Beginner Looking for Advice!

Pixelated · May 22, 2008

Hello all!

After toying with photography I finally want to get more artistic and serious with it, and I'd love some advice!

I've got a Canon Rebel XTi with the standard 18-55mm kit lens. I seem to have a problem with photographing reds and magenta colors in bright light.

I'll get shots like this one:

But then I'll also get this:

It's toned down now that I saved it outside of Photoshop, but I'm looking at it in there now and the reds look almost like they're on fire. It's really not the kind of vibrant that's pleasing to the eyes.

I'm shooting with ARGB and these were taken at F5.6 with a shutter speed of around 1/50 for these two if that helps.

Here's a few more up for C &C:
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g273/Sieneko/Photos/Nature/Tulips5-15-08Small.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g273/Sieneko/Photos/Nature/Bee5-15-08Small.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g273/Sieneko/Photos/Nature/OrangeBuds5-15-08Small.jpg
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g273/Sieneko/Photos/Nature/PinkFlowers5-15-08Small.jpg

Thanks a ton in advance!

tirediron · May 22, 2008

This'll need a Canon person to answer for sure, but my guess is that either the saturation or magenta levels are set on the high side for your in-camera processing.

It may also be your monitor. Do you have access to a colour-corrected monitor on which to view them?

Pixelated · May 22, 2008

Thanks tirediron!

I took a look at my monitor and it does have settings entitled "5500K for Photo Retouching", "6500K for Image Management" and also "sRGB". Would that be what you're talking about? I haven't played with my monitor settings yet so I'm a bit unsure when it comes to that, heheh. I have it set on "9300k for General Use" at the moment.

I was wondering if the magenta levels were set too high! I'm still becoming familiar with my color settings on the XTi so I might have to explore that some more. Someone also suggested that the reds might be overexposed and take a spot reading of them, underexpose it 1/2-1 stop, and use bracketing and see what I get. I think I'll try a bit of both!

Senor Hound · May 23, 2008

Pixelated said:
Thanks tirediron!

I took a look at my monitor and it does have settings entitled "5500K for Photo Retouching", "6500K for Image Management" and also "sRGB". Would that be what you're talking about? I haven't played with my monitor settings yet so I'm a bit unsure when it comes to that, heheh. I have it set on "9300k for General Use" at the moment.

I was wondering if the magenta levels were set too high! I'm still becoming familiar with my color settings on the XTi so I might have to explore that some more. Someone also suggested that the reds might be overexposed and take a spot reading of them, underexpose it 1/2-1 stop, and use bracketing and see what I get. I think I'll try a bit of both!

You shouldn't have to constantly underexpose for reds with such a nice camera. That's something I should have to do on my point and shoot...

When people talk about monitor calibration, they really mean that a) you're getting all the shades of gray in the spectrum, and b) your colors on your monitor are matching those on your images you get made. You can hate it all you want on your monitor, but if it comes out lush and gorgeous in print who cares!!! I think you should set your monitor to 6500K. Just try it and see what happens. It will definitely change your colors, that's for sure. Also, I hear Canons have a way of saturating colors moreso than some other brands. But its in their JPEG rendering process, so if you shoot in RAW the problem might go away. Other than that there should be a saturation level you can reduce to make the color more manageable (and then you can tweak it to your liking in photoshop). Without having a Canon, I am at a loss to help you out more than that...

Pixelated · May 23, 2008

I just tried out using 6500K on my monitor to edit a photo, then want to print it on photo paper and it looked pretty darn good to me color-wise! I think I'll definitely be using that setting for photo editing from now on!

Thank you!

If the weather holds up all right out here I was going to try a test shoot using RAW and seeing what happens with that since I've heard basically what you told me there - the colors might turn out better. Hopefully that might take care of my problem reds or at least help them some. I appreciate the help!

Village Idiot · May 23, 2008

Pixelated said:
I just tried out using 6500K on my monitor to edit a photo, then want to print it on photo paper and it looked pretty darn good to me color-wise! I think I'll definitely be using that setting for photo editing from now on! Thank you!

If the weather holds up all right out here I was going to try a test shoot using RAW and seeing what happens with that since I've heard basically what you told me there - the colors might turn out better. Hopefully that might take care of my problem reds or at least help them some. I appreciate the help!

There's your answer...partly.

All DSLR cameras shoot JPGs. They process those photos in camera. There's settings in the XTI where you can adjust how much sharpness, contrast, and saturation are applied to JPG's in camera. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that's your problem. I don't know how to change it, but look it up in your manual and try it.

When you shoot RAW files, you're getting the picture as is. No additional settings are applied. It may look a little under saturated compared to what you're shooting now and a little softer, but they're easy fixes and it gives you greater flexibility and no loss of information due to file type compression.

Pixelated · May 24, 2008

Thanks for the info! I'll definitely be looking in my manual as soon as I can find it again (woops). I've been playing with settings myself in the meantime.

That's a good thing to know about RAW, though. Even if it does come out under-saturated for my likings I can always make a quick fix in Photoshop.

I'll keep all this in mind next time I go for more pictures!

Edit: Well, it looks like the version of Photoshop I have doesn't support Canon's RAW format! That idea might be out the window until I can acquire Photoshop CS or higher. Woops!