REDucation 1

[Dave Courtenay]

Heron at dusk on a shallow lake in North Carolina last week

Nikon D3 600F4VR +1.4x ISO 800 beanbag from car

[Juan Aragonés]

I like the composition a lo and the colour BG seems to be fantastic but oversaturated in my opinion. I would love to see a less saturated version ;-)

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like this a lot, great composition, silhouette and the colors are stunning. It just needs 0.5 degrees CW rotation.

[Dave Courtenay]

Juan
There is little difference to the colours in the RAW file-just a tiny boost, I had just taken a landscape shot of a stunning sunset when the heron landed in the 'red' band-see image below

[Bryan Erb]

Gorgeous, love the color, and composition.

[Juan Aragonés]

I think that, in many cases, digital bodies tend to saturate in excess the red channel very easily and that can be seen in the RAW file too. In cases like that, if you desaturate the red channel just a little bit, you can recover a pretty nice amount of details that were hidden by the saturation. Many images of sunset landscapes show colorus saturated in excess (by the camera, not by post processing in PS) because the red channel is the most prominet in that kind of images (sunsets are mostly red or orange). The photographer think that the image is right because the saturation is in the RAW file but in fact, the image is saturated in excess by the camera.
From my point of view, the best thing that you can do is to process your images to closely resemble what you have seen in the field. If the colors of the sunset were so intense and fantastic like in your image and you processed having that on mind that is enough for me :)

Very nice landscape, by the way

Juan
There is little difference to the colours in the RAW file-just a tiny boost, I had just taken a landscape shot of a stunning sunset when the heron landed in the 'red' band-see image below

[Nagesh Mula]

Both of them are beautiful pictures for me and as Juan suggested yes initially I too thought the colors to be little oversaturated but after seeing the landscape I feel the colors are just fine.

[Rene' Villela]

I also think both shots are really nice! good work!

Juan... I thought it was only me or should I said I thought it was just my camera! I have so much problems with reds with my D300 and the other one is the yellow. If I shoot anything red or yellow I now I change the picture control to neutral and still I have to set the saturation to -1. Well, now I know is not just my camera! Cheers!

[Juan Aragonés]

Rene as far as I know that is a common problem to most digital bodies, reds and yellows are not easy to deal with especially if the scene is saturated (in example a sunset landscape or a red bird in bright and intense leght like the cardinal).
Some digital bodies (in example Nikon D2X) can show histograms per channels to help you see if one of the channels is blown.
If one of the channels is blown then you are losing details in the image but you can save some deatils in postprocesing reducing a bit the saturation of that channel.

Here I reduced the red channel saturation a little bit (I apologize but at this web size it is not easy to see the details but in the desaturated image there are more details in the waves and you are not reducing a lot the color of the image and you can keep the mood of the scene)

If you look at the histograms of both images, the original reds are blown. Of course, if you see that in the moment that you are shooting the image you can fix it with best results than later in PS.


I also think both shots are really nice! good work!

Juan... I thought it was only me or should I said I thought it was just my camera! I have so much problems with reds with my D300 and the other one is the yellow. If I shoot anything red or yellow I now I change the picture control to neutral and still I have to set the saturation to -1. Well, now I know is not just my camera! Cheers!

[Juan Aragonés]

Too bad that at this web size it is not possible to see too much details. René you can try to work at home with a bigger file and try different levels of desaturation in the blown channel and you will see how you can recover details.

Here I used the excelent Dave´s image to ilustrate how the desaturation of a blown channel can increase the level of details. I created several copies of the most detailed area in the image and applied different levels of desaturation. If you compare the original image (bottom) with the more desaturated (top) it is easy to see how much details you can recover. Of course, the image on the top is too much deasturated. I think that, in this case a -20 desaturation works fine.

Juan

[Rene' Villela]

Juan... thank you for all these inputs! Uhmmm! I'll get to play with that and learn how that works! thank you for your info!

Dave... I apologize for high-jacking your thread! Cheers!

[Dave Courtenay]

No problem Rene its good to see Juans thoughts on this and he has illustrated it very well, i agree that the -20 looks better,Changing the image from Adobe rgb to srgb seems to have upped the colours

Dave

[Tony House]

Comp works really well, like it. Interesting thread too, I've got so much to learn in this minefield of processing images..... :-(

Nice work.
Tony

[John Ippolito]

Agree with all of the above on this beautiful image Dave, and I appreciate Juan's dissertation.

[Arthur Morris]

Great stuff above. Thank you Juan. Here is another trick to try: for mega over-SAT-ed REDs try adding 30-80 points of CYAN to the REDs in Selective Color.

ps: Killer landscape! Where?

[Charles Glatzer]

Sometimes lowering the CONSTANT in the Channel Mixer Adjustment layer with red channel selected is preferable, resulting in less banding issues.

Chas

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Dave,

I'll let others comment on the color (and it looks like they gave some great info!), but the composition here looks to be well thought out. You got at just the right height to get the bird not to interfere with the tree line reflection.

Miguel