What about the artificial color???

[cameranphotography]

Hello guys,
while editing the snap or a landscape some people make the color of sky slightly green, or make the color of river a little artificial. i really hate this idea. i think the best color is the natural color. which you get form your snap.
what's your thinking about this?

[pfigen]

Doesn't it just suck a_ _ when someone does that? Why would you want to ruin the scene with some weird color? Look what someone did with the latest Robert Earl Keen CD cover. What a jerk.javascript:void(0);

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Color arises in the brain. There may not be any natural color. A large number of different color renderings are possible.

There is something scene referred color rendition, which aims to preserve colors as closely as possible, but that would yield very boring colors.

This article explains many things http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html, see also the enclosed image.

Best regards
Erik

Hello guys,
while editing the snap or a landscape some people make the color of sky slightly green, or make the color of river a little artificial. i really hate this idea. i think the best color is the natural color. which you get form your snap.
what's your thinking about this?

[stalisman]

There is also the question of the lighting conditions underwhich the image will be viewed.

Viewed on site of the original scene it will look quite different to anywhere in doors or even elsewhere in the world with different atmospherics .. Central Park and Whidbey Island would give quite different sensations of illusory colour.

Do what you think is best.

[bill t.]

The photographer always faces a dilemma in presenting his image.  When at the scene, the "feeling" of the place includes temperature, wind on the face, the sound of birds, burbling water, smells, the endorphins pumping in the blood from hiking, and on and on.  Every possible human sense is getting input, and lots of it.

Unfortunately, the only thing the "pure" photograph can directly convey to the viewer is what the place looked like, largely devoid of the  physical experience that is such an important part of the scene.  If a little PS tweak here and there can somehow invoke or imply some of that experiential richness, then I say go for it!  But of course I'm just a hopeless Romantic.

And I don't want to hear so much as a Purist Peep out of anybody who thinks they should always print dark, because that's the first step down the road to Enhancement.  Ansel Adams was an enhancer, and so was Edward Weston, and Paul Strand, and and and...Enhancers All!

[pfigen]

I think you nailed it when you talk about trying to convey the feeling of being in a specific place. The reason I posted the image I did, and of course, it's my image, is that that colorization is much closer to the mood I felt when I was there making the background images for the CD cover, and anyone who has spent any time at the Salton Sea, where that was taken, would probably agree that normal is a word that does not apply.

When I was in school there was on class where we generally had to turn in assignments as 35mm slides, which were projected in the class. The instructor had a little book of Lee color gel samples that he would often hold over the projector lens, encouraging us to push our images from the realm of normalcy toward the land of emotional color. I've never forgotten that lesson and always strive for that, trying to recognize the times where normal is appropriate.

You can find a lot of great examples in how motion pictures are color graded for emotional and not real color. Many would simple fall flat without the emotion of the color. Try and imagine Traffic without it's color treatment. It simply would not work. There are a hundred examples I could use for that, but that's a particularly good one.

[Schewe]

There are a hundred examples I could use for that, but that's a particularly good one.

Or compare the way CSI Miami is colored (always hot) to the way CSI NY is colored (always cold). Although personally I think CSI Miami is over the top. CSI Vegas is better I think (just talking the coloring, not the show itself).

:~)

Oh, and to the OP...I really, REALLY hate it when people call my photography "snaps".

[pfigen]

I agree with that as well Jeff. Maybe Miami is just hotter overall than New York. I think we can all learn a lot by looking at the color grading of film. Some of it is very subtle but very effective and flies in the face of what everyone has been taught as "correct" color. For me, correct color is what works for the image. And just as Adams changed the overall tone of his prints over time, becoming darker and more moody as the decades passed, I think it's fine for any one of us to change our personal preferences over time. It's entirely possible that I'll look at that Robert Earl Keen CD in ten years and hate it. I know I shot one at the same location three years ago and, in retrospect, thought the colors were too normal.

[WombatHorror]

I agree with that as well Jeff. Maybe Miami is just hotter overall than New York. I think we can all learn a lot by looking at the color grading of film. Some of it is very subtle but very effective and flies in the face of what everyone has been taught as "correct" color. For me, correct color is what works for the image. And just as Adams changed the overall tone of his prints over time, becoming darker and more moody as the decades passed, I think it's fine for any one of us to change our personal preferences over time. It's entirely possible that I'll look at that Robert Earl Keen CD in ten years and hate it. I know I shot one at the same location three years ago and, in retrospect, thought the colors were too normal.

that said all of the orange and cyan toning these days of many movies is starting to get to be a bit too overdone IMO