How the hell do they do this?

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ColorLover

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Hi,

I've been taking photos for a while now. Did a lot of portrait, performance, sports, landscapes and animals.

I upgraded my gear over the past years and am quite happy with my setup:
Canon 7D
24-70 L 2.4 USM
Tokina 11-16 1.4
50mm 1.8 plastic fantastic
85mm 1.8

I quit photographing the last years, but want to pick it up again.

But there is something I can't figure out. Sometimes I see photos of people, shot with either Canon of Nikkon with beautiful colors. Mainly the whites and the greens are very nice. I think it's just some kind of photoshop trick, but I can't find it out.

I'll post some of the photos which have this colorscheme I'm talking about and I hope someone can tell me the secret!

Please do not post photos to which you do not hold rights. You may post links.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
First thing: Shoot in RAW, edit in Adobe Lightroom, and ideally get to know how to use Photoshop. Once you know how to use Lightroom, you don't need to know anything more. Photoshop is just going to allow you to go one step further, and understanding Photoshop will allow you to simply pick up a YouTube video & learn a new technique in a matter of minutes. Without any knowledge with photoshop, it would take quite a while (and a lot of guesswork) to get through many worth-while editing tutorials. Lightroom, however, is quite easy to learn. If you shoot in JPeg, that's probably problem #1.

Next thing: Those shots don't look particularly remarkable in any way. The color schemes you're referring to seem to be right out of camera, maybe slightly tweaked in Lightroom but barely if at all. The second woods shot looks slightly desaturated.

If you're doing lots of work in the woods with portraiture, maybe consider a flash and diffuser if it's lighting that is the issue... but I'm not sure what you're looking to do. The images don't look heavily edited, or really edited at all beyond being shot at standard settings. I will reiterate: Lightroom should cover all of your needs. Photoshop just gets fancier, but is worth-while if you're ambitious or have learned Lightroom and know you want more.
 
I'm not sure either. The first and last one just look like normal, fairly well saturated shots that happen to have strong greens. The second is certainly different, but just a bit of desaturation. Just looks like lush greens to me....
 
I don't want to brag about it, but I think I'm fairly good with PS and LR.

I indeed think the scheme's are directly from the camera, but it seems like never get good colors out of the camera. They're often very flat. And if I space up the contrast in raw, I don't get those bright colors.

I was hoping it was just an old trick. I will try to make some shots in the woods to show the difference with my own shots.
 
ColorLover said:
I don't want to brag about it, but I think I'm fairly good with PS and LR.

I indeed think the scheme's are directly from the camera, but it seems like never get good colors out of the camera. They're often very flat. And if I space up the contrast in raw, I don't get those bright colors.

I was hoping it was just an old trick. I will try to make some shots in the woods to show the difference with my own shots.
Click to expand...

Have you gone into the camera menu and made adjustments there? You can effect colors in the camera so all of your pictures are a little more saturated.
 
I don't see anything special in those images you posted without permission from the creator(s).
 
480sparky said:
I don't see anything special in those images you posted without permission from the creator(s).
Click to expand...
Definitely agree...

ColorLover said:
it seems like never get good colors out of the camera. They're often very flat. And if I space up the contrast in raw, I don't get those bright colors.

I was hoping it was just an old trick.
Click to expand...
You should be able to get (better, IMO) pops of colors in your images than the ones you posted if you shoot in RAW and use Lightroom (or PS if you need to) to process your photos. It's always best to get photos as good as possible in camera, but sometimes the photos need a little help from LR/PS.
 
ColorLover said:
Hi,
I'll post some of the photos which have this colorscheme I'm talking about and I hope someone can tell me the secret!
Click to expand...

I know the secret! But achieving the result can be somewhat serendipitous.

Sparky's note about the first three posted photos violating forum rules is important and they should be removed soon by the moderators. Sparky is also correct that nothing special was done.

The 4th photo is correctly posted as a link and should remain in the thread so I'll tell you the secret based on that photo. It has a pronounced blue/cyan color cast along with subtle edge highlights in bright purples, blues and greens. The groom's skin is so blue/cyan that if in fact he really was that color in real life then emergency medical intervention would be appropriate to get him breathing again. Only oxygen deprivation can make human skin turn that color. There are lots of other reference colors you can check in the image to verify this. The bride's sheer veil for example was probably in fact white (neutral) but in the photo it's light cyan.

How this was achieved as I noted is somewhat serendipitous. The photographer in this case relied on a classic Nikon AWB failure to get the effect which is unfortunately hard to predict and not easy to control.

The other effect -- the bright color fringing of the highlights -- is also difficult to predict and so my overall choice of the term serendipitous. If you look close you can see the purple and blue highlighting all around the groom's white shirt and green highlights around the leaves on the ground, the brushed metal stirrups, etc. This is CA caused by the lens and again is nothing special but it has a subtle impact on the photo's appearance. Normally it would be removed in post processing but the photographer chose to leave it in place we must assume to take advantage of the effect.

Joe
 
ColorLover said:
I don't want to brag about it, but I think I'm fairly good with PS and LR.

I indeed think the scheme's are directly from the camera, but it seems like never get good colors out of the camera. They're often very flat. And if I space up the contrast in raw, I don't get those bright colors.

I was hoping it was just an old trick. I will try to make some shots in the woods to show the difference with my own shots.
Click to expand...

As mentioned, post some of your own RAW files if you can. It is hard to imagine a camera which is getting significantly different results. If you post a few RAW files of some shots, you'll likely have an answer or couple of possibilities narrowed down for you quite quickly.
 
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