Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Damon Lynch on June 18, 2013, 01:55:28 pm
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This is my friend Parvina. I found this photo difficult to post process, probably because it was getting a bit dark when I took it. The contrast was very low and I had to make some pretty dramatic changes to the tint.
How does the white balance look? And the contrast?
(http://www.pbase.com/dflynch/image/150861807.jpg)
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The white balance looks pretty good on my calibrated monitor--perhaps a teeny bit biased toward red/magenta in the skin tones.
However the contrast seems a little hard, particularly on the upper part of her right cheek and the bridge of her nose.
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The flesh tones appear dead-on, Damon, and that's the important part of color balance for a portrait, but I agree with Doug about the contrast.
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You're right -- thanks so much!! I've updated the copy I linked so the comments above apply to a former version that is now vaporized :)
Damon
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The contrast is a bit hard as they say, but that's taste. What bothers me is the whites of her eyes and teeth are more yellow/green than is normally natural and the skin tones the same. What's happening here is the green grass is acting like a green wall would.. it's reflecting green over your subject. There is only two ways to prevent this when shooting on green grass. The easy way is to add a bit of fill flash, just more powerful than the reflected light. The other way is a custom white balance.
Maybe this short tutorial would be useful. (http://www.bangkokimages.com/Articles/Tutorials/entryid/1054/Balancing-Color-in-Photoshop-CS5.aspx)
(http://www.bangkokimages.com/Portals/0/SunBlogNuke/5/Windows-Live-Writer/b515bd0dc7b3_F77B/cc7_thumb.jpg)
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Thanks Steve. For this image I actually moved the tint slider massively towards green (more than I've ever done for any image), otherwise it looks simply awful. Regarding your sample image of the Thai girl, on my monitor at least it has a tad too much red/magenta for my taste.
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images are so.... acid colored, almost toxic in their unnaturalness
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If you want to learn to use shallow depth, look at and study Hans Feurer's oeuvre. From that you'll see where it works and why. You can't just open wide or/and shoot people with a long lens and imagine it's naturally going to work.
http://www.wibagency.com
Rob C
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Thanks Steve. For this image I actually moved the tint slider massively towards green (more than I've ever done for any image), otherwise it looks simply awful. Regarding your sample image of the Thai girl, on my monitor at least it has a tad too much red/magenta for my taste.
1. That tells you the white balance was way off and (assuming you shot in raw) depending on the camera, and I know this is contrary to popular wisdom, but it's possible to blow a color channel past the point of correction if the WB is really far off. That would explain the saturation issue. An Auto WB sensor reading a strong green cast could have thrown the file the other way.
2. You're right, it is. It's an old image back from another monitor/time/profile and many of the images on my site are a bit off.. I go back and correct them as I get time but it's a big job.
To my eyes this is the WB I'd choose for her, but having not seen her in person I'm guessing.
(http://bangkokdigitalimaging.com/photos/corrected.jpg)
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Now her skin is so red she looks like a lobster.
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Boiled
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images are so.... acid colored, almost toxic in their unnaturalness
From this I assume you and I don't share the same post processing style? :) 8)
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If you want to learn to use shallow depth, look at and study Hans Feurer's oeuvre.
Some very impressive work there. I like his more natural post processing style compared to some of the other photographers on the site. Some his images look a little underexposed to me, making me wonder how they look in print. Although that could be deliberate, of course. Thanks for the link!
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From this I assume you and I don't share the same post processing style? :) 8)
nope,
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3927/k7vw.jpg)
PS: Mari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_people) girl
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PS: Mari (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mari_people) girl
...fascinating.
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Some very impressive work there. I like his more natural post processing style compared to some of the other photographers on the site. Some his images look a little underexposed to me, making me wonder how they look in print. Although that could be deliberate, of course. Thanks for the link!
Glad to be of service!
I don't know if you know about fashion shooters of a certain era, but he was very prolific then and did amazing work around the world. I no longer buy fashion magazines and so I'm out of it, but the portfolio still seems relevant... he used to alternate shoots of the Pentax Calendar with Sam Haskins, another hero of mine.
One of the clear virtues of his long lens style is that it both isolates and focusses attention on the product, the 'frocks', and yet still suggests location atmosphere.
Magic Man!
Rob C
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Now her skin is so red she looks like a lobster.
This is starting to get interesting. And useful.
I assume you're talking about the version of the image I posted? If so would you share your monitor and what profile you're using? I'm using a NEC 2690 in sRGB mode. The image I linked of the Thai girl is too red as I said, I need to go back and redo thousands of files after finally getting my monitor/color right. But the version of the original image I did looks spot on to me. I've had people using full gamut modes see more reds, but that's a well known issue with such modes when viewing images prepped for the web (sRGB).
Thanks, if my monitor is off I certainly want to know about it. I went back and profiled again just now and the changes were insignificant..
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This is starting to get interesting. And useful.
I assume you're talking about the version of the image I posted? If so would you share your monitor and what profile you're using?
Sharing my profile wouldn't be helpful. I calibrate my monitor with a colorimeter, so the profile I use is custom generated for my screen. I also re-calbrate regularly to make sure it stays accurate. Off-the-shelf profiles just don't cut it. My monitor is a 24" NEC PA241W-BK. And I always use Adobe RGB. sRGB may have been useful in the early days of the web when there were large numbers of people using PC monitors that couldn't handle a larger RGB gamut. But these days that's not a major concern. I go for accurate color, so I use the largest color space available to me. Currently that means Abobe RGB. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something else. If someone is looking at my work on a monitor that can only reproduce a smaller subset of the gamut I'm using it's their problem.
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If you're going to do critical work, Steve, you've got to do what Doug does and calibrate your monitor regularly with something like the Spyder 3 or Spyder 4, which is what I use. LCD monitors don't drift out of calibration nearly as fast as CRT monitors used to, but they do drift a bit.
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It is generally hard to work on a jpeg after white balance and other adjustments already applied, but here is my try, geared more toward pleasing than accurate (as for accuracy, if I am not mistaken, and from my recollection, their complexion would lean slightly toward olive?):
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Good one, Slobodan. I think you hit the nail on the head.
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Sharing my profile wouldn't be helpful. I calibrate my monitor with a colorimeter, so the profile I use is custom generated for my screen. I also re-calbrate regularly to make sure it stays accurate. Off-the-shelf profiles just don't cut it. My monitor is a 24" NEC PA241W-BK. And I always use Adobe RGB. sRGB may have been useful in the early days of the web when there were large numbers of people using PC monitors that couldn't handle a larger RGB gamut. But these days that's not a major concern. I go for accurate color, so I use the largest color space available to me. Currently that means Abobe RGB. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something else. If someone is looking at my work on a monitor that can only reproduce a smaller subset of the gamut I'm using it's their problem.
1. Sorry, I meant what gamut and you told me Adobe98. So you seeing extra red would be expected as it's a common problem when using a wide gamut and viewing sRGB images.
2. I use the NEC colorimeter and use sRGB for web work and other gamuts (mostly ProPhoto) for work where I'll be making prints where either my own printer or the print service I'm using can print that wide. I use CMYK for prepress.. or in other words I use the most appropriate gamut for my current application. We're far past the days where we can use just one gamut for everything and expect to be accurate. And it's not about "a smaller subset", it's about The Correct Subset.. which is why your monitor should be profiled for sRGB IF you expect to view sRGB images accurately. Btw - ProPhoto is wider than Adobe98 and native to LR.. you might want to look into that considering your requirements.
Edited to add: This sRGB vs. wide gamut issue is the reason many of the images on my site (the older ones) have that red cast to them.. not everyone sees it, but depending on the portion of the gamut a particular monitor can see.. it can be a problem. Most of those with full gamut monitors like the NEC's already mentioned will see the red cast. I wish there was an easy way to go back and correct them all.
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If you're going to do critical work, Steve, you've got to do what Doug does and calibrate your monitor regularly with something like the Spyder 3 or Spyder 4, which is what I use. LCD monitors don't drift out of calibration nearly as fast as CRT monitors used to, but they do drift a bit.
Thanks for the advice, much appreciated.
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It is generally hard to work on a jpeg after white balance and other adjustments already applied, but here is my try, geared more toward pleasing than accurate (as for accuracy, if I am not mistaken, and from my recollection, their complexion would lean slightly toward olive?):
Nice. I like it. I was going for accurate with my rendition which of course would be a guess.
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And it's not about "a smaller subset", it's about The Correct Subset.. which is why your monitor should be profiled for sRGB IF you expect to view sRGB images accurately. Btw -
I was talking about the opposite--the inability of an sRGB monitor to accurately display Adobe RGB images. And sRGB is very much a smaller subset. It fits entirely within Adobe RGB.
ProPhoto is wider than Adobe98 and native to LR.. you might want to look into that considering your requirements.
Maybe someday PhotoPro will be practical to work in, but not today as far as I'm concerned. There are still few monitors and no printers that can do justice to even Adobe RGB. And my Nikon D800E only captures a 14-bit color depth anyway. Until I'm dealing with 16-bit sources, ProPhoto doesn't really buy me anything I can use. And if someday I do begin to work in that color space, I'll still have all my old RAW files I can apply it to if I want.
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I was talking about the opposite--the inability of an sRGB monitor to accurately display Adobe RGB images. And sRGB is very much a smaller subset. It fits entirely within Adobe RGB.
Maybe someday PhotoPro will be practical to work in, but not today as far as I'm concerned. There are still few monitors and no printers that can do justice to even Adobe RGB. And my Nikon D800E only captures a 14-bit color depth anyway. Until I'm dealing with 16-bit sources, ProPhoto doesn't really buy me anything I can use. And if someday I do begin to work in that color space, I'll still have all my old RAW files I can apply it to if I want.
1. sRGB being a smaller gamut than Adobe98 is a given. However, most sRGB monitors don't limit a sRGB image to only a sRGB gamut. This is where the NEC Spectraview II monitors are great imo, they 'clamp down' the sRGB gamut when in sRGB mode so all you're seeing are colors/levels n the sRGB gamut. The correct subset. Otherwise depending on the source (camera, scan, etc) and the actual limits of the video card/profile.. even when all is set to sRGB.. colors outside the sRGB gamut can create casts. You might make 1000 captures and find (depending on the scene, WB, and exposure) 300 have a red cast outside sRGB, 200 green, etc, etc.. It's unpredictable.
2. Adobe strongly recommends using ProPhoto and in fact have made it the LR default. They probably have a good reason. I personally find ProPhoto's gamut more centered and consistent across the board. To me it's worth it just to stay consistent to LR and it's not causing any disadvantages I can see..
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1. sRGB being a smaller gamut than Adobe98 is a given. However, most sRGB monitors don't limit a sRGB image to only a sRGB gamut. This is where the NEC Spectraview II monitors are great imo, they 'clamp down' the sRGB gamut when in sRGB mode so all you're seeing are colors/levels n the sRGB gamut. The correct subset. Otherwise depending on the source (camera, scan, etc) and the actual limits of the video card/profile.. even when all is set to sRGB.. colors outside the sRGB gamut can create casts. You might make 1000 captures and find (depending on the scene, WB, and exposure) 300 have a red cast outside sRGB, 200 green, etc, etc.. It's unpredictable.
2. Adobe strongly recommends using ProPhoto and in fact have made it the LR default. They probably have a good reason. I personally find ProPhoto's gamut more centered and consistent across the board. To me it's worth it just to stay consistent to LR and it's not causing any disadvantages I can see..
I'm sure you have your reasons for sticking with sRGB that make sense for the kind of work you do. And I have no reason to question what you say about your NEC monitor. But as far as LR using PPRGB as its default color space is concerned, it's irrelevant for me since I don't use LR. Photoshop is more compatible with the way I like to work and manage my files. So until my copy of Photoshop CS6 becomes so out of date that I'm forced to upgrade to something new, I'll continue to use it for all of my post processsing. I will probably work within PPRGB at some point, but given that there's nothing currently that can either display or print anything more than a fraction of that space I'm not going to worry about it. And like I said, when the day does finally arrive when PPRGB becomes the order of the day, my RAW files aren't going anywhere.
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Perhaps we should keep the in-depth colour management discussions for the Colour Management section.
Damon, an excellent picture of a beautiful woman. Perhaps I find the two highlight areas in the background a bit of a distraction - otherwise great.
Jim