Saturation?

[Garbz]

See this is exactly why RAW is so nice. If you get home and realise that your images are a bit bland you still have the option of replicating the more vivid camera settings on a per picture basis or in a batch.

 

[manaheim]

ok!

I will pickup an 18% gray card... been meaning to for a while anyway.

My raw process is basically...

1. Open
2. Adjust color temp/tint as necessary
3. Adjust exposure (usually try to fit the histogram in reasonably as long as it works for the image)
4. I usually have contrast +25 or so and then I boost saturation or vibrance a bit as needed... usually +5-15 on average. Occasionally more, but not often.

 

[Jeremy Lim]

I just looked here for some basics on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_system

Now to figure out what LR2 is....

Lightroom 2.

 

[davebmck]

You didn't say what software you use, but I use Camera Raw (just started using LR2) and my process is similar. Here's what I do with most of my pics.
-adjust white balance
-adjust exposure. I will adjust exposure up to get my subject right even if I take the highlighs into slight clipping. They can be brought back with the recovery slider.
-adjust recovery as needed
-I will use the Fill light slider if the shadows are too dark. This works pretty good for pictures with a lot of dynamic range.
-I use the blacks slider if the histogram starts to the right of the left hand side. I usually push it until I get slight clipping in the shadows. The areas that clip are usually inconsequential.
-I hardly ever use the Brightness slider and never the contrast slider. I have read that the contrast slider is global and just too coarse. You have more control with the tone curve tab.
-I add clarity to almost every picture. This is supposed to increase the contrast in the midtones and really makes most pictures pop.
-I used to use a little saturation, about +10, but it is also a global tool and can over-saturate some colors. Now I use the vibrance slider as it only add saturation to the colors that really need it.
-Finally, I go to the sharpening tab and add sharpening and some masking.

All the same tools are in Lightroom 2, but the tools are more sophisticated. BTW, I don't claim to be an expert, these are just what works for me.

 

[Garbz]

Btw for all the Lightroom / CameraRAW snappers, go get the Adobe Camera Profiles Beta2. The colour profiles are much more vivid for some cameras which look a bit flat normally in RAW.

 

[ksmattfish]

I will pickup an 18% gray card... been meaning to for a while anyway.

When you get one compare the difference in tonality to various objects you normally have with you such as your palm, coat, camera bag, etc... My palm is aprox 1 stop brighter than middle gray. My black camera bag is 2 stops darker, etc... Then you don't have to carry around the gray card.

But I think your contrast and saturation issues have more to do with processing than exposure.

 

[manaheim]

When you get one compare the difference in tonality to various objects you normally have with you such as your palm, coat, camera bag, etc... My palm is aprox 1 stop brighter than middle gray. My black camera bag is 2 stops darker, etc... Then you don't have to carry around the gray card.

But I think your contrast and saturation issues have more to do with processing than exposure.

It does seem that way... I played a bit more with curves last night and while I'm WAY new to this and the results are seriously flawed, it seems I was able to get more of the kinds of results I would expect.

I think I have also, in the past, just been not aggressive enough with some of the sliders in ACR...

Another one of these moments where I realize that I still have so so so much to learn.

 

[ksmattfish]

You might google "characteristic curves film". Then you will learn where curves comes from, and how a film's characteristic curve effects it's look. Then apply the concepts to digital.

Here is a link that gets pretty technical, but I think the general concepts are helpful.

http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html