Fiesole - The colours are so dull

[rawill]

This was/is a problematic photo.

The sky has nothing, and the colours are so dull.
However, it is a keeper from a memories point of view.

I have spent ages cloning out some big leaves, you can still see them.

But I would like some pointers as how to bring up the colours, particularly of the roof colours.
I have tried using curves. (GIMP)

[Ryogenetic]

So a couple of things that may be worth trying...



This is a little to over powering for my tastes but it demonstrates what I think you were looking for. First thing I did was to set the levels. Next I copied the image to a new layer and adjusted the vibrance and saturation. Set this layer to saturation and reduced opacity to taste (95%) in this case.

Hope that helps
Ryo

[rawill]

So a couple of things that may be worth trying...

Hope that helps
Ryo

Yes that does improve the colours, and sharpens the background trees too.

But did you also try to clone out a house from the original photo, or is that just what happened.

[Ryogenetic]

Sorry, yes I did clone out the house!

Ryo

[Geoff F]

One similar method which often works for me is to create a duplicate layer, or an adjustment layer, and change the Blend Mode. Try Soft Light and adjust the opacity to suit.

It is possible to add a mask and edit it so the effect is selectively applied.

Another option is Local Contrast Enhancement. For example Unsharp Mask at 20% and 40 pixels. Both settings are variable to suit the scene. I sometimes also do this on a layer and mask to vary the effect.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Robin,

I appreciate it is too late to reshoot, and I hope you don't mind me saying that this is a clear demonstration of how over exposure can 'damage' a shot, perhaps not irreversibly (if shot RAW), but I would urge people not to get too carried away with ETTR (expose to the right).

This is clipped in all three channels and the lack of saturation is caused by that over-exposure I'm afraid.

Always check that histogram when shooting, and the blinkies.

That said, yes I do still take them over exposed myself
(do as I say, not as I do)

Another option is Local Contrast Enhancement. For example Unsharp Mask at 20% and 40 pixels. Both settings are variable to suit the scene. I sometimes also do this on a layer and mask to vary the effect.

I am also a great fan of LCE, but you need to be very careful expecially where you already have extremes of exposure (deep shadow and bright highlights). I do this by adjusting the output levels to reduce the overall contrast before applying LCE (which will push them back out to the edges of the histogram again). I suspect that Geoff's method with layer masks may have a similar effect if not applied 100%, plus of course you can simply not apply it to the already contrasty areas.

Cheers,

[rawill]

Hehe Ryo - thought so, I hadn't finished reconstructing yet, or rather getting rid of the tree that was hiding it.

[rawill]

Thanks Dave.

It was taken on auto with a little P/S.

And at the time they were happy snaps, and some are not too good at all.
Thanks for the comments.

I am going to have to try and understand historograms.

[Bobobird]

I find my P&S does the same so have dialed in some - EC and that seems to fix the low contrast issues I first had.

Though I am all manual on the DSLR, the p&s is set to AV at all times to quickly grab a shot without having to twiddle with the small controls too much.

[Dave Humphries]

It was taken on auto with a little P/S.
~
I am going to have to try and understand historograms.

Ah yes, that explains a lot and you know more now than 'back then'.

And we all started from the same place too (and many of us revisit it more than we should ).

A better camera alone doesn't 'fix' snaps like this, you do have to know how to use it to get the best from it, so it is worth investing the 'learning' time, as you already know.

When you're really on top of your game, even with some auto only cameras, you'll know what to do to achieve the best from it - usually by fooling or over-riding the 'automatics' by instinct alone (since it probably won't have blinkies or histograms), but with some auto only cameras that just isn't possible. By the time you've reached this stage, you'll probably have bought a full manual control P&S (like my diminuitive Canon S100), funds permitting.

I seem to have wandered off topic, apologies,

[rawill]

Ah yes, that explains a lot and you know more now than 'back then'.

I seem to have wandered off topic, apologies,

No apology needed from me. I thank you for your comments.
I have already been trawling websites for a better P&S.

Mine is a Richo Capilo R5, bought on holiday in Bath, when I discovered the Konica Minolta Dimage Z3, focus had stuck!
It was desperation purchase!, I can't be on a once in lifetime trip without a camera!

Anyway it has served me well on two overseas trips now, but maybe needs to be replaced.

[rawill]

Aha - histograms, I had a look on You Tube at tutorial, then checked the photo.

I am beginning to understand what a histogram tells us.
And the histogram of this photo tells me the photo is 'rubbish'
Maybe I will have to go back and reshoot!~!

[jprzybyla]

Hello Robin, I had a go at your image. It was overexposed, I lowered the exposure by one stop using the exposure slider in Adobe Lightoom 4. Then I adjusted the white and black clipping points, raised the clarity, vibrance and saturation. In the tone/color curve I made some adjustments to the highlights and shadows. The real problem was when the exposure was lowered all the cloning that you did to the leaves began to show as shadowy areas. Then only way I could solve that was to open the image in Photoshop Elements 10 and using the Selection Tool make a selection of the leaves surrounding the sky. Then by right clicking the selection, from the pop up menu I choose Select Inverse to protect the leaves. In the color palette I chose a color approximating sky color, with the Paint Brush Tool I painted over the sky covering the shadowy remnants of the cloning. Hoping it is close to what you wanted.

[rawill]

Greetings Joe

You did an excellent job. It is a much nicer photo than the original.

The more I look at it the more I appreciate what you did, and that you described how you did it.
It also shows me how much I have to learn.

Here is the very original without any interference!! P&P

[Dave Humphries]

Here is the very original without any interference

I think this shows you have learnt how to clone, despite you comment, I didn't see any artefacts of 'big leaves', but now it is apparent.

Don't worry about not knowning everything, you can't learn it all in one go, so just tackle one thing at a time, grasp that and move on to the next.

Cheers,