Hows my color?

[adina]

Okay, I'm strictly looking at this from a color standpoint. I know my abc magnets may be a little distracting.....

I'm shooing raw now, and I'm finding a noticable difference between that and jpg. So I've been working on getting color that I like, and have been staring at this monitor for a few days now.

thanks

adina

[poker]

Great shot. The magnet letters in the background really add to this child shot. The chair in the back some might not like but it puts the table into context for me. The pink ribbon behind her, you can probably do without.

Have you discovered working with RAW has learning curve? I tried RAW but didn't have time to do much post work.

Great shot!

[adina]

thanks,

I've discovered I have less post work with raw, but then again, I've been working on getting my exposure right when I shoot, so that's less post work all around. No noticable learning curve for me, once I figured out how to actually open the files on the computer.

The pink ribbons are attached to the shirt, so they needed to stay. However, looking at this, I wish I would have at least removed the bar sticker (wolsky's)

Thanks!

adina

[poker]

thanks,

However, looking at this, I wish I would have at least removed the bar sticker (wolsky's)

I was about to mention that as well. Still a nice shot.

[Ronnoco]

Well, since nobody else really answered the question, I will. The skin tones are probably off the top of the histogram and blown out as body parts get closer to the window light. Try to reduce brightness a little and add some saturation but be careful of getting the right colour for the skin.

Ronnoco

[GB1]

Hi Adina,

Hmmm...

The color's Ok. I have a slightly hard time evaluating it because the photo seems over-exposured to me. I believe that it's like this because of the distance between your camera flash and the subject is so close that the difference between the front of her, her feet, if fairly far away from her head. It's good that she leaned forward, but still, when you're that close to the subject with flash, it really pays for the entire subject to be as close to along a flat plane (slightly curved, actually) as possible to prevent light dropoff. Here, her feet received a disproportionate amt of light compared to the rest of her - hence, are overexposed. So is the foreground part of the table. Her face and hands are less so, but the contrast between her and her black sweater is too much and causes her face and hands to also be slightly over-expd.

It's tough to get shots this close and extending deep like that to work with flash. To make it better, I'd slightly darken the entire photo.

Wrt your original question , the colors are OK but slightly muted. Are they accurate for the scene? Only you know.

GB

[drg]

If your fridge is white and her sweater is black it is too warm. The highlights are starting to clip as the exposure is pushed to far to the right. The histogram shows it needs some 'leveling' and 'range' adjustments. It looks o.k. but it would print to yellow for my tastes and your printer or the 'machines' might wash the face and skin even more. The black point looks fine, white isn't quite right. I do hope you have both red and orange ABC letters on the fridge. If so, they are very close.

What color space are you working in? Did you save this "for the Web" or use a profile? I can't grab just the photo for some reason so I'm stuck with the screen capture to analyze.

This monitor was calibrated less than 24 hours ago and hasn't been turned off since except for the screen saver. Currently its been running for about 6 hours I think?

[Alison]

I shoot in raw now and I am noticing that I have less ps work to do too!
I have also noticed, through practise, that increasing your SS or your F number helps to darken an image.
If you find your colours are still a little pale just increase your saturation a little with an application.

[adina]

What a difference a pair of glasses will make. I went back (glasses on now) and took another stab at it.

There are orange and red letters, and they are very similar. This is also using windowlight, no flash.

same image, different crop, and less curves

[adina]

okay, my colors are not so soft in ps...

[OldSchool]

Hi adina,

I think others have covered things well as far as exposure goes. It's also good to check this stuff on the histogram.

However, I don't think any body mentioned anything about white-balance. It's nice that you have some "white" BG in this shot. So, it would be easy to set the proper white balance. It is best to do this in the RAW file though...

Most editors allow one to set the white balance based on selecting a part of the image that is supposed to be color neutral. By color neutral, I mean the R,G,B channel values should all be about the same. A white page, or an 18% gray card in the image are perfect for this.

Anyway, I'd adjust your white-balance by sampling the fridge. See if that doesn't make your colors just snap.

Cheers,
Tim