Magenta To High Today

shanedidwhat · November 27, 2011

I wanted to ask if my magenta was to high for print. I would appreciate any advice. Today I was out early this morning and got some great shots of surfers again; I felt the skin tone had to much red and have not posted today's shots yet. It's the first time it's bothered me. The sun was red, as was the sky, when it came up this morning. I was satisfied with past galleries at the same location but now I'm second guessing those. What do you think of the past Honolua galleries? Here is a sample gallery:

Honolua-11-11-11

Thanks,
Shane
Raijin Photo

adbsgicom · November 28, 2011

Pick a couple of images and link them in here. You will get much more response.
-a

JohnDC · November 29, 2011

Yes, the magenta is too high. Either that, or the blonde guy in the dark trunks has a life-threatening case of sunburn. Have you calibrated your monitor to give you more accurate color rendition? As Andrew already pointed out, you will get more responses if you post your photos of concern here instead of only sending the reader to your website (which is ok to do in addition). Also, if you put numbers on your photos, comments can be more easily photo-specific. In addition, I'd suggest two other things: (1) use tighter crops so there's less empty ocean and more surfer+surf break in the frame; and (2) change your smugmug settings so the viewer can see a larger version of the image. I'm using a 27" high resolution monitor, and your images are too small to make good evaluations. It would be worse for persons with smaller monitors.

shanedidwhat · November 29, 2011

1. Honolua 11-11
This guy looked sunburned to me. Look at the gradient along the waist up to the shoulders. But it's possible I have to much saturation.

shanedidwhat · November 29, 2011

2. Honolua 11-27-11
Taken a few days ago and the gallery I am mostly asking about. I decreased the saturation on this gallery between 15-40% depending on the pictures. Does the red looked reduced enough?

shanedidwhat · November 29, 2011

3. Honolua 11-27-11
Darker skin surfer. He had an orange glow which I wanted to reduce but not to much because darker skin gives good contrast against the color of the ocean.

johng · November 30, 2011

I would say you do have issues with how you're doing colors. Look at the board in shot 1 - color is over-saturated. Same with the trunks on the surfer in shot 3 - yellow is over-saturated. Surfer in shot 3 looks orange. I can't say if that's accurate - I know orange can be accurate for a lot of fake-and-bake tanners out there. But to me, "dark" and "orange" are not the same thing.

shanedidwhat · December 1, 2011

johng wrote: »

I would say you do have issues with how you're doing colors. Look at the board in shot 1 - color is over-saturated. Same with the trunks on the surfer in shot 3 - yellow is over-saturated. Surfer in shot 3 looks orange. I can't say if that's accurate - I know orange can be accurate for a lot of fake-and-bake tanners out there. But to me, "dark" and "orange" are not the same thing.

Thanks for the feedback. I did reduce the saturation on photo 2. You didn't mention anything about 2 so I take it the saturation is better on that. I'm gonna shoot this weekend some more with reduced saturation levels by one stop on my camera settings. Photo 3 I feel the color is correct from what I remember. The guys board was yellow like a yellow cab and he is a local here(skin tone is darker). New camera, so I'm still learning the functions

JohnDC · December 1, 2011

As Johng pointed out, the saturation is still too high. I doubt this is a product of your new camera unless you have done something to the white balance settings. #2 is the most natural looking of the 3 shots. In #3 it might be possible to attribute the orange glow to late afternoon or early morning light, but I don't think so: nothing else in the photo picked up that light. If you are using Photoshop, I'd suggest you do not use master saturation, but instead adjust saturation color by color--or better yet, don't touch the saturation sliders at all. Some landscape photographers can get away with over-amping the saturation settings for sunsets and fall colors, but human beings instinctively recognize aberrations in skin color as either being contrived or a symptom of serious disease. If it's darkness you want in #3, use "selective color" and, through trial and error, add more black to the colors of the skin (probably starting with reds, yellows, and magentas). As it is, surfer #3 looks like he has severe hepatitis and/or ate too many carrots--or as Johng suggested, he slathered on the tan-in-a-bottle. Also, as Johng pointed out, all the reds in #1 are over saturated, not just the reds in the "sunburned" skin. As a person with the same complexion as center surfer #1, I doubt a human being could get that burned without already being in the hospital. I think the gradient in intensity of reds/magentas probably resulted from what info was in the pixels to get boosted/saturated, not from an accurate rendition of the guy's skin.

All of us make these kinds of mistakes as we try to tweak our photos for improvement. A good way to get grounded is to go back out and just stare. How do things look in the real world?

And, again, I would crop the images more to the surfer plus enough wave to show what's happening. Although I sneer at "rules" of composition, the rule of thirds would be good guidance to start with here, especially for #2 and #3. (For example--http://www.digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds)

shanedidwhat · December 9, 2011

John, thanks for the feedback. I did have the saturation level 2 levels above normal. My recent photos have come out better for skin tone. I reduced the saturation back to normal(down two levels). Here are two examples(#4 lighter skin but light tan and #5 darker medium tone skin):

shanedidwhat · December 9, 2011

#4 Honolua 12-08
#4

shanedidwhat · December 9, 2011

#5 Honolua 12-08
#5

JohnDC · December 12, 2011

Shane--- Huge improvement! These look very good. --- John

jhefti · December 12, 2011

shanedidwhat wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. I did reduce the saturation on photo 2. You didn't mention anything about 2 so I take it the saturation is better on that. I'm gonna shoot this weekend some more with reduced saturation levels by one stop on my camera settings. Photo 3 I feel the color is correct from what I remember. The guys board was yellow like a yellow cab and he is a local here(skin tone is darker). New camera, so I'm still learning the functions

I might suggest that you not let the camera choose the saturation--or WB, colors, or much else for that matter. If you shoot RAW it is much easier to fine tune the colors in the post-processing (PP). And even if you shoot JPEG, just set the camera to all neutral settings and season to taste when you are back home and sitting in front of a good monitor doing the PP. A camera is just incapable of making these decisions.

photodad1 · December 13, 2011

Nice action photos.

shanedidwhat · December 30, 2011

Thanks everyone for their input. I had to calibrate my monitors and TV today to match the correct color from the factory prints. So I hope things will go well from now. Also if you want to keep updated on new pics join me on GOOGLE+

Mahalo to all!

Shane Baeuerlen
Raijin Photo

PS. thanks JohnDC & photodad1 for the comments and everyone else for feedback.

Magenta To High Today

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