in Photoshop and even save it as a default for the camera. Thanks for that MDM, I'll give it a try, but why is it better than using the HSL layer in PS? I would say that there are two main reasons. Firstly, I think it's better to work on the 16-bit raw as far as possible before going into Photoshop. Working on the raw file is essential if trying to control shadow and highlight detail as well as colour. Secondly, the HSL controls in Photoshop are not as refined as in Lightroom or ACR. This is still the case with LR5 and PSCS6 at least. I often darken and increase the saturation in blue skies in Lightroom by using the HSL controls. This does not work the same in Photoshop - the changes are less subtle and the effects different. Try it and see I guess - you may prefer Photoshop. Also I use presets in Lightroom for my skies which is very fast (it would of course be possible to create an action in Photoshop to the same but it's not as neat). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 There's one very good reason for using the HSL or Camera raw layer in PS, the adjustments can be masked so you are not making global changes to what might be local issues. An alternative is to export one version of the LR file to PS and then adjust in LR and export the file again, shift drag and you gain the use of masking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 There's one very good reason for using the HSL or Camera raw layer in PS, the adjustments can be masked so you are not making global changes to what might be local issues. That's a good point but working on one of the eight individual colours in Lightroom or ACR doesn't affect the other colours and is usually satisfactory (for me at least). It would be a lot better if Adobe standardised HSL between Photoshop and LR/ACR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 There's one very good reason for using the HSL or Camera raw layer in PS, the adjustments can be masked so you are not making global changes to what might be local issues. That's a good point but working on one of the eight individual colours in Lightroom or ACR doesn't affect the other colours and is usually satisfactory (for me at least). It would be a lot better if Adobe standardised HSL between Photoshop and LR/ACR. Yes.....but the colour, say red, will also be in other elements of many an image. This is a slight desaturation of the red in HSL, it's something I had to do on the original image - redone it to show the effect that a global adjustment to the red (of the capsule) on the skin colour (in this case) and it will usually affect other parts of images, especially when using primary colours. Using a mask just to allow the effect on the red in the capsule solved this 'local' problem without a more global change. Won't always be required. Also shows that Canon can be very tricky with some reds - it's gotten better over the years IME. HSL applied on left half. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 There's one very good reason for using the HSL or Camera raw layer in PS, the adjustments can be masked so you are not making global changes to what might be local issues. That's a good point but working on one of the eight individual colours in Lightroom or ACR doesn't affect the other colours and is usually satisfactory (for me at least). It would be a lot better if Adobe standardised HSL between Photoshop and LR/ACR. Yes.....but the colour, say red, will also be in other elements of many an image. This is a slight desaturation of the red in HSL, it's something I had to do on the original image - I redone it to show the effect that a global adjustement to the red (of the capsule) on the skin colour (in this case) and it will usually affect other parts of images, especially when using primary colours. Using a mask just to allow the effect on the red in the capsule solved this 'local' problem without a more global change. Won't always be required. Also shows that Canon can be very tricky with some reds - it's gotten better over the years IME. HSL applied on left half. Yes for sure and good example. It is probably far more critical for red in a picture where skin tones are important than in a general landscape, for example, where there is a greater tolerance for colour variation or in a picture of flowers or berries. I often select out the sky in Photoshop and apply contrast variation using curves adjustments but it is a lot more work than a simple click in Lightroom. I guess the answer here is to use whatever tool best fits the image and the workflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 1, 2015 Author Share Posted January 1, 2015 Interesting thoughts folks, thanks for the responses. I have an irrational dislike of LR and feel far happier playing in PS, crackers, but there it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.