Can I get a color balance check?

anonymouscuban

How do the colors look on this shot? They look great on my calibrated monitor at home but a little funky on my uncalibrated monitors at work. I color balanced from a gray card/. :scratch Oh... and I intend to clean up the cobwebs on the bridge.

BTW, low res photo from Facebook:

Bilsen

Uncalibrated screen here but the skin tones look fine.

As a whole, I'm seeing a slight bit of a yellow cast to it. That happens to me all the time using a gray card in woodsy areas. I think the gray card picks up ambient light from the trees but I'm never quite happy with gray card results in those areas.

Dr Calohandre

To me, though the skin tones are relatively accurate, the scene as a whole has a bit of a washed out look..perhaps a tad underexposed. Agree with the slight yellow cast.

anonymouscuban

Thanks Bilsen. I don't mind the warm/yellow cast on the overall scene as long as the skin tones are good.

Doc... underexposed? Anyone else think so?

Qarik

I think the skin tones look a bit muddy on my uncalibrated monitor. too much brown.

anonymouscuban

Qarik wrote: »

I think the skin tones look a bit muddy on my uncalibrated monitor. too much brown.

Thanks for the look Daniel. I'll check them again when I get home. There's a lot of brown/tans/yellows in the image so it makes it a pain to judge.

BrettDeutsch

I agree with Daniel -- a bit muddy to me. I don't think it's underexposed at all -- perhaps a tad overexposed, but more importantly to my taste it feels like it's lacking contrast. The light is flat anyhow, so perhaps if you were to make up for it by adding contrast everything would pop a bit more.

novicesnapper

AC, the histogram is pretty flat. I would try backing the saturation down a little, as well as the exposure a tic. Skin tones look good, just a little saturated

anonymouscuban

Hmm.... Novice saying the histie is flat leads me to believe there may be some issues with the compression when I exported for FB. Here is the same image but from my Smug page and also another shot but in landscape orientation. WB and edits are the same on both.

Still flat/muddy?





BTW, thanks for the help guys. Really appreciated.

novicesnapper

I would say still back down sat and exp. The first three faces look a tad hot. Full image doesn't look muddy to me. Probably a compression issue as you mentioned. I wonder if the camera did pick up the golden grass color like mentioned above also? But the WB looks great, checking various areas.

Dr Calohandre

Dr Calohandre wrote: »

To me, though the skin tones are relatively accurate, the scene as a whole has a bit of a washed out look..perhaps a tad underexposed. Agree with the slight yellow cast.

Overexposed..sorry, it was early.

anonymouscuban

That makes more sense. I definitely lean towards the bright side of exposure... it's my personal taste. It's not for everyone so I understand if you feel they are tad hot. Blown highlights in places like the BG don't concern me too much and I've found that the people I shoot like my bright images. Makes life a bit easier because I'd be chucking about 50% of my shots. :cry

anonymouscuban

novicesnapper wrote: »

I would say still back down sat and exp. The first three faces look a tad hot. Full image doesn't look muddy to me. Probably a compression issue as you mentioned. I wonder if the camera did pick up the golden grass color like mentioned above also? But the WB looks great, checking various areas.

Hmm... as I said, I like my images like I like my women. HOT. . Sorry. Had to say it.

But kidding aside, there is no loss of detail on the faces. Only thing blown and barely, are the highlights in the BG. Are you on a calibrated monitor? The images don't feel over-saturated to me. I don't touch saturation in post so you got me wondering.

Qarik

2nd shot looks much improved. look at the hair on the girl closest to camera..much more contrast and with improved black point. STILL..the whole image is just a bit muddy in color though.

novicesnapper

I calibrated this one about two weeks ago, maybe I need to do it again. Me, I like my images warm and rich. Probably wouldn't be a big hit to some. No I didn't see any clipping on the highs, other than one or two areas in the BG, no major deal. For grins, try this, open in LR and back down the overall saturation (edit>meant exposure) about 5%, then compare the two images. See what you think of their faces when you do that. This will also by default allow the blacks to pump a tad. More contrasty as some above said. It would be so subtle, unless pointed out, no one would notice. But it's one of those potato/ potatoe things. Always open to discussion lol.

Bottom line is, whatever sells is a winner!

Edited for correction

anonymouscuban

Thanks guys. Appreciate the help. Daniel... I checked the Exif on the two shots and the landscape I used a slightly fast shutter so that explains the difference. I'm going to tinker with the exposure on the other one to match.

anonymouscuban

OK homies. I made some minor tweaks to the exposure on both. I republished the shots to my smug gallery so I think that updates the pics hotlinked in the post.

Whatcha think?

Oh, and here is another frame of the same shot just in case the other two didn't update in the post:

reyvee61

If anything, this goes to show how FB murders images and why on earth do we use FB to share our work with clients?
The originals look great on my calibrated monitor by the way.

reyvee61

One teeny notice...
The girl up front, her right hand looks way off color cast wise compared to her left hand. I know the sun appears to have made a hot spot there but what ever you did to tone it down made for a very magenta hue which puts it out of place in my opinion.
This is on the last image

anonymouscuban

I see that Rey... the right hand thing. Weird. I did no local adjustments.

anonymouscuban

reyvee61 wrote: »

If anything, this goes to show how FB murders images and why on earth do we use FB to share our work with clients?

Because the benefits far outweigh the issues with image quality. I've gotten quite a few gigs because of FB and TBH, average person is totally clueless to most of the "image quality problems" that we photogs see in photos.

reyvee61

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Because the benefits far outweigh the issues with image quality. I've gotten quite a few gigs because of FB and TBH, average person is totally clueless to most of the "image quality problems" that we photogs see in photos.

You have a good point there

novicesnapper

Ac I like the rework. It has more depth and the family do stand out from the BG more. Faces are more detailed for sure. Though I don't FB, I definitely agree on the networking there. Sounds like you are running into compression issues on FB like I did some time back, until Imageshack was worked over. Lol, talk about murdering pictures. Ughh

You might be able to host them on another site (SM or Zen) and drop the hyperlink next to the smaller picture on FB and say, much better when viewed larger at link?

zoomer

Nice shot. Add a smidge of black point and that last one looks really nice.
Great looking group.