For Flower Shooters - Article about Color-clipping

[xpatUSA]

From time to time, I go on about over-saturated flower images posted on-line. I had been meaning to write an article on why that happens and how to fix it.

To my great delight, I've come across an article that says it better than I ever could:

http://ninedegreesbelow.com/photogra...-examples.html

Although it gets technical here and there, it does have a good 'red flower' example and doesn't go too deeply into color space theory - trusssssst me

The site itself is a excellent resource for all sorts of related matters.

[chauncey]

I go on about over-saturated flower images posted on-line.

I ask as I rarely print...those clipped/oversaturated colors that you reference...
does the problem arise when printing?

[xpatUSA]

I ask as I rarely print...those clipped/oversaturated colors that you reference...
does the problem arise when printing?

Not usually, William, because color profiles for printing have color look-up tables - which allows going straight from ProPhoto working space to your printer (using perceptual rendering intent) without having to go via sRGB. A somewhat brief response with many ifs and buts being possible, though. Others might weigh in with more detail . .

[Shadowman]

Thanks for the link.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for the information, Ted. Definitely an interesting read.

While the whole technical discussion is quite interesting, it really does re-enforce the fact that computer screens, especially the lower end ones, are definitely the weak link in the whole colour workflow side of the process. Over and above that, sRGB is unfortunately a fairly limited workspace, but when dealing with the internet, there really is no other good option, so clipped colours (usually the reds, but outside of flowers, greens and blues too).

William - the standard CMYK colour space is quite large and the issues with colour prints are generally more noticeable when using devices other than photo inkjet printers. The colour spaces used by the print industry (magazines and books) are actually quite small and the colour output is often terrible. Go to the 9 or 12 colour inkjets and your colour range is definitely larger than standard CMYK.

[DanK]

thanks for posting this

[IzzieK]

Thanks for the info link, Ted...very timely for me..