Flat colour

[KAP]

Does anyone else ever suffer from this. There are occaisons when it looks like my files have a base fog layer. I remember one job in particular, it was a very bright and clear day. I thought I would be fighting to keep things under control, but proccessing the images was a fight to get any umph into the images. I find grass wanted to go ginger while everything else had a steely cold look. I was reminded of this the other day when I had another set of files that was a struggle to get anything out  of. What made it worse is that I popped off a few frames of Provia at the same time, these have all the pop and clarity I expected from the Canon. Other shots on the same day looked just fine, there just seams to be some sunshine my Canon doesn't like. I have posted a couple of samples here, the Canon file is one of number of versions, it didn't matter much which I posted I don't think any look good. I tried a number of RAW converters, they all ended up much the same.
http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/New%20Album/index.html

Anyone else ever get this?

Kevin.

[Jonathan Wienke]

It's called white balance. If you try to set by eye and don't know what you're doing, you can gat all kinds of ugly flatness, especially if you're shooting during sunset or in other conditions where the color of the lighting is an important part of the mood of the scene. The first shot has WB set too warm, and with a hint of green to make things worse. Lower the color temp setting and set the tint more toward magenta to get rid of the green cast, and it will look much better. A WB reference (Color Checker, WhiBal, etc) can be useful, but be prepared to creatively deviate from it to recreate that warm late-afternoon sunlight or the saturated colors of stage lighting.

[Jack Varney]

In addition, the lack of shadows indicates that the sun is high in the sky. Texture and interest is limited although it would be in the Provia shots, too.

[KAP]

It's called white balance. If you try to set by eye and don't know what you're doing, you can gat all kinds of ugly flatness, especially if you're shooting during sunset or in other conditions where the color of the lighting is an important part of the mood of the scene. The first shot has WB set too warm, and with a hint of green to make things worse. Lower the color temp setting and set the tint more toward magenta to get rid of the green cast, and it will look much better. A WB reference (Color Checker, WhiBal, etc) can be useful, but be prepared to creatively deviate from it to recreate that warm late-afternoon sunlight or the saturated colors of stage lighting.
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The sample was just one of many versions of this file and others shot at the time, you can White balance to your hearts content, it always looks flat and like I'm dealing with crossed curves.
I had a similar response with it on another thread, sent him the raw, he didn't get anything much different either.

Cheers,

Kevin

[KAP]

In addition, the lack of shadows indicates that the sun is high in the sky. Texture and interest is limited although it would be in the Provia shots, too.
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The Provia scan could easily be improved apon, I had it scanning in the background pretty much on default, it's lost some impact posting it on the web, plus it could do with the blue turned down some.
The Canon file I've lost count of the versions I've made, I can't get the sun to shine as it should.
There are colour variations in the scan that are just not there in the 1DsmkII.

Kevin.

[Jonathan Wienke]

WB may not cure "flatness" due to low contrast, but it will fix "flatness" caused by color casts (grass looking ginger, steely cold look, etc.). Portraits processed with WB set too cool would be an example, faces look dead and colorless; simply warming the color temp can make a big difference.

If WB is set perfectly and "flatness" is due to low contrast, do a search on "Local Contrast Enhancement" and you'll find a lot of info on a really cool way to boost contrast locally without clipping, which limits how much contrast can be increased globally. Short version: you set your white and black points via Levels or Curves, then do a round of Unsharp Mask with a low Amount (10-50) and a large Radius (150-250 pixels) setting. Using this technique, you can boost contrast far beyond the bounds of good taste without clipping highlights or shadows.

Take a look at the attached image, and then compare it to the left image in this thread. I purposely processed the RAW color original with a "flat" look to include as much DR in the image as possible, then converted to B&W and boosted contrast in post with the local contrast enhancement technique.

I'm quite sure the individual who tried to process your RAW didn't know about this. Post a link to a problem RAW and I'll show you what can really be done if you know how.

[KAP]

The Provia scan could easily be improved apon, I had it scanning in the background pretty much on default, it's lost some impact posting it on the web, plus it could do with the blue turned down some.
The Canon file I've lost count of the versions I've made, I can't get the sun to shine as it should.
There are colour variations in the scan that are just not there in the 1DsmkII.

Kevin.
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Here's another variation, I probably should of posted this one first, it still looks flat to me, the web  has added a bit more contrast [a href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/Sunshine/index.html]http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/Sunshine/index.html[/url] I still find it weak and flat looking.

Kevin.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Compare the original

[attachment=2741:attachment]

to the local contrast enhanced version:

[attachment=2742:attachment]

All I did was open, Unsharp Mask amount 30, radius 200, threshold 0, and save. Problem solved. There's nothing wrong with your camera, you simply need to learn some basic image processing techniques.

[KAP]

Compare the original

[attachment=2741:attachment]

to the local contrast enhanced version:

[attachment=2742:attachment]

All I did was open, Unsharp Mask amount 30, radius 200, threshold 0, and save. Problem solved. There's nothing wrong with your camera, you simply need to learn some basic image processing techniques.
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Yeah but now it's just an awfull clunky strained over contrasty image, I can do that OK, blow out some highlights. There just are not the tones to play with, increasing the contrast has ditched even more . I know you only had a small jpg to work with, but it's not far removed from versions I have created, I don't like them anymore than the less contrasty ones.

OK thanks, since starting this reply I've reworked it, I need to shift those high tones down more towards the mid. So if I knock about a stop and a half off to two stops off then bring in thye highlight on the histogram to just clip I have a lot more workable image. The buildings were much to high up the curve, so much for checking histograms. Knocking a stop off at shooting would of been better I reckon. Hitting any auto button made it go the other way, it thinks I need to increase the exposure, I think it was just a simple exposure thing and a lot of light about, camera and computer wanted all the shadow information recorded and pushed mid tone towards highlights but not to far to blow the highlights. Lots of the shadow detail adds nothing to the picture. The camera got the range very well. All the raw converters I tried pushed everything along when it realy needed pulling back, so I think I was starting from the wrong place.
This is a better place to start from [a href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/New%20Album%201/large-1.html]http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/New%20...01/large-1.html[/url] as usual converting for the web has degraded it somewhat. On my screen I have colour and tones in the mid distance buildings to play with. The Provia still has bags more, I'll drum scan it when I get time.

Thanks for the input everyone,

Kevin.

[KAP]

Yeah but now it's just an awfull clunky strained over contrasty image, I can do that OK, blow out some highlights. There just are not the tones to play with, increasing the contrast has ditched even more . I know you only had a small jpg to work with, but it's not far removed from versions I have created, I don't like them anymore than the less contrasty ones.

OK thanks, since starting this reply I've reworked it, I need to shift those high tones down more towards the mid. So if I knock about a stop and a half off to two stops off then bring in thye highlight on the histogram to just clip I have a lot more workable image. The buildings were much to high up the curve, so much for checking histograms. Knocking a stop off at shooting would of been better I reckon. Hitting any auto button made it go the other way, it thinks I need to increase the exposure, I think it was just a simple exposure thing and a lot of light about, camera and computer wanted all the shadow information recorded and pushed mid tone towards highlights but not to far to blow the highlights. Lots of the shadow detail adds nothing to the picture. The camera got the range very well. All the raw converters I tried pushed everything along when it realy needed pulling back, so I think I was starting from the wrong place.
This is a better place to start from http://homepage.mac.com/kevin_allen/New%20...01/large-1.html as usual converting for the web has degraded it somewhat. On my screen I have colour and tones in the mid distance buildings to play with. The Provia still has bags more, I'll drum scan it when I get time.

Thanks for the input everyone,

Kevin.
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Yuk the web has sucked all the colour out, in Aperture there is lots of colour and tone.

Kevin.