Does an increased blue "saturation" work here?

[dreed]

There is a part of me that loves deep blue skies and I often try to pull it up to a level I think works. Quite often it doesn't because snow or water or something else reflects the sky and it just doesn't look right when the reflected light is wrong.

Sometimes it gets tricky (like in this image), so I tried a different trick: from the same pic, two JPEGs were created, one with a white balance of 5150, the other at 2500 (turned the clouds grey) and I then took as much away from the WB#2500 image as I could and overlayed it on the WB#5150 and set the opacity to 50% so that the blue and grey from the 2500 would merge with the 5150 to give it a better blue.

To give you some idea of the process, there are three images here:
* Import (as imported with LR from the camera)
* Adjusted (once I'd fixed it up some - PV2012 helped a lot here with the left side of the image that I thought was blown out)
* Merged (result of the above playing)

Thoughts?

[louoates]

The quick and easy way to a bluer, more interesting sky is to do it in raw mode. Go to the HSL/Grayscale palette and under "Luminance" push the slider to the left thus darkening the blue to a richer hue. You will get some fringing white around, say, green leaves against the blue sky, but if you create two layers in Photoshop you can brush out the raw blue luminous layer around those leaves.

[RSL]

To answer the question in the title: No. But with the pushed saturation a print probably would sell well at an "art fair."

[louoates]

To answer the question in the title: No. But with the pushed saturation a print probably would sell well at an "art fair."

Interesting point. Saturday I walked an art fair, juried, and am pleased to announce that I saw very little use of overdone HDR or drastically saturated colors. In fact, one photographer was promoting his "natural" color approach. He explained that he didn't modify anything in Photoshop. His intent was to impress shoppers with his more "traditional" method. I found most of the images to be badly in need of the usual sharpening, contrast boost, and saturation bumps that any digital image lacks when created with neutral in-camera settings. I rarely comment upon work at art fairs unless questioned directly by the photographer so just nodding seemed my best response.

I also saw another photographer who had some very nicely composed flower images. The color values were muted and muzzled beyond description by the horrid-quality non-glare glass on his framed prints. The prints in plastic envelopes were dazzling in the rich flower colors you'd expect. As were his canvas prints. But I suppose what the non-glare glass does to saturation is another issue.

[Riaan van Wyk]

Nope, it doesn't. I see nothing wrong with the original file- lovely colours as is.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

No.

For me, the best would be the original, or something in-between that and the second version (but closer to the original). It also depends very much on how the rest of the image is processed.

[RSL]

Interesting point. Saturday I walked an art fair, juried, and am pleased to announce that I saw very little use of overdone HDR or drastically saturated colors. In fact, one photographer was promoting his "natural" color approach. He explained that he didn't modify anything in Photoshop. His intent was to impress shoppers with his more "traditional" method. I found most of the images to be badly in need of the usual sharpening, contrast boost, and saturation bumps that any digital image lacks when created with neutral in-camera settings. I rarely comment upon work at art fairs unless questioned directly by the photographer so just nodding seemed my best response.

I also saw another photographer who had some very nicely composed flower images. The color values were muted and muzzled beyond description by the horrid-quality non-glare glass on his framed prints. The prints in plastic envelopes were dazzling in the rich flower colors you'd expect. As were his canvas prints. But I suppose what the non-glare glass does to saturation is another issue.

Sounds pretty much like the usual show, Lou, except for the lack of pushed stuff. But was anything selling?

[louoates]

Sounds pretty much like the usual show, Lou, except for the lack of pushed stuff. But was anything selling?

It was a lousy weather weekend and I didn't see work being carried out. Weather vagaries are another reason I don't do outdoor shows any more. I love to walk shows though because it always gives me new ideas for my own work.

One particularly good idea I saw was how one of the photographers packaged his small canvases. He wrapped them in clear plastic for easy handling and had them in print racks. A great idea for ClearBags or one of the other plastic envelope makers. Loose canvases are almost always damaged at shows by handling and weather.

[RSL]

Having bought bags from Clear Bags for a long time I'd be willing to bet that if the clear plastic idea for paintings catches on Clear Bags will jump on it.

Yeah, I gave up on shows -- outdoor or indoor -- back in the sixties. Periodically my wife and I slog through a local outdoor show nowadays, and even, occasionally, an indoor show. A couple years ago we went through a local outdoor show that went up the day after an all-day deluge. The ground was very wet and very muddy and you had to jump from one small, sinking wooden pallet to another to move around, and to top it off, the art wasn't much good. In the sixties I used to do indoor shows, but I finally got tired of the comment: "Them's some really clear pictures."

Rob's "Read and suffer" over on "But is it Art?" sort of says it all. Since the start of the recession the middle has dropped out of the art market. Unless you circulate with the Christie's and Sotheby's marketing crowd, you might as well forget it.

[louoates]

 but I finally got tired of the comment: "Them's some really clear pictures."

The phrase I most dreaded began "You shoulda seen the picture I almost got of a sunset back in 1982..."

[RSL]

You're bringing back memories, Lou. I'll bet that when you're out and about with a camera you still get stopped occasionally by somebody who says: "You oughta go over to . . . It's really neat. There's a great picture over there." or words to that effect.

[louoates]

You're bringing back memories, Lou. I'll bet that when you're out and about with a camera you still get stopped occasionally by somebody who says: "You oughta go over to . . . It's really neat. There's a great picture over there." or words to that effect.

I hate to hear that one also. Someone should make up a list of those dreaded comments and make them all grounds for justifiable homicide.  I'll include "What camera did you use?" near the top.

[RSL]

Along with: "Is that a . . ?" and "What lens are you using?" and "How do you like your. . ?"

[louoates]

And the ever popular "That's a lot of money for a canvas. That booth over there is only charging..."



Do you have a retort for "I'm going to _______ next summer, I'm going to take that shot myself"?