Where has the color gone

gsxr1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennys-canon-photos/7335189200/

this flower has a much more vibrant purple. I have been messing with exposure to no effect.

Is there a setting on a 1000d to bring more colour to a pic?

the EXIF tab on flickr should show settings.

frozenfrozen

Shoot in raw, bump up the contrast, increase vibrance and saturation, turn up the blacks and boost highlights.

Or psudo-HDR and make three or so images from the one at different exposures you've set in LR or whatever you're using to edit, then merge them.

There are lots of ways to enhance the colour in a picture, but messing with the exposure isn't a very effective one.

Play around with the curves and hue and see if you can recreate what you saw.


Here's something I did in about 10 seconds, literally just pushed up contrast and darkened the background. Looks very fake and there's some colour fringing but that's what happens with jpegs.

CabanSail

gsxr1 wrote: »

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kennys-canon-photos/7335189200/

this flower has a much more vibrant purple. I have been messing with exposure to no effect.

Is there a setting on a 1000d to bring more colour to a pic?

the EXIF tab on flickr should show settings.

The Canon 1000D is fairly crap at making pictures, along with every other digital camera on the market. The choices are to accept the mediocre rubbish they produce or learn how to process images to get the results you want. To do this you will probably need to gain a good understanding of exposure and how to control your camera. You will also have to develop a workflow and gain an understanding of your chosen software. This is what it takes to be a Photographer. The good news is that learning these things is a lot of fun.

the_syco

As said, shooting in JPEG is a bad idea, as you can't play around with a JPEG as much as you can with a RAW image file.

I see your exposure is 1/250 but try 1/60 - more light, but it shoudn't be so long that it doesn't take a crisp image of the bee.

Best of luck.

kelly1

I think the main problem with the image is that it's over-exposed which will reduce saturation and contrast.

ScumLord

I've heard that digital cameras short of overexpose in a way. In Raw at least it records exposer more to the white end so everything looks more overexposed but there's actually more colour detail there. Although I'm not sure if that was for photo or video I heard that.

You do need to shoot in RAW though. It is a bit like going back to the old days of chemically developing photos when you use RAW.

dsludds

IT already looks over saturated, may be the white balance needs to be adjusted? may be the lighting needs to be more directional?

gsxr1

I did shot in raw, I just converted it to store it on my PC.

I have been messing around with the balance . At the camera not PS. I am loving the results as I love vibrant shots.

Still. The white you see on the ends of the leave did not exist with my eyes on the subject. The camera is not seeing what I see.

It was perfectly exposed with the light meter on the camera.

I am looking forward to the next sunny days to try a HDR photo of the same thing.

Thank you for all your advise so far. I will certainly be experimenting more

Cabansail. Are you suggesting I use one of those old fashion yokes with the wee door at the back and and no battery.. LOL.

Zillah

gsxr1 wrote: »

The camera is not seeing what I see

The white is there because the edges of the leaves have been blown out. A light meter is not perfect and it also doesn't necessarily expose for the full scene. I think the surface is slightly reflective. Lower the exposure and you won't get the white.

kelly1

gsxr1 wrote: »

Still. The white you see on the ends of the leave did not exist with my eyes on the subject. The camera is not seeing what I see.

It was perfectly exposed with the light meter on the camera.

I am looking forward to the next sunny days to try a HDR photo of the same thing.

It's best to avoid shooting in bright sun because it makes the contrast too strong. As Zillah and I said, the white areas you're seeing are due to over-exposure. Try shooting in manual mode or use exposure compensation to drop the exposure by about 2/3 of a stop. And avoid bright sun!

CabanSail

gsxr1 wrote: »

I did shot in raw, I just converted it to store it on my PC.

I have been messing around with the balance . At the camera not PS. I am loving the results as I love vibrant shots.

If you are shooting RAW then the settings on the camera like Saturation & White Balance will only affect the look of the default image, but that is all.

gsxr1 wrote: »

Still. The white you see on the ends of the leave did not exist with my eyes on the subject. The camera is not seeing what I see.

You have to adjust your eyes to see what your camera does. This takes experience.

gsxr1 wrote: »

It was perfectly exposed with the light meter on the camera.

The light meter makes the assumption that the frame is 21% Grey. Did you check the Histogram?

gsxr1 wrote: »

I am looking forward to the next sunny days to try a HDR photo of the same thing.

May I suggest that you explore the abilities available when properly processing RAW files rather than heading straight into the HDR hole.

gsxr1 wrote: »

Cabansail. Are you suggesting I use one of those old fashion yokes with the wee door at the back and and no battery.. LOL.

No, not at all. Just realise that all cameras need processing to bring the best out in the images they capture.

gsxr1

Thanks C . You no I was just joking with you. I would love to try a 35mm SLR. I used a little canon compact for 10 years, and it took great photos.

After a year or so of snapping I am only now starting to use RAW. The reason I stayed away is windows picture viewer. It does not use/see the format.

Any suggestions on another picture viewer? I use Photoshop but the PS bridge is very slow on my laptop.

I just got ordered a second hand 24mm prime to go with my 50 f/1.8 so im bursting with enthusiastic thoughts at the moment .

Great day for it!!

Prenderb

Picasa 3 is better than the windows viewer imho. And it sees RAW too!

gsxr1 wrote: »

Thanks C . You no I was just joking with you. I would love to try a 35mm SLR. I used a little canon compact for 10 years, and it took great photos.

After a year or so of snapping I am only now starting to use RAW. The reason I stayed away is windows picture viewer. It does not use/see the format.

Any suggestions on another picture viewer? I use Photoshop but the PS bridge is very slow on my laptop.

I just got ordered a second hand 24mm prime to go with my 50 f/1.8 so im bursting with enthusiastic thoughts at the moment .

Great day for it!!

DaireQuinlan

gsxr1 wrote: »

Cabansail. Are you suggesting I use one of those old fashion yokes with the wee door at the back and and no battery.. LOL.

Ironically enough, HAD you been using 'one of those old fashion yokes' the edges of the flowers probably wouldn't have blown out. Digital still hasn't matched film (or print film at least) in its handling of highlights.

Ben D Bus

Prenderb wrote: »

Picasa 3 is better than the windows viewer imho. And it sees RAW too!

It does? Not Nikon NEFs? Or at least not for me. Apart from that I really like Picasa

Tenshot

gsxr1 wrote: »

After a year or so of snapping I am only now starting to use RAW. The reason I stayed away is windows picture viewer. It does not use/see the format.

Have you installed Microsoft's Camera Codec Pack for Windows 7? It lets you view RAW files natively within Windows Explorer as thumbnails etc - quite handy.

I generally shoot Raw+JPEG because I like the immediate gratification of having something instantly usable to show people after a shoot, before I get around to doing proper PP afterwards.

Definitely give Lightroom 4 a try; I think you can still download a free eval copy for 21 days. Very powerful, quite a different feel to Photoshop, and it integrates well with Photoshop also. The workflow is pretty good on it when editing batches of images.