Hello and Help!!

poke salad annie · May 16, 2015

I am a newbie to Photoforum and I am very novice to photography, just the usual grandkids, flowers in the yard type of photographer...I use the camera on my Galaxy 5, which produces nice enough pics for the family album, but then I began to photograph beads(for jewelry making) and discovered the most lovely beads in a beautiful Periwinkle color...

For the last hour, I have did everything but stand on my head to get a true Periwinkle color but it is blue, always blue...I tried natural, cloudy light, a lightbox, a black, yellow, brown, purple, maroon, white background, incandescent/flourescent light, everything(even got a couple of umbrellas out to shoot under them), but either washed out the color or the color was blue..is there a backgound or light issue I am missing?

Designer · May 16, 2015

I think you should take your best shot into an editing program where you can adjust the white balance. Additionally, if you are planning to print photos on paper, you will have to coordinate the on-screen display with your printer.

First; make sure your display is showing the correct colors. You might need to calibrate the display to make corrections.

Then import your photograph to the editing program. If your display is correct, adjust the white balance and probably use the "curves" adjustment as well.

Then try uploading to your photo-sharing website to see how it was treated in the uploading process. Make adjustments as necessary.

Then, if printing on paper, make sure your printer is calibrated, and if you've done everything correctly, it should print with the correct colors.

snowbear · May 16, 2015

Welcome aboard.

Another thing to do, if you are printing, is to adjust your screen brightness to match a test print. Screens are much brighter than paper so a lot of people get disappointed when their prints come back from the shop and are noticeably darker than they expected. I've found, on my computer, that 1/2 brightness is very close.