How do I improve the color of photos?

photonius wrote:

digidog wrote:

photonius wrote:

digidog wrote:

photonius wrote:

digidog wrote:

photonius wrote:

digidog wrote:

photonius wrote:

kevinNYC wrote:

Based on the replies in the thread, I tried the following:

1. Custom White Balance. This turned out to be harder than I had imagined. I used a blank page from my printer, but the custom white balance photos turned out to have too much green.

2. Preset White Balance. The Sunlight preset had the best results. It is still a little warm, but it is close.

3. Raw vs JPG. Although I believed I was shooting in RAW, the settings were actually in JPG. Switched to RAW & installed DPP. DPP provides some good tools to correct the green.

4. IS & Filters. As expected, IS options didn't have any impact. Filters (UV and CP) did not have any impact on the color.

My best bet seems to be to use the Sunlight Preset White Balance and then color correct using DPP.

You can modify settings in the camera more, i.e. you can create your own custom picture styles. Or you can completely customise your WB (white balance correction), see page 137 of the manual for the 650D.

Also, as a side note, which color reproduction range is set (p139)? sRGB or Adobe, that makes a difference.

Not that he's switched to raw (#3 above). Those settings have zero effect on the raw data, just the JPEG.

Yes, but the sample images were done in jpg (he initially thought it was RAW).

And now he should continue to capture raw and my post remains factual.

My point was actually, he doesn't necessarily have to go to RAW.

Yes he should. Please don't recommend he go back to JPEG for so many reasons!

I thought we live in a free world, where the OP can choose himself.

He can. Based on good or poor advise! He's now shooting raw; good move on his part based on understanding the massive advantages of a raw workflow,

Of course RAW is better IQ, I never denied that.

Better as in far more flexible in rendering the image as desired. Not letting some chip in a camera bake that rendering into an 8-bit per color limited color gamut document.

However, it requires extra time, it requires more harddisk space.

Actually it can end up using less space which considering the cost of disk space today, versus ending up with a baked image seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I just read the article and comments on Adobe's profits, but that their software (lightroom) is slow as molasses even on a top modern computer.

All generalizations are false, including this one.-Mark Twain

You read this, do you actually own the product?

I've been using photoshop since 1992, no further comment.

News flash: Lightroom which you read about is not Photoshop!

Got any real Lightroom experience (speed or otherwise) or just what you've read about it?

Trust but verify or in this context, verify then trust.