autumn crocuses

[Ron Conlon]

I love autumn crocuses but it is often wet and windy when they bloom--the forecast was for more of the same, so I brought these inside. They opened up more than they normally do outside, but that made them a little easier to get into the dof than normally the case with crocuses. Waiting on the spring crocuses now!

1/200s f/18 ISO100
Nikon D5100 200mm
remote flash in a white box with a black background

[Mitch Haimov]

Very nicely done, Ron! Excellent sharpness and DOF. The water drop and the dusting of pollen on a few petals add interest. Contrast of cool and warm colors works quite well, as does the black BG. I also like the comp, tho maybe a little tight. Works well as presented, but you have significant blown reds in the yellows in oranges--would be interesting to see how much more detail would appear there if you reconvert your RAW file (assuming that's what you have) with decreased saturation in those colors (I wouldn't be inclined to decrease brightness in the highlights or whites as your whites and overall tonal range seem perfect). If you decide to experiment I'd love to see a repost for comparison.

[Ron Conlon]

maybe a little tight...you have significant blown reds in the yellows in oranges--would be interesting to see how much more detail would appear there if you reconvert your RAW file (assuming that's what you have) with decreased saturation in those colors (I wouldn't be inclined to decrease brightness in the highlights or whites as your whites and overall tonal range seem perfect). If you decide to experiment I'd love to see a repost for comparison.

Thanks for the insight Mitch, I think that improves it quite a bit....

[Sandy Witvoet]

Ron... I actually really like the "drama" that your OP shows...especially against the dark bg. The petal detail more than compensates for the reds/yellows. RP seems more bland.

[Mitch Haimov]

I opened a second window for side-by-side comparison. To me the crop of the second post is a substantial improvement and the processing is a sublet improvement. The loss of drama in the petals seems mild to me, but could be avoided entirely depending on how you make the adjustments. Some blown areas remain in the oranges and yellows, but significantly less than in OP. Out of curiosity, are you processing with Lightroom? I ask, because there was a prior thread with blown highlights according to PS but not according to LR, which strikes me as rather odd. I don't have LR, so no direct experience (plan to subscribe to Creative Cloud next month while the photography package is available although my guess is Adobe will extend it; only intend to use LR for image management.)

[Ron Conlon]

I opened a second window for side-by-side comparison. To me the crop of the second post is a substantial improvement and the processing is a sublet improvement. The loss of drama in the petals seems mild to me, but could be avoided entirely depending on how you make the adjustments. Some blown areas remain in the oranges and yellows, but significantly less than in OP. Out of curiosity, are you processing with Lightroom? I ask, because there was a prior thread with blown highlights according to PS but not according to LR, which strikes me as rather odd. I don't have LR, so no direct experience (plan to subscribe to Creative Cloud next month while the photography package is available although my guess is Adobe will extend it; only intend to use LR for image management.)

I use ACR first, then PS CS6. The raw file had a tiny tiny amount of blown highlights which I brought back into range in ACR for both posted pics. In ACR the posted images (and larger pled images) are OK, but I see some blown reds when I open them in PS. I had assumed I would be OK if ACR told me so, but PS doesn't agree....Yikes!

[Mitch Haimov]

Seems Adobe has a little room for improvement here… I suspect the ACR algorithm that generates the clipping preview sacrifices accuracy for the sake of speed. Which is a reasonable tradeoff while you are dragging sliders, but the ability to generate an accurate preview on demand (even if you have to wait a bit for it) would be very helpful. (Well I suppose we do have that, in a kludgy sort of way: open in PS, check the clipping preview there, then go back to ACR and iterate as needed. Ugh.)

[Ron Conlon]

MItch
After some searches, I see that it is the smaller color space of sRGB which is the issue, which I suspected, but didn't fully understand, perhaps still don't. After much fiddling, I found out how to toggle my version of ACR to work in sRGB (not obvious) so that now there is no going back and forth between PS and ACR. In the end, I created two layers in photoshop from ACR (masking appropriately), one with the sliders set so that there was minimal clipping. I think that solves the too blue petals created by eliminating the clipping in the anthers. Thanks, I learned a lot!

[Mitch Haimov]

I'm glad you found a solution, Ron. But from your description, I don't think it is optimal in that it sounds like your master files will now be in sRGB. You probably want them to be in Adobe RGB (appropriate for 8 or 16 bit) or Pro Photo RGB (appropriate for 16 bit only). Then, when you make a derivative image for web use, e-mail, or some printing processes (non-color managed) you need to be sure to CONVERT the derivative image to sRGB (not assign profile or delete it) using an appropriate rendering intent. I use the Relative Colorimetric rendering intent, but I'm no expert here so I recommend reading about the four available options to decide which is most appropriate (not necessarily the same in each case, but I tend to just leave it on Relative Colorimetric and not think about it). Using convert to profile should ensure that there are no blown pixels in the derivative image if there are none in the master. Hope this helps!

[Ron Conlon]

I tried taking the raw file in Prophoto RGB from ACR into same in PS, then converting as you suggested, and the conversion clips. Playing with the conversion settings doesn't seem to get around clipping.
I think I will stick with sRGB in ACR and PS, since most is destined for the web. I am working with a raw file in ACR, so working on it in sRGB isn't an issue, and I can get every pixel I want in range. If I want a bigger color space, I can start over.

[Diane Miller]

I love this image!

I may just be reading some semantic imprecision here, but a clarification (if you guys don't need it, others may): ACR and LR (same engine) don't have a color space that you can designate -- they use a derivative of ProPhoto, in order to preserve all the color you camera can capture. Automatic conversion to the working space of PS (which you set in PS's Color Prefs) occurs when you open the file. You don't have to do anything as you convert. (But you should be aware of the settings in Color Pref's and what they do, and know that they have a penchant for changing on their own.)

Most people advise setting PS to AdobeRGB (or ProPhoto if you know the pitfalls) in order to preserve all the subtle colors the camera captured, and then converting to sRGB only as needed for web output. If proper conversion occurs at all steps, color changes should be minimal, even though sRGB has a more limited palette. Save for Web will do the conversion as specified in the dialog box. With things set up correctly it is rare you should need to go to Convert to Profile and even more rare to need to use Assign Profile.

Relative Colorimetric is generally the safest rendering intent, with Perceptual also good in may cases -- it's a matter of trying to see which looks best. The other two are intended for graphics and will give bad results for photography.

[Ron Conlon]

Thanks Diane, I can see the value of working in AdobeRAGD or ProPhoto. Is there a simple way of previewing the areas which will get clipped on conversion to sRGB?

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Ron and welcome to the Macro forum! This is a striking image with very good sharpness and DOF. I like both the OP and the repost - I find the OP a bit more dramatic, but I prefer the slightly looser crop of the repost. The lighting and black background worked very well for this studio shot. I hope to see more of your work here in Macro!

[Diane Miller]

Thanks Diane, I can see the value of working in AdobeRAGD or ProPhoto. Is there a simple way of previewing the areas which will get clipped on conversion to sRGB?


You can do the conversion in PS first, before the export step, and look at the histogram (don’t forget to hit the refresh icon in the UR). But be careful not to leave your master file in sRGB – convert a copy.

You need to choose a rendering intent for the conversion (as you also will in your final sRGB output). The only choices appropriate for photography are Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual, and neither one should be considered “the best one to use.” For any given image, one will be better than the other. It comes down to appearance, with some careful inspection.

If there are significant areas out of the sRGB gamut, RC will push the out of gamut colors to the nearest in gamut color, which will lead to “flattened” areas. Perceptual will adjust all colors to keep the same relationship to the ones that were moved, preserving tonal gradients at the cost of wider-scale color changes. This is relevant for dark colors as well as light ones.

However, a little spike in the histogram (some slightly oversaturated areas), is not a big problem if it’s in a small area of the image. The real problem with getting out of gamut colors is loss of detail in those areas because nearby tones are crushed together.

It’s best to be working with images that don’t have major saturation problems. The mistake many people make is to reach for the Saturation slider to try to give an image some pop. For example, see my tutorial on getting great reds (also works for oranges and yellows):
http://www.adorama.com/alc/0011773/article/How-to-get-vivid-reds-with-good-detail-in-your-digital-photos

Not mentioned there is that reds/oranges/yellows with Canon cameras are often too saturated by the default Adobe Standard profile in the Camera Calibration tab of LR or ACR. (And I hear the same of greens / blues for Nikon.) The first thing to try is to choose a different profile there – the ones listed are specific to the camera. The rest of the image may look dull but it’s more successful to bring up colors than subdue them. Desaturating a color rarely gives a satisfying result.

Now, the elephant in the room here is that most monitors can only display the sRGB color space. (Some newer and relatively expensive ones can display most of AdobeRGB, and that gamut is becoming more common.) So if you’re working on an sRGB monitor, there can be colors in the file that aren’t displayed accurately until you convert to sRGB. (Many of us aren’t seeing what we think we’re seeing, but we seem to manage anyway.) Thus the importance of relying on the histogram, and making sure to refresh it with that little exclamation point in the UR.

And of course after converting for some output, then you have the issue of how it’s viewed on the other end, with viewers having a range of monitors that are not calibrated much less profiled, often way too bright or dark, with many (even if calibrated) subject to huge tonal changes when viewed at differing vertical angles.

[Diane Miller]

I occasionally see a thread here that refers to "posterization" of very dark areas in the JPEG that are not seen in the master file. I suspect the same thing is happening -- an RC rendering of out of gamut colors smashing them.

I didn't think to mention -- in PS (your original file, BEFORE you convert to sRGB) go to View > Proof Setup > Custom and set sRGB for the space (do NOT check Preserve RGB Numbers). Then go to View > Gamut Warning and any out of gamut colors for that destination space you set should show in gray (if the defaults in PS > Pref's > Transparency & Gamut haven't been changed). Then convert and do the same Gamut Warning you should see everything is now in gamut -- that's what conversion is all about, after all. But you won't see a big change in the appearance of the image itself.

[Ron Conlon]

Diane, thank you so much for taking so time and care in your response. This has been so helpful. I will work to consolidate it all through practice.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I try not to read previous comments until I have made my own but I could see there was a lot of interest here! Super images, I don't usually go for over saturation but I must admit I do like the first image very much indeed, having said that I like the second. I appreciate the need for "correct colour" interpretation and I think Diane's comments have helped greatly, I learned something there - using the selective colour, I will try it in future because I often get blown reds and yellows on my 7D.
Sometimes I think it is valid to present an image that is pleasing to the eye as opposed to a true colour rendition it all depends upon what the photographer's intent is. I must admit I generally pay attention to the histogram and the curves etc when checking colours but for me I think I would go for the original post - purely because I like it, I find the colours very pleasing to the eye.