It is still red

[AB26]

Still trying to get better shots of red flowers.
What is it that makes red so difficult?

This is the best I could do with this flower.

Any suggestions on shooting red flowers will be much appreciated.

[JamesScott86]

Beautiful for sure!

[Manfred M]

Andre - the usual issue is that the white balance and / or exposure is off.

Start by shooting a white or gray card positioned in the same light as the flower and then use it to correct your white balance. Then adjust your exposure to get the shade right. If this still does not work, you might want to consider shooting a colour test target (x-Rite color checker passport) and build a custom profile for the specific camera / lens / lighting situation.

The second issue could be a colour space / computer screen issue. I shot a red image some time ago that looked great on my AdobeRGB screen, but terrible once I converted it to sRGB for display on the internet and frankly, it did not look good on my sRGB screen. I use a dual screen setup; one is sRGB compliant and the second one I use for editing is close to 100% AdobeRGB compliant.

[Shadowman]

Red flowers certainly do seem to accentuate highlights. Have you tried different color filters on your flash?
Nicely captured.

[Nicks Pics]

Red is quirky in digital, but it looks good here.

The angle at which you shot this flower makes it look unusually 3D. My mind keeps wanting to see the shadow of the far left flower petal that is being cut off as if under the frame go over the frame. Do you think you'd want to phtotshop that in for a try?

[Wavelength]

If it wasn,t for Mueller's explanation, getting red as red is difficult for me too...Mostly it goes over /under; i must try it the way Mueller has mentioned;

Image is nice

Regards

[DanK]

The main issue isn't WB, in my opinion, it's the loss of detail in some areas of the reds. Red flowers are very tough, in my experience, and the problem is usually this loss of detail.

The first thing I would look at is the histrogram by color channel. Looks to me as though you are slightly clipping the reds. If you shot raw, you could try pulling down the luminance of the red channel. if you shot jpeg, I don't know if that would work. For future shots: I always us the highest of the three histograms as my exposure guide for flower, and in this case, I would have lowered the exposure to keep the reds from clipping.

The second thing I would look at is the contrast adjustment. If you shot raw, apply contrast adjustments only to luminance to avoid increasing saturation in the red channel--e.g., using luminance blend mode for the contrast adjustment layer(s), or adjusting contrast in the L channel in LAB color space. If you shot jpeg, you are probably stuck, since the contrast adjustment is done in camera and will be difficult or impossible to undo.

[Geoff F]

Some shades of blue are equally difficult; and yesterday I was struggling with over saturation on yellow flowers (mostly caused by the red channel) even under lightly overcast skies. If I under exposed, I was getting excessively dark shadows while the yellows were still clipping.

The only thing I could do (too much movement for HDR) was to shoot with a compromise exposure then make two different raw conversions with different settings and merge them together with a mask.

Making any final adjustments with Curves etc does often work better if the blend mode is switched to Luminosity. And sometimes a Colour Blend Mode is handy for variations particularly with regard to saturation etc.

[AB26]

Beautiful for sure!

Thank you James

[AB26]

Andre - the usual issue is that the white balance and / or exposure is off.

Start by shooting a white or gray card positioned in the same light as the flower and then use it to correct your white balance. Then adjust your exposure to get the shade right. If this still does not work, you might want to consider shooting a colour test target (x-Rite color checker passport) and build a custom profile for the specific camera / lens / lighting situation.

The second issue could be a colour space / computer screen issue. I shot a red image some time ago that looked great on my AdobeRGB screen, but terrible once I converted it to sRGB for display on the internet and frankly, it did not look good on my sRGB screen. I use a dual screen setup; one is sRGB compliant and the second one I use for editing is close to 100% AdobeRGB compliant.

Manfred,

Thank you.

Yes, the WB in shooting red is very sensitive, it is actually messed up to get the red right. Exposure has to be treated with care. I have read something about underexposing a little for red but that does not work. If you underexpose the red blob thing comes back. Spot on exposure, using spot metering, exposing for a given area in the red seems to work best.

Eventually, I have succeeded in getting some detail in red, no more red blobs. My problem is getting the red to be the colour it really is. This flower is probably too red for a camera sensor to capture. Maybe Foveon technology can do a better job. Perhaps my dinosaur Nikon with a CCD sensor is not the best tool for capturing red flowers?

I have tried all sorts of in camera settings. Shooting Jpeg and RAW, the results are not what I want. Even in PP it is not possible for me to bring out the real colour of the flower. It seems too much red is too much to handle?

Should we accept it that there are colours beyond the spectrum, digital can handle?

[AB26]

Red flowers certainly do seem to accentuate highlights. Have you tried different color filters on your flash?
Nicely captured.

Thanks.

No, John, no filters tried. Any suggestion on how to apply filters to fix the red.

[AB26]

Red is quirky in digital,

Tell me all about it!

but it looks good here.

Thanks Nick

Do you think you'd want to phtotshop that in for a try?

Hu!

I'd rather re-shoot.

[AB26]

If it wasn,t for Mueller's explanation, getting red as red is difficult for me too...Mostly it goes over /under; i must try it the way Mueller has mentioned;

Image is nice

Regards

Thanks Nanda,

Weird, it is not all the reds, mostly flowers.

[Manfred M]

Should we accept it that there are colours beyond the spectrum, digital can handle?

Next questions.

1. What colour space are you using? If sRGB, try AdobeRGB or ProPhoto; and

2. Are you using an sRGB screen or Wide Gamut screen.

If you are shooting RAW, your camera should be doing a decent job capturing the colour (although as you point out, older cameras may not be as effective in capturing certain tones). However, it can also be an out of gamut issue; i.e the colour space you have chosen may not be capable of displaying the colour.

Same issue with your computer screen, if the colour of the flower is out of gamut of your screen, it will not display properly either.

Once we get beyond these technical possibilities, the answer may be related more to human vision versus what the camera captures.

[AB26]

The main issue isn't WB, in my opinion, it's the loss of detail in some areas of the reds. Red flowers are very tough, in my experience, and the problem is usually this loss of detail.

The first thing I would look at is the histrogram by color channel. Looks to me as though you are slightly clipping the reds. If you shot raw, you could try pulling down the luminance of the red channel. if you shot jpeg, I don't know if that would work. For future shots: I always us the highest of the three histograms as my exposure guide for flower, and in this case, I would have lowered the exposure to keep the reds from clipping.

The second thing I would look at is the contrast adjustment. If you shot raw, apply contrast adjustments only to luminance to avoid increasing saturation in the red channel--e.g., using luminance blend mode for the contrast adjustment layer(s), or adjusting contrast in the L channel in LAB color space. If you shot jpeg, you are probably stuck, since the contrast adjustment is done in camera and will be difficult or impossible to undo.

Thanks Dan.

Shot another this morning. Edited the Jpeg instead of the RAW file. Interesting how much can be done with a Jpeg.

Boosted contrast and saturation in camera then tweaked it in post.

Clipped red channel? Why do you say that? Does it look like the red channel was clipped?

The one thing I do not do is to "underexpose" to keep any channel from clipping. Mostly, I will stop channels from clipping by adjusting WB.

[AB26]

Some shades of blue are equally difficult; and yesterday I was struggling with over saturation on yellow flowers (mostly caused by the red channel) even under lightly overcast skies. If I under exposed, I was getting excessively dark shadows while the yellows were still clipping.

The only thing I could do (too much movement for HDR) was to shoot with a compromise exposure then make two different raw conversions with different settings and merge them together with a mask.

Making any final adjustments with Curves etc does often work better if the blend mode is switched to Luminosity. And sometimes a Colour Blend Mode is handy for variations particularly with regard to saturation etc.

Hi Geoff,

No problems, yet, with blue. However, lilac can be tricky as well.
Yellow, you should not have problems with. Check WB.

It's the red that beats me.

[AB26]

For Nick:

Tell me it is crap - go back and do it again: Photoshop, to fix it



Same flower - different red. Different light.
Shot with a Sigma lens - no filter. Boosted contrast and saturation, in camera, then tweaked the Jpeg in PP. The RAW file is really crappy.

More detail and the red is a shade closer to the real thing.

Thanks guys, any suggestion is always welcome and it is always helpful.

Is this any better?

[AB26]

Next questions.

1. What colour space are you using? If sRGB, try AdobeRGB or ProPhoto; and

2. Are you using an sRGB screen or Wide Gamut screen.

If you are shooting RAW, your camera should be doing a decent job capturing the colour (although as you point out, older cameras may not be as effective in capturing certain tones). However, it can also be an out of gamut issue; i.e the colour space you have chosen may not be capable of displaying the colour.

Same issue with your computer screen, if the colour of the flower is out of gamut of your screen, it will not display properly either.

Once we get beyond these technical possibilities, the answer may be related more to human vision versus what the camera captures.

I tried sRGB and AdobeRGB. With flash, Adobe seems to be a bit better. But then again, settings make a bigger difference.
No fancy screen - LG.

My sublimation printer has a wider gamut than the screen.

I wonder what a wedding Photographer does when the brides maids pitch up all dressed in red.

Maybe I should be happy with getting detail in red.
It is probably asking too much to get the right shade of red as well?

[Shadowman]

Thanks.

No, John, no filters tried. Any suggestion on how to apply filters to fix the red.

Andre,

I'm basing my comments on the assumption that you are using flash, the color filter would modify the flash temperature and in my opinion help control the highlights allowing you to concentrate on getting the deepest reds possible.

http://www.scantips.com/lights/flashbasics5b.html

[DanK]

Seems to me that this thread now has several different issues mixed up together. In the original shot, I thought the issue was the loss of detail in the reds, which is a very common problem in shooting red flowers. But later in the thread the issue is getting the right red tones. Andre, I don't know which you intended.

Clipped red channel? Why do you say that? Does it look like the red channel was clipped?

Yes, when I dropped the original image into photoshop, it looked like the image was slightly clipped in the reds. However, my experience is that you can start losing detail in the reds even if the red channel is slightly lower than that. Don't know why. The second exposure is darker, and as I would have predicted, it lost no detail in the reds.

The one thing I do not do is to "underexpose" to keep any channel from clipping.

Your choice, but reducing exposure (not 'underexposing') to avoid clipping in the red channel is an invaluable tool for avoiding loss of detail in the reds.

Mostly, I will stop channels from clipping by adjusting WB.

But this often won't work. If the file is truly overexposed to the point where you have lost detail in one or more channels, changing WB won't bring the detail back, and it can mess up other aspects of the image. You'd be better off pulling the luminance of the red channel down a bit, to see whether that brings the detail back. If there is still detail in the raw file despite apparent clipping, this may bring back the detail without altering other aspects of the color balance.

Same flower - different red. Different light.
Shot with a Sigma lens - no filter. Boosted contrast and saturation, in camera, then tweaked the Jpeg in PP.

Two things. I don't know your particular camera, but in general, boosting contrast in camera is going to increase saturation, because a typical contrast adjustment works on the color channels. That is exactly what you should avoid if you are losing details in the reds. Instead, do the contrast adjustments in luminance only. There are a few ways to do this. The simplest is to do the contrast adjustment in a separate layer and set the blend mode to "luminosity" (Photoshop term) or whatever the similar mode is in your editing software. To see the effects of this, look at this earlier thread.

The RAW file is really crappy.

Your jpeg file IS your raw file, processed by the camera. If the raw file looks lousy compared to the jpeg after processing by hand, that just means it needs to be processed differently.