How much saturation is too much?

TelePaul

Does anyone else frequently feel the need to boost the hell out of saturation and contrast? It seems like the simplest catch-all way to improve any photograph. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong.

melekalikimaka

i do it alot, tho sometimes i change the color presets on my camera and it gives similar results

TelePaul

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i do it alot, tho sometimes i change the color presets on my camera and it gives similar results

Yeah I think the default settings on my Canon are +1. Although extensive post-processing is kinda the point of shooting Raw, right?

magicbastarder

i rarely boost saturation, and if so, only by small amounts.
also, when i'm shooting colour film, i usually shoot velvia - so would find myself reducing saturation more than boosting it.

Duchovny

I guess is a matter of personal taste but you can always setup your camera at your taste and then shoot always like that

Roen

I'd often end up reducing saturation. The colours that the 5D and the 85 ƒ1.2 produce can really pop!

Bear in mind that Canon sensors tend to oversaturate the red channel, it's almost always the first to blow.

melekalikimaka

Roen wrote: »

I'd often end up reducing saturation. The colours that the 5D and the 85 ƒ1.2 produce can really pop!

Bear in mind that Canon sensors tend to oversaturate the red channel, it's almost always the first to blow.

as with my d50

TelePaul

Hows this look?

PixelTrawler

The skies the give away there - the blue doesnt look right.

I find saturating reds and oranges fine but blues never seem to work right.

You might get better results out of that shot with hdr? Its looks a good candidate for it

elven

I think it's a phase. I remember doing the same sometime last year. Then I went through my 'dark' phase. Then I started half-desaturating everything. Now I use a mixture of all those, but with less vigour. It's like trying out different clothes, to see what fits you - over time you take a little bit of each style and mix it together to make up your own.

That shot in particular looks fine in the foreground but the sky is too blue, and it's not quite a natural shade. I think it's difficult to step back and judge that sort of thing though, when you've had your nose up against a monitor for 3 hours. Might be worth not looking at it for 24 hours, then come back and see what you think. Even better print it, and hide it for a day then look at it again.

amcinroy

This is a tricky question but it's not a new one. Landscape photographers have always had to select a film stock with a particular saturation characteristic. Many would argue that films like velvia are overly saturated. Others would argue that its a brings out the best of what is there.

Now with digital the question becomes even more difficult to answer. Who's to say what level of saturation is too much? Perhaps only the photographer who saw the scene can answer that. Nature has its very own saturation slider and I've never felt the need to bellow to the great mother nature, "turn the saturation down would'ya".

Digital makes everyone a sceptic but these people don't realise that photography has never been about truth. Using film we all understood the transfer function between the photograph and the truth (we understood the lie you could say). Now with digital processing we don't have that standardisation of the lie.

Personally I like to process my images within 24hours of taking them. Then hopefully I have got my colours and saturation close to what I saw. But I don't lose sleep over it.

Andy

TelePaul

elven wrote: »

everything. Now I use a mixture of all those, but with less vigour. It's like trying out different clothes, to see what fits you - over time you take a little bit of each style and mix it together to make up your own.

If only you knew the way I dressed! That's a whole other issue unto itself!

RealEstateKing

looks good. End of story.

Sometimes we're trying to make things look axactly as they do, sometimes you want it to look unnatural.

Or to take an extreme example: Black and white photography sure as hell aint natural, but it looks good sometimes.