Brown

[fike]

What makes up a good rich brown color?

I have tried and brown always skews to something like magenta, yellow or blue.  What processing do you use to make what you consider rich deep brown colors?

[Jonathan Wienke]

Dark yellowish-red...

[fike]

Dark yellowish-red...
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So, to add richness to brown without punching up yellow (and green) or red, what can you do?

This might sound odd, but I was really impressed by the richness of Michael Ezras browns.  (I can't point to the specific images I am referring to because Michael's website is blocked by my work.)

[a href=\"http://www.michaelezra.com]www.michaelezra.com[/url]

I saw his site earlier this week and thought that his enrichment of brown really was an impressive accomplishment when most people are punching up reds and greens.

[fike]

It's kind of interesting that one of the most important underlying colors in landscape photography--brown--elicits so little discussion and interest.  

Brown has got to be the unsung color of landscape photography:  rocks, sand, soil, bark, and leaves all depend upon brown for their photographic richness.

Brown gets no respect.  It's the Rodney Dangerfield of colors.  Brown isn't even its own color.  It has to be modified by another color like reddish brown, Yellowish brown, bluish brown, greenish brown.

When are they going to come out with a printer that has brown pigment inks.  They could be CMYBrownK printers.  They would be famous.  They would enhance landscape photography to heights not previously seen since the age of the Romantic painters from the Lake District

Poor, poor unloved brown what have you done to deserve such disdain?

Tan
Taupe
Sepia
Burnt Umber
Raw Sienna

Where would we be without you great unsung brown?

[Tim Lookingbill]

fike,

I have the same interest in brown as you.

Probably the reason for so few responses is the time of the season and/or it could be the topic stems more from an aesthetic design viewpoint, not photographic.

I just caught the restored 1949 movie "Little Women" on cable channel TCM and the color is just incredible. If you catch it take note the kind of brown that acts as an undercolor throughout every frame. I call it umber. It looks like charcoal-ish brown.

To get this brown increase the blue channel on a yellowish looking brown first to get rid of the yellow. Or start with R=G=B gray in the color picker and slowly pull back on the blue until you first see yellow and then increase the red slightly then click over to the L on the Lab section of the color picker and check the tonal ramp. Try 101,97,91RGB in AdobeRGB for starters and view the ramp selecting the L radio button in the color picker.

The issue with getting a perfectly neutral looking brown is the 6500K color temp of the display your eye has to adapt to when editing for an extended period of time.

[aduke]

Fike:

I looked through my Lightroom catalog and tried the TAT on a collection of sunlit bare ground. Some from the White Mountains in California, some from the Sierras and a couple from Germany.  In all cases when changing the saturation of these areas, LR changed the Orange and Yellow colors.

Alan

[Tim Lookingbill]

If you want that type of brown from the site you posted embued into your B&W RGB images, set your color picker brown as described above by first clicking on the black background color icon in the tool palette...

2. Then lower the Lab luminance triangle in the color picker till it clips blue to where green reads around 7...

3. Then copy background to a layer set to Color Blend mode...

4. Go to Gradient Map and toggle the Reverse box to get different tonal blend effects where the cool 6500K gray background layer mixes with top brown layer.

This is the quickest approach to getting a uniform color distribution sepia tone effect without affecting luminance compared to adjusting each RGB curves or levels which can be difficult and time consuming.

[TylerB]

actually brown seems to be problematic, I've see it dealt with differently with different profiles and profiling software over the years.
Tyler

[fike]

If you want that type of brown from the site you posted embued into your B&W RGB images, set your color picker brown as described above by first clicking on the black background color icon in the tool palette...

2. Then lower the Lab luminance triangle in the color picker till it clips blue to where green reads around 7...

3. Then copy background to a layer set to Color Blend mode...

4. Go to Gradient Map and toggle the Reverse box to get different tonal blend effects where the cool 6500K gray background layer mixes with top brown layer.

This is the quickest approach to getting a uniform color distribution sepia tone effect without affecting luminance compared to adjusting each RGB curves or levels which can be difficult and time consuming.
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Are you referring to sepia toning the entire image or just enhancing the brown range of a color image?  

I have had okay luck with making sepia tones in CS3 using the B&W tool with the tone slider. As for dealing with brown in an image as a distinct color to be enhanced and highlighted, that is a different subject.  I haven't really figured out how to bring out brown in a beautiful and neutral way.

[skipc]

i fill a new layer on top of the stack with #4a2b15 - layer mode: color - opacity 9-14%. i regard this as  brown tone to enhance the darks, as contrasted by sepia which changes the overall tone to some variation of red. best...skip

[Tim Lookingbill]

fike,

I wasn't quite sure from your original post what your were talking about in regards to image processing. The linked site of the toned B&W images kind of threw me because those browns look reddish to me.

I take it you're trying to go for a particular brown within landdscapes but I'm at a loss as to what that exactly is.

Why can't you just get it the way you want within PS or Lightroom. There's plenty of tools for doing it.

How about posting a shot containing the browns you don't like compared to what you want. It may just be a display calibration issue and posting an image can confirm it.

I've seen many post fantistic looking images off their DSLR's and become concerned in particular to the look of fleshtones being too red, dull, greenish, etc. that look fine as they are when seen by others with a fresh eye.

Don't underestimate the effect adaptation plays on the eyes in judging color especially with neutrals, browns and beiges

[bjanes]

Dark yellowish-red...
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That is a pretty good response, but in truth the matter is a bit more complicated. Yellow does not exist at low luminance and brown does not exist at high luminance. However, the perception of brown exists only in the presence of a brighter color contrast as shown in this article on [a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown]Wikipedia[/url].

Bill

[fike]

That is a pretty good response, but in truth the matter is a bit more complicated. Yellow does not exist at low luminance and brown does not exist at high luminance. However, the perception of brown exists only in the presence of a brighter color contrast as shown in this article on Wikipedia.

Bill
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Wow!  that is interesting.  so in some ways the way I react to great browns is actually contingent on the strength of the other colors in the image.   Also saying that almost any color at a low luminance is a shade of brown is helpful.  

That give me some food for thought.