I need your eyes

shatch

I recently printed some photos. When they arrived, I wanted to puke! They looked awful! The more I compared the prints to the screen version, the more they looked like the photo...just not as bad. The photo was probably 25% darker which emphasized the ugliness of the photo. So two things please...
1) Any ideas on why the photos look so much different than my screen. I believe I used "Pro" settings.

2) Do these look ugly or like they would print ugly. Oh, BTW, I'm colorblind to lighter tones so pinks, light green, magenta, etc, I can't see.

Photo 1)


Photo 2)


Thank you for your feedback. Also, feel free to butcher the shots themselves. Can't learn unless you do.

DavidTO

Your skin tones are way off.

The first has much to much magenta and not enough yellow.

The second is oversaturated, the neck is an ugly orange.


You need to go by the numbers, especially if you have some color blindness.

Nikolai

Steven,
speaking strictly colors - they are both way off what I would consider normal.
First is way overexposed and if far on the pink side, second is a tad overexplosed and a tad on a orange side, but it's hard to say without a solid reference.
You're partially colorblind? Wow, with all those stunning images you've been spoiling us for the last year I would never have guessed..

Anyway... Please check Professional Photoshop, Colors by the numbers, it's one way to go.

And if you don't like complicated - Mrs.Graycard and Mr.Lightmeter is an awesome couple, not terribly expenisve, easy to work with and extremely reliable. Essentially, you spend extra minute during the shoot - but then you never have to guess your WB, it's just one click in ACR - as long as you shoot in RAW and in manual (or in AE but light doesn't change much). I use them for every shoot, never had a problem.

HTH

Nikolai

Lol, David, what up with that, you telepath you:-)

dlplumer

On my monitor the first has too much pink, and the second has too much yellow. Don't know if that helps. Nice images, just need a little PP

shatch

A thousand thank you's to you DavidTO, Nikolai, and dlplumer. Maybe there is hope for me. Once I read your comments, I could see the color differences. Maybe I'm just learning to see.

I reworked the photos and reposted them next to the original photos in the original post. Any better?

evoryware

Any better?

999%

Photo 2 redo looks great. Photo 1 compared to #2 may still be a little too red/magenta in her face but still much better.
Lovely shots btw.

Scott_Quier

Well, since you outted yourself, maybe it's time I do the same! I also am partially color blind (red/green, mostly) - I have problems when the light and/or the saturation is low.

I've found that "working by the numbers" is not so difficult. The tutorial found here has been a great help.

And, like Nik has already said, a gray card is a life saver!

Nikolai

evoryware wrote:

999%
Photo 2 redo looks great. Photo 1 compared to #2 may still be a little too red/magenta in her face but still much better.

#2 is right there WB-wise, #1 is very close.

At some point in time I couldn't find my gray card and had to shoot without it for a while. I found it possible to use the eyes' whites and sometimes teeth (many people nowadays have their teeth whitened, so you get a nice white right there) as a reference point for the ACR's white balance tool. It can be tircky sometimes, but with practice you can get decent results fairly quick.