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Saturating – To much or too little?
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This question comes from some feedback someone gave me about an image I asked them to critique. In a nutshell they thought that I could do with saturating the colours more, which is fair play on their part.
Do you think that since the advent of consumer/prosumer? digital post-processing in the home, people have tended to over-saturate pictures, bringing it into ‘the norm’ to see bright vibrant colours, thus i) creating a new trend/demand for seeing highly saturated images making everything else seem bland ii) giving digital photography a brand or marque that says ‘ah yes, look at the colours that’s defo been phtoshopped’
I’m weary of over or under saturating images. The question is – how much is “right”? Esp if Joe Bloggs’ (could be me, another photographer or impartial observer’s) perception of a quality image is tainted by what we think looks good, per the point above. I’m thinking over & above the ‘personal’ opinion as my judgement might not be the right call.
Some people on here have a good eye for detail, like when giving C&C suggest skin tones are a bit cast in one way or another, where I’m thinking whaa??, looks fine to me. So if anyone can share some insights or measuring tools/methods sure, t’would be grand.
Important question! Was the person giving the critique using a correctly calibrated and profiled monitor? Are you using a correctly calibrated and profiled monitor. I would take anything anyone says about casts and saturation with a large grain of salt unless they viewing the image under optimum conditions (which rules out viewing it over the internet as most browsers are not colour management aware). While I think it’s possible to make a reasonable assessment, especially if the image is grossly out of whack, I think an absolute determination can only be made in a measured environment.
My working monitor at home is calibrated and of course I see a tangible difference between what I work on at home and the displayed result at work on a 15″ dell flat panel via Firefox. With smeared reflection of large window behind me :(
For the critique I was given was most certainly not from a profiled monitor, so maybe a grain of salt is in order (or is it a stain of noise these days? …grain/noise anyone? ahem, I’ll get me coat.)
This would open up a new discussion about one’s intended or final audience, but then this is probably covered in a topic like the colour management threads etc, so I won’t digress..
Still, how do you judge how much to saturate your images? Is it good to just beef up the colours as much as possible or how do you judge what’s too much? Or what’s too little so that a half decent pic just becomes bland. Is there a rule of thumb, or does it just go getting on with it & developing a sense of balance for it?
I’m exaggerating here a bit, just fishing for responses..
when ur happy with what u see, who do u shoot for if not urself. If ur happy then thats what counts. !
My monitor is calibrated, but to the standard print calibration sheet sent to me by Photobox.ie so the colours look duller and contrast flatter than on other PC’s, especially LCD’s where they look well out of whack. I don’t mind too much, as long as I get nice prints, I just filter out negative and positive comments on the saturation and contrast on the web.
Does anyone here use the Lab color space method of tweaking saturation in PS/CS ?
I’ve tried it out on occasions and found it was good especially with landscapes so long as
one is measured and careful with the technique. I can post a pointer/link if folks aren’t
familar with the approach.The other way I’ve tweaked saturation is via Nikon Capture by using the Chroma
LCH editor and pulling it up a little to taste.I shoot with Nikon and typically I shoot RAW with saturation minimum. Then I boost
it in postprocessing. I believe (but could be wrong) that Canon’s tend to have more
saturation in the originally captured image regardless of the initial camera setting.–Ian
irishlens wrote:
Does anyone here use the Lab color space method of tweaking saturation in PS/CS ?
Do you mean by adjusting the a/b curves? Yes, I’ve used it on occassion. It’s a very powerful method which I think needs to be used with care. Working in the LAB solour space gives you access to colours that don’t normally exist, which is one of the reasons it’s so powerful. I normally do this using an adjustment layer. Dan Margulis is probably the expert in using LAB colour mode and I’ve learned a lot from his book “Photoshop Lab Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace” It’s heavy going, but well worth the read.
Yes, Thorsten. That’s exactly the technique (and the book I was talking about).
I delved into it around March timeframe and meant to go back to it.
At the time I bookmarked this sticky thread on another forum where there were
a bunch of folks who were reading each chapter and discussing it.
I didn’t go ahead and purchase the book but there was a lot of meat in the book
readers discussion on it ….http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=18203
I’m familiar with that thread and others on that forum and I find the contributions made by rutt in particular to be very useful. He seems to have mastered much of what Dan Margulis covers in his book.
As well as the book referred to above, I was going to buy his book “Professional Photoshop, The Classic Guide to Colour Correction” but haven’t yet done so because a new edition is due out in December, so I might as well hold off for that
I think there’s a difference between what is “Pleasing” and what is accurate. For any work that needs to be accurate, a Gretag colour checker can be used (they give you the actual rgb values of the various colour swatches). Otherwise, what looks nice :) Digital has normally given more “Accurate” colours than film did (expecially tranny film).
Si
Allinthemind wrote:
I think there’s a difference between what is “Pleasing” and what is accurate. For any work that needs to be accurate, a Gretag colour checker can be used (they give you the actual rgb values of the various colour swatches). Otherwise, what looks nice :) Digital has normally given more “Accurate” colours than film did (expecially tranny film).
Si
Thanks Si, that’s probably the difference that bugs me – well put. I think people have probably indulged in digital as they’ve not previously been able to reproduce such “nice” rich colours, so like to pack a punch. Of course I’m generalising but it’s the same kind of generalism that taints ‘digial photography’, and the whole ‘photoshop’ thing for the public out there.
If you look through Joe Cornish’s book ‘First Light’ you will see highly saturated colours that, if they were presented as digital, people would be very skeptical of. Some films are highly saturated and can be saturated even more by slightly underexposing and careful processing. No-one ever complained how easy it was to go into a shop and buy velvia, even skillful printing on Cibachrome can produce extreme saturation. It could be something to do with how accessibile digital is.
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