Contrast,Saturation,Sharpness

picmom

I have a Sony DSLR 100. I am setting up my manual settings. Should I set my camera on +2 for all the Contrast, Saturation and Sharpness settings when I take the origianal pic and then edit it later if I want too? Also, what setting makes grass really green or skies really blue in pics. For instance, I am going to shoot a baby in my next shoot. What settings can I change that will make the grass really really green and the baby blanket a little blurry. I have seen pics like that before, but for some reason I can't seem to get it. Help!!!:huh

digismile

Hi Crystal,

I am assuming from your questions that you are shooting jpeg and not RAW. Making the "in camera" adjustments that you suggest will only affect jpeg images and not RAW.

I recognize your desire to increase the saturation of the sky and grass to give your photos more pop, but here is my humble advice :

1. Most cameras take great photos right out of the box. Making adjustments to contrast, saturation, sharpness should be done somewhat sparingly, as it can have adverse affects in certain conditions. I don't know whether +2 is little or a lot on your camera, but the issue is that these adjustments can be hard to adjust back the other way after the fact.

You indicated that you were going to be shooting a baby shoot. A newborn baby will often photograph as overly red to begin with. Increasing saturation in camera could make the baby look like it was glow in the dark red!

Personally, I would leave Contrast, Sharpness, and Saturation alone or at least adjust them sparingly.

2. The only way to get greener grass and more blue in your skies ("in camera"), would be increasing saturation (and we've already discussed this in the previous point). You can't target just these two colors, as it can adversely affect the other objects in your photo (since ALL colours are some mixture of Red, Green, and Blue).

It is much easier to target specific elements (such as sky and grass) in post production, where you can prevent color shifts or casts in other important foreground objects. So use software to get your grass greener.

BTW, what software do you use for your post production editting?

3. Shoot RAW . For me, the overall benefits of RAW far outweigh the downside of additional file size. And with programs like Lightroom and Photoshop, there is really no extra processing anymore. You can upload directly to Smugmug from these software packages without creating an intermediate jpeg image. it's definitely worth a look.

4. How to blur the blanket and not the baby. Well, this is can be achieved both by a shallow depth of field (DOF) during exposure and/or some blurring technique using your editing software.

DOF is controlled by the aperture that you select at the time of exposure. I looked at your website and you have plenty of examples of shallow DOF. A smaller number f-stop (e.g. f2.8) will have less (meaning shallow) DOF than a higher number. DOF is dependent on several factors: the distance from you to the subject, the focal length of the lens that you use, and the aperture used. Take a look at this website for a much more visual/interactive explanantion of DOF.

So, without knowing a bit more about what lens(es) you have, it's hard to give a specific formula to achieve your blurred blanket effect. However, assuming you have the kit lens (18-70 mm), here are a couple of general guidlines:

- use a smaller number aperture (as the f-stop decreases, so does the depth of field)
- be more to the zoomed end of your focal length than your wide angle length. (as the focal length increases, the DOF decreases).


Just my 2 cents,

picmom

Hi Brad,

I do have the 18-70mm and I also have the 75-300mm, that I use alot.
I have only been using Photoshop Elements. I have Corel Draw x4 but I was told that it wouldn't work as well as Photoshop.

Are you suggesting that I shoot on Manual, Auto Settings, Raw? If I do this, then I make all adjustments necessary in Photoshop Elements, right?

Thank you so much for your help. Sometimes its good to have someone just to talk it out with..
Thanks,
Chrystal:D

digismile wrote:

Hi Crystal,

I am assuming from your questions that you are shooting jpeg and not RAW. Making the "in camera" adjustments that you suggest will only affect jpeg images and not RAW.

I recognize your desire to increase the saturation of the sky and grass to give your photos more pop, but here is my humble advice :

1. Most cameras take great photos right out of the box. Making adjustments to contrast, saturation, sharpness should be done somewhat sparingly, as it can have adverse affects in certain conditions. I don't know whether +2 is little or a lot on your camera, but the issue is that these adjustments can be hard to adjust back the other way after the fact.

You indicated that you were going to be shooting a baby shoot. A newborn baby will often photograph as overly red to begin with. Increasing saturation in camera could make the baby look like it was glow in the dark red!

Personally, I would leave Contrast, Sharpness, and Saturation alone or at least adjust them sparingly.

2. The only way to get greener grass and more blue in your skies ("in camera"), would be increasing saturation (and we've already discussed this in the previous point). You can't target just these two colors, as it can adversely affect the other objects in your photo (since ALL colours are some mixture of Red, Green, and Blue).

It is much easier to target specific elements (such as sky and grass) in post production, where you can prevent color shifts or casts in other important foreground objects. So use software to get your grass greener.

BTW, what software do you use for your post production editting?

3. Shoot RAW . For me, the overall benefits of RAW far outweigh the downside of additional file size. And with programs like Lightroom and Photoshop, there is really no extra processing anymore. You can upload directly to Smugmug from these software packages without creating an intermediate jpeg image. it's definitely worth a look.

4. How to blur the blanket and not the baby. Well, this is can be achieved both by a shallow depth of field (DOF) during exposure and/or some blurring technique using your editing software.

DOF is controlled by the aperture that you select at the time of exposure. I looked at your website and you have plenty of examples of shallow DOF. A smaller number f-stop (e.g. f2.8) will have less (meaning shallow) DOF than a higher number. DOF is dependent on several factors: the distance from you to the subject, the focal length of the lens that you use, and the aperture used. Take a look at this website for a much more visual/interactive explanantion of DOF.

So, without knowing a bit more about what lens(es) you have, it's hard to give a specific formula to achieve your blurred blanket effect. However, assuming you have the kit lens (18-70 mm), here are a couple of general guidlines:

- use a smaller number aperture (as the f-stop decreases, so does the depth of field)
- be more to the zoomed end of your focal length than your wide angle length. (as the focal length increases, the DOF decreases).


Just my 2 cents,

ziggy53

Chrystal,

Brad is giving you wonderful advice. Read his post many times and try some tests before the actual shoot. Definitely shoot RAW and do get a RAW processing software and image editing software that allows masking and layers.

Adobe PS CS3 or CS4 would be a very good choice but in Windows world you can also get RAW Therapee and GIMP and both are freeware and would allow the advanced processing and manipulation you require.

Realize that to do what you wish to do will require a considerable investment in time so don't expect instantaneous results. You will ultimately be rewarded with beautiful images that you and your customers will love and enjoy.

http://www.rawtherapee.com
http://www.gimp.org

Designsmith

Dear Crystal:

I realize from the date on your post that I may be too late to help you with the baby shoot you mentioned, but I thought I would put in my two cents with the hope of being some use to you in the future.

Brad suggested not changing your in-camera settings for contrast, saturation, and sharpness. I would agree with that generally. Any modification should be done cautiously staying away for the +2 setting, which is the max. I have found that increasing sharpness seems to increase noise so I avoid adjusting that all. The software that was provided with your camera allows you to make post changes to the .ARW format and then put them out to a .jpg with your choice of compression.

Re: the intensification of sky and grass. I’d suggest considering filters (on the lens). There is an array of filters to choose from depending on what you are trying to achieve. Filters can also be a help to you in solving the problem a adding a little blur to the baby blanket with or without decreasing DOF.

Part of what I’m tying to convey is that software is not the only answer to every problem, but a tool (a powerful tool) to use along with all the other tools in the box.

“From the for what it’s worth department…”

How did the shoot go?