Colour question ?

JH Foto

Senior Member
We have a lovely red flower in our garden at the moment, I took a picture of it but the red is not the same red as the flower, what do you all think is wrong and how do I correct this...??
 

Stoshowicz

Senior Member
Is it a bright redwing blackbird wing red ? if It is , Id say its a difficult color for cameras to render. Even if you calibrate your monitor with something like a color-monkey,, which presents various colors , reads the screen output and then adjusts the outputs to what it thinks the color is supposed to be.
 
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paul04

Senior Member
We have a lovely red flower in our garden at the moment, I took a picture of it but the red is not the same red as the flower, what do you all think is wrong and how do I correct this...??

I have the same problem, I take pictures of red flowers and they never look correct on the monitor,

two pictures below, both taken more or less at the same time, but the red flower in my opinion is not right.

July 14, 2016-0011.jpg

July 14, 2016-0010.jpg
 

WayneF

Senior Member
We have a lovely red flower in our garden at the moment, I took a picture of it but the red is not the same red as the flower, what do you all think is wrong and how do I correct this...??

Look at your histogram (only the RGB histograms). The red channel is likely overexposed and clipped, which shifts colors. Red flowers are often clipped. The Daylight White Balance contributes to this. For example, look at the histogram of Pauls red flower here, it is clipped too. Solution is to back off a bit on the exposure.
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
We have a lovely red flower in our garden at the moment, I took a picture of it but the red is not the same red as the flower, what do you all think is wrong and how do I correct this...??
As has already been said, you should probably start by calibrating your monitor. Monitors use Red, Green and Blue color channels so it's entirely possible your Red channel is problematic while the Blues and Greens are not.

To correct this particular shot you can try a couple things but I can only address specifics using Photoshop since it's what I know and use. I would look at the color channel histograms and see if the Red channel is blowing out. Using a Curves adjustment layer on the Red channel might do the trick, or you could try adjusting the appropriate sliders on a Hue, Saturation and Luminance adjustment layer to get the color you're seeing.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
That doesn't make sense. You posted a question and asked for help. You were given several answers and directions for making the necessary correction, and your response is to NOT take pictures of red flowers?
 

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Thanks for the info guy's, I think I will just avoid red flowers.....:)
That doesn't make sense. You posted a question and asked for help. You were given several answers and directions for making the necessary correction, and your response is to NOT take pictures of red flowers?
Well it's entirely possible this was "situational"; sometimes the lighting is such that a particular color channel blows-out. This time it appears it was the Red channel but in a broader, more over-arching sense, this is One of Those Things we deal with as digital photographers: Individual color channels sometimes blow out. This being the case I have to agree with Fred in that the solution isn't to avoid shooting red flowers. It's up to you of course but I'm going to suggest you learn to correct for color-channel blow-out because I doubt very much you're going to find the issue will be limited to red flowers.
 

Stoshowicz

Senior Member
But its implied within the statement that you dont think the advice was good , the answers given weren't what you wanted. ( it seems I have a knack for giving those)
 

MaxBlake

Senior Member
I don't know about anybody else, but I've found this discussion to be quite informative and am delighted to have stumbled on it. Thanks.
 
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