Feedback - Making Colors Pop

Numbers Guy · January 2, 2010

I know the shot below is totally "tourist" as it's been taken thousands of times from every angle, but we were in San Francisco last week, and my wife wanted me to take some of the Seven Sisters.

I'm fairly new to Photoshop (used Elements until a couple months ago) and want to learn how to make the colors pop. I've heard that overcast days provide the best color, and this day was definitely that. However, I find that I'm blowing out the sky to do anything with the foreground, and my colors were looking drab. I read one tutorial, and it made a big difference in what I could do (1st below is my "after", and 2nd is my "normal" processing that I could manage before).

First, I'd appreciate any comments on what I could do to make this better (understanding it's cliche). Second, if you know of a good tutorial for a beginner to curves and really understanding levels, I would appreciate that as well. The right amount of sharpening is something else I struggle with.

Exposure is 1/125 at f/7.1 using a Canon 5D MKII with 24-105mm lens at 50mm on a tripod.

Thanks, and happy new year!

Reworked

Original

DavidTO · January 3, 2010

Moved to Finishing School. The Refinery is not the place for tutorials on how to make an image pop, but for straight, no-nonsense critique. Post your best version of this image there for critique, but it stays here for "how-to".

TonyCooper · January 3, 2010

You sure you have these labeled correctly? The bottom picture has better color in my eye. According to you, that's the one you didn't adjust.

I don't see that the sky is blown out in either photo. If that's the way the sky looked that day, that's what the picture should look like.

There are tricks to get the sky to be a deeper blue, but - in this case - I think it would detract. The houses are the photo.

BinaryFx · January 3, 2010

Looking at these shots, I would imagine that the houses are more subtle pastel shades and that they perhaps should *not* "pop" or be saturated?

In many cases, more contrast is a good thing - however contrast does not have to go hand in hand with more saturation (although by default many editing methods increase both).

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

Richard · January 3, 2010

Doug,

I don't see much of a problem with the color in your original. If anything, the few yellow and magenta flowers look overstaturated in the original and nuclear in the reworked version. But they are small and few, so it probably doesn't matter much.

What I think would improve the shot is using shadow/highlight to open up the shadows of the trees and house details and bring out a little more texture in the sky.

And yeah, everyone has taken that shot, but so what? Yours is very good.

BradfordBenn · January 3, 2010

Based on the different reactions each of us is having to which picture is processed for the better, I am curious is your monitor calibrated? I know it threw me for a loop for a while (and still does on occasion)

RalphAdam · January 3, 2010

Making Colors Pop
Hi – Nice shot. I believe that you could achieve your goal if you desaturate the cityscape (not all the way, though, so you keep it within the real of realism) and, also, the sky, although not as much as the cityscape. You might also want to play around by adding a gradient mist to the cityscape/sky area and see how that looks. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

Numbers Guy · January 3, 2010

BradfordBenn wrote:

Based on the different reactions each of us is having to which picture is processed for the better, I am curious is your monitor calibrated? I know it threw me for a loop for a while (and still does on occasion)

Thank all of you for the comments & suggestions. My monitor is calibrated, although admittedly it was last done about 3 months ago. I suspect my eyes are more the problem than my monitor. I am mildly colorblind and sometimes don't see when I've "overdone" it unless it's way too far. I'm constantly asking my wife "what color is this?" or "do my colors still look real?" I no doubt picked the wrong hobby but can't help what I enjoy.

I'll try toning down the sky and city a bit to see if that helps. I used a gradient filter in Lightroom as the sky was completely blown out in the raw file. Maybe a little darker and extending it slightly lower would do the trick. Thanks again!

kd2 · January 3, 2010

I hope you don't mind, but just for fun I took your pic and ran it through Topaz adjust (then adjusted the brightness a tiny bit). It's what I do when I want to get colors to pop and when some of the other things I've tried don't work. It can then be toned up or down and further tweaked from here depending on how much or little pop you want.

I know this doesn't answer your question about how to tweak it yourself, but I thought I'd let you see what I'd do.

chuckinsocal · January 3, 2010

How does this look?

BinaryFx · January 3, 2010

Numbers Guy wrote:

I suspect my eyes are more the problem than my monitor. I am mildly colorblind and sometimes don't see when I've "overdone" it unless it's way too far.

By setting your INFO palette to read as Lab mode readings in the second right hand section - it is "easy" to learn a "by the numbers" approach to evaluating colour so that you can at least be in the ballpark of known "memory colours" or perhaps other colours if they can be visually inferred by context.

Colour deficiency can take different forms and severity, usually not affecting every colour hue:

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

I'll try toning down the sky and city a bit to see if that helps. I used a gradient filter in Lightroom as the sky was completely blown out in the raw file. Maybe a little darker and extending it slightly lower would do the trick. Thanks again!

By using negative exposure values and or highlight recovery, one can gain 1-2 stops of blown highlight info in the raw converter, over and above the baseline exposure offered by the zero setting - which may be blown.

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

eur0ed · January 4, 2010

PSD:
http://www.random-effects.com/psd/7sisters.psd

3 minute attempt using 2 curves adjustment layers and a vibrance adjustment layer with very inexact masks. You can load it and use the sliders on the adjustment layers to tailor to your own taste.

Feedback - Making Colors Pop

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