Raw Capture and Owen

[HappyFotographer]

It's been 6 weeks and I haven't put up an image of Owen yet, so I snapped a couple in RAW format. I got a new computer on the weekend, and am not really happy with the monitor right now, so these colours may be completely off........let me know how they display for you. The colours do look richer in photoshop than they are displaying in the browser.

This is my first real excursion into RAW.....it certainly seems like a much better way to process your images. Hope I haven't made too much of a hash of them.

Anyway, here's my boy....





Cheers
Deb

[Glen]

Deb, nice shots, seem to display well on my monitor

[sirhc55]

Deb - again, lovely shots of Owen and they display AOK on my monitors

[HappyFotographer]

Thanks for the feedback Glen and Chris.

They do appear a little lacking in colour to me, but then I could be just getting used to the new monitor. The older one, when sat side by side, gave off much darker images. I am loving this new 19" LCD, the last one was only 15"....not to mention the 1gb of ram, etc, etc......*sigh*....

[big pix]

The color is fine and natural ........ the shots are good.........and well done.......

cheers
bp

[HappyFotographer]

Sorry to bring this up again, but I just had these and some other photos printed. These are the first lot I have processed using my new monitor and unfortunately the prints didn't come out true to the display on the screen.

Can I ask what colour people are seeing the blanket in these images? Greenish or blue? And are you seeing too much red in Owen's face?

Thanks for any help you can give

Deb

[Mal]

Can I ask what colour people are seeing the blanket in these images? Greenish or blue? And are you seeing too much red in Owen's face?

Blanket looks Blue to me. I even got out the Pantone colour chart out and it is on the blue side of blue (if that makes sence!) Face does not appear red to me either.. I have looked on both the LCD screen on my Mac and the PC machine as well. Maybe it is a developing issue BTW congrates on the little man.

[joolz]

Blanket looks blue and Owen's face doesn't look red.
Where are you getting it printed?
I suspect that the lab has set automatic saturation enhancement on your shots. If you are happy with your images, often you can ask for them to not correct your shots & just print as is.

[HappyFotographer]

Thanks Mal for the help.

I have now got this image displaying across three different monitors (two LCD and one CRT) and although there are small differences, none of them are showing the blanket as a bright greenish (technical descrption there) colour nor his skin overly red.

I guess it must be a processing issue.....*sigh* Damn, should have checked the images in store.

And thanks for the congrats.

Cheers
Deb

[HappyFotographer]

Thanks Joolz

I used Harvey Norman, where I normally get mine done and with no problems. The only difference this time was I used one of the machines on the counter rather than handing them over myself. I generally just tell them to print them without any adjustments....do the on counter machines do any type of adjustments automatically? Anyone know?

thanks
Deb

[Atorie]

On my calibrated LCD and CRT the blanket is more blue than green... i went over it with my DigitalColor Meter to check the RGB values and blue is stronger than green on the blanket.. my thought though could be that what we're seeing on the web here is in sRGB while your images are in 'Adobe 1998' which has a wider colour gamut. What was the variances in your monitor and the lab prints?

[HappyFotographer]

Thanks Atorie

What was the variances in your monitor and the lab prints?

By this do you mean what am I seeing on the monitor versuses the print. The monitor shows a blue blanket while the print shows an electric green colour, with hints of the true blue in the areas that appear darker on the monitor for example, near the right hand side of Owen's head there are three darker areas....these are printing truer to the blue than other areas of the blanket.

This is the first time I have had such a difference in the colours.

Cheers
Deb

[gstark]

The blankets look blue to me, and while the face is not red, I feel that there's a slight cyan cast to these images - have a look at the white of Owen's eyes in the second image.

Thaat said, the amount of blue present here - 70% perhaps? - will cause the automatic systems to over-compensate. Take the prints and files back, and ask them to redo them for you, pointing out that their systems have not correctly interpreted the colours.

[SoCal Steve]

Deb -
First of all, that is one beautiful baby you have there. A real cutie.
Congratulations on the new computer, too.

Only you would be able to judge how realistic the facial color is. Skin color varies widely, especially in babies.

I agree with Gary that there seems to be a slight bit of overall bluish cast, but when you surround your subject with blue, the light on the face will take on a little of that tint naturally. I've repainted the walls in my computer room white for that same reason. (Though neutral gray might have been better.)

However, blue blankets printing green sounds like a lab screw up to me.

[sirhc55]

Personally I feel that the suggestion of a blue caste could be due to the prominence of blue in the photos. This would make the eye perceive blue as dominant

[MCWB]

Personally I feel that the suggestion of a blue caste could be due to the prominence of blue in the photos.

I knew the caste system is evolving, but damn, a blue caste?

[joolz]

Yes, smurfs are serfs.

Deb,
Harvey Norman's print kiosks (I think all the Fuji ones) auto correct all photos. I did a batch which were "corrected" after going through the kiosk whilst it wasn't a problem when handed to the staff personally on previous occasions. I have since learnt my lesson. I think there is a small message to the effect that the images will be "optimised" or words to such effect in their disclaimer in the kiosk program.

[beetleboy]

In relation to the cast(e) [whichever works for you!!] I agree with Chris on this one. The skin tones are perfectly neutral while the reflection in the eyes of the second image is most likely to be reflected from the blanket..in other words, I think if you were to white balance to his eyes the whole image would be thrown out of whack..try it!

You could try a Hue/Saturation adjustment on the eyes and take out a lot of the blue (desaturate) and then possibly lighten them a little. I don't think it's really necessary but if you want to be pedantic!!

Liam =]

[gstark]

Personally I feel that the suggestion of a blue caste could be due to the prominence of blue in the photos. This would make the eye perceive blue as dominant

Which is why I look towards parts of the subject like the whites of the eye, which will indicate any true cast regardless of any particular predominance of colour.

[gstark]

In relation to the cast(e) [whichever works for you!!] I agree with Chris on this one. The skin tones are perfectly neutral while the reflection in the eyes of the second image is most likely to be reflected from the blanket..

Except that the cast isn't a reflection in the eyes.

This is a no-brainer, and it's little different from traditional colour printing. If the whites of the eyes are not white, then the colour balance is likely to be out. The skin, and Chris correctly points out, can often take on a cast due to reflections from other items, but the whites of the eyes are, by and large, protected.

Pull the eyes back to a true white, and see what happens.

And yes, "cast" is correct in this context.

[gstark]

Here's my take on this one.

I've simply taken Deb's image, and using the whites of Owens eyes, removed what I was seeing as the cyan cast.



This looks, to me, more natural. Look too at the yellow motif on his jump suit; that looks (to my eye) far more like I expect it should.

Deb ?

[HappyFotographer]

Harvey Norman's print kiosks (I think all the Fuji ones) auto correct all photos. I did a batch which were "corrected" after going through the kiosk whilst it wasn't a problem when handed to the staff personally on previous occasions. I have since learnt my lesson. I think there is a small message to the effect that the images will be "optimised" or words to such effect in their disclaimer in the kiosk program.

Ack, I wish I had of actually read the blurb then. Until yesterday I had always just handed them over with the "no changes" instructions and always been happy with the results yesterday I thought I would become a sheep and do what everyone else was doing (hey, it must be good, they are doing it )

I will go back today with prints and disc in hand and try again. There were some "fresh"shots where Owen's skin was quiet red to start with, and he looks in the photos part boiled.

I've simply taken Deb's image, and using the whites of Owens eyes, removed what I was seeing as the cyan cast.

Sorry not to reply earlier Gary, had to take my little smurf out last night for a run, he was refusing to sleep so we took a spin around Leichhardt...saw some great spots for night shots...anyway, back to the topic on hand.

I see what you are saying re the cyan cast. (can you explain to me how you did this please?) He is currently wearing that outfit, so I will double check the yellow, but it certainly makes a change to the colour of his outfit...will do a comparison later.

Thank you to everyone who posted, you have all helped out greatly. Lesson learned, do not use those damn machines again.

Cheers
Deb

[gstark]

I've simply taken Deb's image, and using the whites of Owens eyes, removed what I was seeing as the cyan cast.

Sorry not to reply earlier Gary, had to take my little smurf out last night for a run, he was refusing to sleep so we took a spin around Leichhardt...saw some great spots for night shots...anyway, back to the topic on hand.

I see what you are saying re the cyan cast. (can you explain to me how you did this please?) He is currently wearing that outfit, so I will double check the yellow, but it certainly makes a change to the colour of his outfit...will do a comparison later.

Deb,

No worries about not replying earlier; I only did this earlier this morning anyway.

As he's currently wearing that outfit, compare your pic (on the monitor and Herdley Normal printed output) and mine with the reality, and see which ones look closest to that reality. In some ways, that's a better subjective test than skin colour, which can change with temperature, blood pressure, etc.

All I did to this image was DL yours as my starting point, loaded it in NCE, and then increased my viewpoint (200% magnification) so that I had a better look at the eyes.

I then went to the RGB editor and bumped the cyan/red slider about 36 points towards red. As I said, it looked like a cyan cast to me - particularly in looking at the whites of the eyes - and so I needed to reduce the amount of cyan that was evident in the image.

I used the eyes as my primary reference point to judge the outcome that I wanted, and when they looked clean and natural, I looked at the rest of the image, and it too looked pretty kosher to me.

HTH.