Poppies in RAW

snapapple

Looking at my daily photos, Rutt wondered if I was happy with the color of these poppies. I'll admit it's a challenge to process the color orange in RAW. It blows out the exposure/white balance thing so that all I see is that red allert. Then I turn down the curve or turn down the green or the red until it goes away and the whole thing looks flat. Then I use LAB to put it all back.
The first image is a bit dark, but I like the shadows on the main poppy. I liked this image for all its bright color.


For the second image, I started over in RAW. The greens and oranges look more like what I saw, but the poppy on the far left has an area that looks white. The main poppy looks a bit flat. Both images have that blown leaf right in the center, but the sun was hitting it and I don't know what to do about it.


Any ideas here? All comments and criticisms appreciated.

System

susan-

you could try out this ps action where you save your photo for adjusted highlights then another one of the same raw file adjusted for shadows-

then you blend them together with this action-

http://www.outdooreyes.com/photo80.php3

george