Dope Cadillac

[leeroix]

Saw this beauty at the Classic Car Show in Benicia this weekend. It was very clean low and red. Couldn't resist a shot of the front end.

cadillac by keips66, on Flickr
Thoughts?

 

[squirrels]

Oooo...Shiny! I like it a lot. The colors are really great. The car looks a mile long!

 

[samm]

Nice shot .They don't build them like that no more

 

[KenC]

Nice view of the car, but the red channel was blown out at some point because most of the paint on the side closest to us looks exactly the same - no variation in lightness or hue. If you look at an object, even an intensely colored one like this, there is always some variation and without it the image looks unnatural (and less interesting).

 

[leeroix]

Thanks guys So ken, how do I fix that? I understand red is a difficult color to deal with the saturation and still make it look rich. I was trying to convey how red the car really is.

 

[KenC]

You have to go back to the original (hopefully a raw file) and check the R, G and B histograms. If the red is already clipped, then the image was overexposed, but maybe you can minimize the damage. In either case, go through the processing steps you used, checking the red histogram every time you alter brightness, contrast or saturation and make sure it doesn't get clipped significantly. If you do increase saturation, use a layer mask (assuming you're using software that has this capability - most do now) to decrease the effect in the problem area.

With any color, there's a point where making it more saturated decreases detail by pushing an area up to the limit of what the color space and/or display medium can reproduce. At that point all of the pixels are the same.

 

[jwbryson1]

I like this image but it appears to be really oversaturated, and almost cartoonish. The red along the front of the car's hood from the Caddy symbol to the left front headlight almost looks like heavily applied lipstick. The blue sky is heavily blue and the light in the trees is overdone.

I think the composition is good, but I'd dial back the color a bit. Just my $0.02. :mrgreen:

 

[leeroix]

Alright. Ill go back to the RAW file and make adjustments

 

[OLaA]

Awesome shot! Didn't realize the red until it was mentioned. Did a quick edit. Created a duplicate top layer in photoshop with exposure turned down and contrast turned up. Changed opacity to around 65%. Created a rough mask of just the top of the hood so the rest of the frame is unaffected. Far from perfect. This would probably be a lot easier adjustments with the raw file playing with exposure and saturation.