How to capture reds in flowers?

lifeinfocus · July 20, 2011

My wife has this spectacular 200 daylily plant garden. I have done just about everything to capture the dark to light red colored daylilies. I don't believe I have ever gotten the true color.

I have used a white card.
Used various saturation settings.
Raw and jpeg format.
Manual controls.
Changes in exposure compensation.
Two different lenses.
Different daylight settings

And rarely if ever do I capture the red that I see.

Is this a function of the camera sensor or is just something I am not doing correctly?

Or I am missing something?

I am currently using Nikon D90 and hoping/planning on upgrading as soon as Nikon decides what its next releases will be.

Any and all comments are welcome.

Thanks, Phil

schmoo · July 20, 2011

Hi Phil,

As per your request I'll move this to Techniques. Good luck! I've always had trouble with red, too.

pathfinder · July 20, 2011

Hi Phil,

I love daylillys too, and so does my spouse.

The reds in flowers are frequently much brighter than they seem, and it is very, very easy to over cook the red channel in your camera's sensor if you are not careful in your exposure.

The first thing I would suggest is to switch your camera histogram to RGB so that you can see the histogram in each of the three channels. If you do this, you will see that the red channel is frequently much much brighter than the blue and green channels, so your exposure must be controlled so that you do not fry the red channel. I have not shot flowers in HDR, but as I write this, I begin to at least consider it.

I think you need to shoot in manual mode, as your meter will not really read the red cannel correctly - remember light meters are really looking for a mid-tone grey to give you an exposure reading. I have not used an incident meter when shooting flowers, but it might help as well, since it does not depend on the light reflected, but the light hitting the flowers.

I haven't shot flowers recently, so the pictures I will display are several years old

This daylilly is from 2004 with a 1DsMkii at ISO 100. Tis may have been shot as a jpg back then as I was still learning digital as well. This image did have the a and b curves steepened slightly in LAB which was( and still is sometimes ) done to add vibrance to the color of an image, ala D Margulis and The Canyon Conundrum. Today I find it too dark and too saturated, but the reds and purples seem reasonable.

Here is a red leaf from a 20D, which was captured with attention to the red histogram I am certain.

Here are some red dogwoods from 2004 with a Canon 10D, my first DSLR, but a very primitive DSLR by today's standards. I am certain this was shot as a jpg in 2004, and the exposure was 30 seconds at f27. Not that sharp, but the reds seem contained, not fried.

Today I would shoot in Raw as you did.

I know the reds in bird's feathers are not due to a red pigment, but to the refraction of light by prisms in the birds feather structure themselves, and hence they tend to fry red channels as well. I am not certain this happens in flowers this way, but red colors in flowers are very very easy to over expose and loose all the color and the texture as well...

I think setting your camera for a specific color balance setting ( other than AWB ) can be helpful as well - like sunlight, or shade, or overcast etc.

In addition, sometimes in editing I will use a black and white image overlying my color image in a Luminosity Blend in Photoshop, to help control the contrast in the image. There is no simple formula for this, I just create a B&W from my primary image until it looks good to my eye, and then use those light and dark tonalities to help control the contrast in my final color image.

Sam · July 20, 2011

In addition to Jim's comments other elements to consider are, image color space, monitor, if printing type of paper and printer type.

While the camera may capture the reds (be careful of exposure here) your monitor may not be able to display the full red gamut in the image. Also if you convert your image from say Pro photo to sRGB many colors will be lost. Normally when you convert and image from a large color space to a smaller one the software attempts to make the best representation possible in the smaller color space, and using a technical term squishes the reds or other out of gamut colors together.

Sam

pathfinder · July 20, 2011

Excellent points, Sam!

Qarik · July 21, 2011

some sample shots of the flowers would be helpful.

lifeinfocus · July 21, 2011

Thanks for your comments. Regarding monitor question, I have an I-IPS LCD monitor that is calibrated so I don't suspect that to be the issue.

Below are some samples:

The first is of an Iris where the colors are fairly accurate to me:

Whereas this daylily is not. It is close, but to my eye it is not completely accurate. Shot manual mode, f/9, 1/200s and 200 ISO. The histogram is attached and as you can see it is somewhat underexposed. I did some post processing but not much. BTW, at the distance and lens I use to shoot a single daylily I often use f/9 to get the complete blossom in focus.

Another that is close, but no cigar!

We belong to the Central Michigan Daylily Society, so color accuracy is a important. I put together this website for the club if you are interested: http://www.daylilies.me The club is a member of AHS - American Hemerocallis Society - national daylily society.

Thanks much, Phil

time2smile · July 21, 2011

What picture control setting are you using, you may want to try neutral instead of standard, i find that bright reds are the first to be effected by this. Your Nikon has custom set up you can fine tune the red and save it to a new setting. This has no effect in RAW only in JPG.

I did this with vivid for walkaround use and am happy with the results for my JPG shots.

lifeinfocus · July 21, 2011

time2smile wrote: »

What picture control setting are you using, you may want to try neutral instead of standard, i find that bright reds are the first to be effected by this. Your Nikon has custom set up you can fine tune the red and save it to a new setting. This has no effect in RAW only in JPG.

I did this with vivid for walkaround use and am happy with the results for my JPG shots.

Thanks for the tip. I will try that today.

Phil

pathfinder · July 21, 2011

Phil,

Have you tried to shoot with a custom white balance? Your first and third image seem too green- blue to my eye on my iPad.

Get a neutral grey card, or a Lastolite neutral grey reflector for color balance, shoot a shot of the grey card in the light the flower is in, with the camera in Av mode. Use this grey jpg to build a custom color balance setting for your camera. Or use an Expo disc to set your white balance.

Shooting low to the ground, in all that greenery, might be affecting your white balance, since your desire seems to lean toward documentary accuracy, not artistic rendering.

I wrote a thread about custom white balance here http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=90438

You might consider using flash, as well, for a more consistent frame to frame color rendering, or limit yourself to clear sunlight only.

When shooting jpgs, 1/3 stop of difference in exposure will affect color balance.

lifeinfocus · July 21, 2011

pathfinder wrote: »

Phil,

Have you tried to shoot with a custom white balance? Your first and third image seem too green- blue to my eye on my iPad.

Get a neutral grey card, or a Lastolite neutral grey reflector for color balance, shoot a shot of the grey card in the light the flower is in, with the camera in Av mode. Use this grey jpg to build a custom color balance setting for your camera. Or use an Expo disc to set your white balance.

Shooting low to the ground, in all that greenery, might be affecting your white balance, since your desire seems to lean toward documentary accuracy, not artistic rendering.

I wrote a thread about custom white balance here http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=90438

You might consider using flash, as well, for a more consistent frame to frame color rendering, or limit yourself to clear sunlight only.

When shooting jpgs, 1/3 stop of difference in exposure will affect color balance.

Thanks much for your comments. I have set custom white balance a number of times and it didn't seem to make much difference.

Today, I took a lot of shots, even though it was very hot, trying different picture control settings along with hue, saturation, and manual exposure settings. I came closer to meeting my goal.

Vivid plus one saturation step plus a one stop or so underexposed brings me closer to the color I see.

Regarding, color settings, I have a new very nice monitor that I color calibrated using Spider 3 so I think I am doing well there.

I will try shooting closer to the ground also.

Thanks, Phil

time2smile · July 22, 2011

Remember to that Active D-Lighting plays a roll in this. Check to see that you have it off.

How do the RAW files look.

Sam · July 22, 2011

You said you had a I-IPS LCD type monitor and it was calibrated.

With a little research online turned I found that these types of monitors can range from, cheap to expensive, which will effect the quality and number of colors it can display.

If the monitor is using 6 bits it can only reproduce something like 265 thousand colors but if it's 8 bit can reproduce 16 million.

Humans can distinguish between several million and 10 million colors depending on the individual.

Also comparing a monitor image that's back lit with the actual subject or a print which is illuminated by reflective light will alter our percolation of the color, as well as the light we view it under.

I would ask, what is your final output? If your trying to get your reds to match what you see with your eyes and share that exact same color via email or the internet you are setting yourself up for failure.

If your looking for print output you will have a lot more success, but printing opens up a whole different can of worms. In general I would say a high end large format inkjet will produce more colors than a chemical process. You will not get it with a cheap all in one home inkjet.

I can't see what your seeing so it's hard to say if your being reasonable and can actually in the real world get a closer match, or if your being overly picky beyond what can be accomplished. Depending on your individual ability to differentiate color, close or very close, should be doable, perfect, I think not.

If you can ever figure out how to get the color to match perfectly let me know and I will nominate you for a Nobel price.

Sam

lifeinfocus · July 23, 2011

Sam,thanks for your response.

I think I have the monitor covered as i worked in the computer industry for many years. Regarding printing, I don't print at home because I recognize the cost to do it well and I rather rely on professional printers for this. The daylily photos are generally for viewing by wife, friends and our local daylily society members. Plus, I enjoy it. I have a mixture of flower photos that tend to be creative or lean to color accuracy.

I typed up my photo and processing as guide for myself and as means to continue to learn. Comments by anyone is certainly welcome. Thanks, Phil

Photographing, Workflow and Processing Daylilies
Phil Walenga

1. Use morning light, directly out of sun. Evening light is fine but most daylily blooms don’t look their best then – hence the name daylily.
2. Set Picture Control to Neutral or Vivid, adjust sharpness to maximum.
3. Set to Jpeg format if not experienced with RAW format. Consider shooting with both Jpeg and RAW then you have your choice when processing.
4. Format memory card at least every few days after you are sure you have copied the files you wanted.
5. Create new active folder using date of shots of content as an example. Easier to sort when taking lots of photos over multiple days.
6. Dust off lens.
7. Use tripod and remote cable.
8. Set to lowest ISO possible, probably 200.
9. Determine depth of field desired. Many good articles on the web about this subject.
10. Get camera as close to the minimum focus distance allowed for the lens for single flower shots. (Check the specifications for the lens.)
11. Set the composition using viewfinder. Consider rule of thirds and other composition considerations.
12. Switch to camera display to move autofocus point to area desired.
13. Consider manual focus instead.
14. Set to aperture priority.
15. Generally, set f/stop to around f/5.6 to f/8 to get entire flower in focus, smaller if blurred background is desired. Consider step 2 – DOF.
16. For more enhanced blurred background move camera farther away.
17. Take the photo using remote cable to prevent camera shake and blur.
18. Check histogram for the dominant color.
19. Switch to Manual mode to compensate for histogram results.
20. Adjust exposure to modify exposure for the dominant color noted on histogram. Reduce shutter speed by one stop to lighten the image and increase by one stop to darken the image.
21. Take photo again.
22. View histogram and repeat steps 4 and 5 until the composition, focus and color meet your needs.
23. Rate photos directly on the memory card – this reduces amount of files on PC. I use ViewNX2 because it also provides camera settings so I can learn what camera settings worked and what didn’t.
24. Copy higher rated ones to new PC folder. Label folder with date YMD, content description and whether processed or not. For instance, "20110723 Front Strip Daylilies NOT PROCESSED". After processing and uploading to your website, remove “NOT PROCESSED” from folder name.
25. Process highest rated photos in Photoshop.
26. Crop if needed, hopefully the composition was set well so this is not necessary as this will reduce resolution.
27. Adjust levels, using Levels command. Do it manually or using eyedropper on deepest black in the photo and adjust white to meet needs.
28. Adjust hue by dominate color if needed. I found this to be the key to getting the actual color of the daylily.
29. Save using filename with date first, then content, then original file name. For example “20110723 Daylily Primal Scream DSC7921.jpg”. This allow for easy sorting by date and to go back to the original file if needed. Plus the content is also described.

Recent daylily photos using above process:
1. Dark red, prior to using above process it was hard to get the dark red color.

2. Just for fun, using direct light on it while rest of area in shadows. Not actual color, more of artistic shot.

3. "Pandora's Box" daylily. Fairly accurate color representation.

knapph · July 24, 2011

I do not think a read about using camera calibration profiles. I have made profiles to use in Lightroom and Photoshop using a Colorchecker Passport. This has made a large difference in my being able to get the colors of my photos close to the colors of the flowers I shoot. This is in addition to watching the red histogram.
You have to keep in mind that you are dealing with two different types of light, reflected and transmitted - they can not be an exact match.

lifeinfocus · July 25, 2011

knapph wrote: »

I do not think a read about using camera calibration profiles. I have made profiles to use in Lightroom and Photoshop using a Colorchecker Passport. This has made a large difference in my being able to get the colors of my photos close to the colors of the flowers I shoot. This is in addition to watching the red histogram.
You have to keep in mind that you are dealing with two different types of light, reflected and transmitted - they can not be an exact match.

I have not investigated "Camera calibration profile" yet, but I will. Regarding the red histogram, I am using that as a guide now.

Thanks much, Phil

ziggy53 · July 26, 2011

lifeinfocus wrote: »

I have not investigated "Camera calibration profile" yet, but I will. Regarding the red histogram, I am using that as a guide now.

Thanks much, Phil

If you are using the in-camera histogram, I strongly suggest using your computer software histogram to find out what the camera's histogram means. The in-camera histogram is necessarily very small, of low resolution (often 20 steps or less) and it often does not match the computer software histogram.

If you rely on the in-camera histogram you may still be inadvertently clipping color channels.

At very least do some exposure bracketing to determine whether a reduced exposure is beneficial to your needs.

lifeinfocus · July 26, 2011

ziggy53 wrote: »

If you are using the in-camera histogram, I strongly suggest using your computer software histogram to find out what the camera's histogram means. The in-camera histogram is necessarily very small, of low resolution (often 20 steps or less) and it often does not match the computer software histogram.

If you rely on the in-camera histogram you may still be inadvertently clipping color channels.

At very least do some exposure bracketing to determine whether a reduced exposure is beneficial to your needs.

Thanks

I do use the camera histogram, then bracket a few shots in manual mode. I then use my software histogram when processing.

Sometimes I think I should take my monitor/computer outside, recalibrate for brightness and do it there. Not likely.

One person noted I should turn off Active D Lighting which I hadn't. So I will try that along with custom white balance and neutral picture control.

I just followed the above in full sun, and it turned out well. I will try again in the morning when the colors of this one special red daylily are spectacular and look quite a bit different. More shades of red.

Here is the result, keep in mind this is full sun. The name of the daylily is "Point of View" and it is often considered a favorite among daylily specialists.

Thanks again, Phil

ziggy53 · July 26, 2011

Control of lighting and control of the environment around the flower is absolutely critical for best color rendering. Color accuracy may follow but most people settle for "pleasing" as opposed to perfectly accurate color.

Human sight is vastly different than digital camera sensitivity.

Some properties you should consider:

(The following is not intended to be at all critical or derogatory. It is a simplified explanation of some of the issues to be encountered and overcome.)

1) Ambient light for the subject
Mixed lighting caused by light poisoning of the ambient light
- When a scene is illuminated by any light source,
- nearby or large objects/scenes can reflect ambient light back to
- your subject, coloring the ambient light to your subject.
UV and IR components of the ambient light, which can cause some flowers to "glow" or to become partly "luminescencent".
Color temperature of ambient light, daylight varies in color temperature throughout the day and depending on conditions.

2) Flash lighting for the subject
Light spill from the flash and flash modifiers, lending to potential for light poisoning (as above).
UV and IR components of flash lighting, which can cause some flowers to "glow" or to become partly "luminescencent" (as ambient above).

3) Mixture of flash and ambient/incident lighting
A mixture of problems, issues and lucky benefits, with little control

Add to this the fact that many flowers are translucent, meaning that both productive and destructive lighting issues may occur from the above.

My recommendations:

Shoot only to RAW files. Avoid "any" color channel clipping, even if it means multiple exposures at different settings, combined in post-processing.

Either take the desired flowers to a studio with a controlled shooting environment (best) or create a controlled environment for shooting around the flowers (potentially more difficult and time consuming). Mixtures of white, neutral gray and black should surround your subject (reflectors and flags), with as little green foliage and other colors as possible around the subject. Exposing your subject to reflected hues other than white, neutral gray and black is counter-productive to color work.

Use only flash lighting, or overpower ambient lighting, and make sure that you use a visible light band-pass filter over the flash(es) to control both UV and IR components from the flash (unless you desire those properties).

Include both a gray-scale step target and a color target at the start of each session, lighting change or location/setup change. Include the same 2 targets at regular intervals during the shoot. This gives you the best opportunity for the most accurate color processing from the RAW files.

Develop a process which yields the best immediate results and then make small refinements as needed to improve the process.

http://www.beyondvisible.com/

http://www.beyondvisible.com/BV6i-links.html

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