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Thread: blasted reds

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    Default blasted reds

    One of my greatest frustrations is dealing with lost detail in overblown reds. Does anyone have a systematic workflow in Lightroom or Photoshop for bringing back details (e.g., feather details in a male vermilion flycatcher) in clipped reds without losing so much of the beautiful natural saturation of those reds. I've tried different combinations of lowering saturation and luminance in the red, orange, and yellow channels, but to bring out the detail I always lose more color than I'd like. Is the trick to underexpose in the camera and then bring up everything but the reds in post-processing? I'm using a Canon 7D (and previously, Rebel XT), shoot in RAW, usually in Tv mode with no exposure compensation, usually spot or center-weighted average metering, and use Lightroom and occasionally Photoshop for processing. Thanks in advance for any insight you can impart.

    Paul

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    In the Camera Calibration section of the Develop Module (bottom of the right hand panel) - What Profile do you have selected?
    I've notice that selecting Faithful or Neutral will many times reduce the color saturation especially of reds. Try all the different Profiles and see if this helps.

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    Paul,

    In my opinion, not blowing the highlights in any one channel starts with the exposure. On my cameras, I have the color histogram displayed so I get the histogram of each channel. Depending on the subject, it may be better to underexpose so not clip any channel, but on others, it might be ok (tough to tell in the field). For example, I often see blue sky saturating the blue channel, especially in post sunset images high in the mountains. Or red flowers. If the red flowers are small in the frame and it would create too much underexposure I will let them saturate a little. Usually in that case there is enough response in the green channel to still show tonality.

    There was at least one thread (and I believe several) on this subject in the tutorials and educational resources forum. As one might imagine, allowing a channel to saturate is controversial. There are also discussions on post processing saturation. In particular, when one converts to sRGB for the web, colors often saturate. Whether or not to let that happen was also discussed (and again, a little controversy).

    In post processing (I generally use ACR for raw conversion, then photoshop CS5) I watch the histograms of each channel and try to not let them saturate during any processing step. In photoshop I generally do a lot of my editing with the curves tool, along with selections then curves. With curves, one can keep the high end pinned, so one doesn't drive one channel into saturation. Sometimes I'll convert to LAB and work on the luminance channel, again with curves.

    Roger

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    BPN Member Don Lacy's Avatar
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    Hi Paul you need to make sure you do not blow the red channel during capture even then you will have to adjust in post processing. For this Tanager image I processed it twice in ACR once for the over all image which left some areas on the Tanager bright and without detail I then processed it again using the exposure slider to recover the reds which left the rest of the image to dark I took both versions into PS and combined them. The only way to get back details is with the exposure and recovery sliders which might effect the rest of the image so each image is different.
    Don Lacy
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    This is one thread that might help:

    http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...read.php/29869

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    Lifetime Member Michael Gerald-Yamasaki's Avatar
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    Paul,

    Greetings. One thing you might consider is that saturation is the relationship between the color channels. For something to be very saturated, it need not be on the right of the histogram. For instance, in this image (color manipulated snow):

    Name:  _DSC6192-Edit-Edit-Edit-Edit-2.jpg
Views: 102
Size:  205.2 KB

    Reds are all mid-tones (or darker). Nothing here is over 180 in the red channel. (shoot, in checking the jpeg conversion or the ProPhoto to sRGB conversion pulled up the brighter reds into the 200s. sigh... the original tiff has nothing over 180. In any event, not much of this is near the mid 200s).

    What you are seeing in terms of a blown red channel is overexposure (you just happen to be overexposing something that is red). What you lose in terms of detail by overexposure is luminance contrast. The above image is all luminance contrast since there are no blues or greens in the image and everything is completely saturated.

    Detail can also be improved by color contrast. If there is some green and blue in the reds, where there is luminance contrast, color contrast can also be processed to emphasize the detail. One method for adding color contrast to reds is to apply a slight s curve in both the green and blue channels (anchored at middle of the desired detail range). Yeah. I can come up with an example if there's interest.

    So, the short answer is blown reds are equal to overexposure. Saturation is a different issue.

    Cheers,

    -Michael-
    Last edited by Michael Gerald-Yamasaki; 12-15-2011 at 09:18 PM. Reason: conversion gotcha note

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    Thanks to all for these interesting and helpful tips. Michael, yes, I play with both the red saturation and luminance in Lightroom, and both have an effect. I'll have to play around now with adding back saturation and luminance in the blues and greens. Can you edit curves on individual color channels in Lightroom, or do you have to bring it into PS for that? It does seem that the best solution is to nip it in the bud, and dial down the exposure a tad in the camera when shooting reds (and yellows).

    Paul

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    Lifetime Member Michael Gerald-Yamasaki's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Muhlrad View Post
    Can you edit curves on individual color channels in Lightroom, or do you have to bring it into PS for that?
    I don't know of a way to edit individual color channels in LR. Their HSL editor is not what you are looking for. You might try out the vibrance control (Develop under Presence), which does some color contrasting.

    You might try just working vibrance and contrast (without adjusting saturation) to see if it is to your liking. Further saturating colors which begin with high saturation often doesn't look so good (IMO) or I should say the what the saturation control does to already saturated colors is, in my opinion, suspect. For the image posted earlier the LR saturation slider brightens (this is not adding saturation) the image. Since everything is already 100% saturated, increasing saturation should have no effect.

    Cheers,

    -Michael-

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