"Colour correction" of pictures.

[Mr Felix]

I'll include a couple I have done as an example.

I understand - or am beginning to - that you need to adjust the colours of a photo sometimes.

Alas sitting there and going through them and adjusting them takes time - yeah, par for the course.

But isn't there an easy/automatic way?

These were done automatically. My past attempts were poor going on bad, so I think sitting there doing more won't yield much benefit to me.

(now I have to remember how to add pictures)9354893549

I don't think I need to say which is which.

To do this I had to sit there and select each picture, tell it to be adjusted then save it.

I don't have all the latest and greatest programs. This was done by a free program, but alas doesn't support "batching".
(Gee I miss my old OS, but that's another story)

"Trusting" a program to do it is dangerous, I know. A few of the ones adjusted by this program went awry and so I didn't keep them.

Are there any good (yeah, I know....) free ones? Or what "tricks" are there to make programs do batches of conversions?

[ricktas]

Your first photo, the issue is more a lack of contrast than colour. In other words it looks flat, and a look at the histogram shows why.

I am not sure how you edited this photo in your software, or what software you have, but if it can do levels and curves adjustments, then learning that would be of good benefit to you. As for batch processing, yes there are lots of ways to do it, but not every photo taken at a given shoot will need adjusting exactly the same way, and is not a solution to spending time at your computer editing each photo that is a keeper, individually.

The screen grab below shows your first photo and its histogram, showing that it needs a levels adjustment done.
http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?22436-Levels-Tutorial

[Kym]

Before any colour correction adjust the brightness and contrast.
An increase in contrast will help clear the haze.
Then adjust the white balance, assuming you shot raw.

[Mr Felix]

Well the first one is the "original" one.

To me when I took it, I saw the picture and "accepted it" as good enough because at the time my eyes were there and saw the two pictures (views) as the same.

When I got home and was copying them, I noticed that it looked "flat" and so passed it through my viewer's "auto adjust" and got the second one.

Much better - I think.

That was one of a few hundred pictures and that pails to what I did in America 12/13 months ago.
There is no way I can really afford the time to sit there and do each one individually.

Yeah, so it is a question of "which devil do I want" because I understand that nothing is free.

Being a HOBBY photographer where I go places and take "happy snaps" (I think they are called) I am needing help determining where the line is for what I have time to do and what is just too much work to be ...... of benefit.

- - - Updated - - -

Kym,

Alas I don't shoot RAW usually.

I was on "holiday" and was just there "capturing the moment", as it were.

The program I used to adjust was IRFANVIEW - it is the main viewer I use and it has adjustment capabilities.
Control U was used.
"Auto colour adjust"



Before any colour correction adjust the brightness and contrast.
An increase in contrast will help clear the haze.
Then adjust the white balance, assuming you shot raw.

- - - Updated - - -

Kym,

Alas I don't shoot RAW usually.

I was on "holiday" and was just there "capturing the moment", as it were.

The program I used to adjust was IRFANVIEW - it is the main viewer I use and it has adjustment capabilities.
Control U was used.
"Auto colour adjust"



Before any colour correction adjust the brightness and contrast.
An increase in contrast will help clear the haze.
Then adjust the white balance, assuming you shot raw.

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks Rick for the link.

Ok, that is photoshop.

Shall look at what I have and try to get my head around it and keep things happening.

[ricktas]

Download The Gimp : http://www.gimp.org/

It is free and as well as having heaps of add-ons, it has a good support community and lots of tutorials on how to use it. You tube can be very helpful in that regard : go to www.youtube.com and search 'the gimp tutorial'.

If you put the time into learning the software and how to adjust/edit your photos, the results will speak for themselves. Just don't try and learn it all at once, or in a week. I have used PS for 10 years and I probably know how to use 10% of it.

[ricktas]

Thanks Rick for the link.

Ok, that is photoshop.

Shall look at what I have and try to get my head around it and keep things happening.

Yep it is for PS, but it gives you the idea. All good editing packages will have a levels adjustment tool. You just need to find it and use it. The link I provided shows you what it does and how a histogram works, which is not software package specific. Histograms and Levels adjustments work fairly much the same no matter what software you use.

[swifty]

It seems to me what you're really after is a very optimized in-camera jpeg engine.
If you want minimal/no processing, you'd have to try and get everything right in-camera. There should be varying degrees of adjustability of your output depending on your camera, things like tone, contrast, sharpness, saturation etc.
Tune to taste and hope your camera nails the WB.
Many of us deliberately keep an image as flat looking as possie whilst shooting in RAW for maximum flexibility post processing. If u don't have the software or don't want to do post processing then u'd need to gamble that your in-camera jpeg settings suit the shooting condition.

[Mr Felix]

93561935629356393564Yeah, food for thought.

Here are another two images (before/after) which I have done.

Alas with thousands of pictures, it is not really something to which I look forward if I have to do each one.

"Alas" there are differences with how people see things and how the colours are perceived.
(oh this "auto-spelling" thing. Colour does have a U in it!)

The V2 ones are the "corrected" images, and for some reason, when I preview the post, the new images are first.

But am I doing the right thing? As in adjusting them in the right manor?

Though I guess that is down to the person.


One thing I did notice was that I nearly always dropped the exposure by one stop with the corrections.

So would it be a good idea to force the camera to underexpose by 2/3 stops? (with the manual exposure control where I press the <A> button then turn the wheel and adjust the exposure to -2/3)


I guess it would need to be tested and looked at with what happens.

Admitedly (spelling?) a lot of my shots were done in fairly bright sun light.

[ricktas]

Re the spelling and correction, what browser are you using? The spell check is NOT ausphotography related, it is your internet browser. You can download add-ons that are 'Australian dictionary's' for your browser

For example, if you use firefox : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/english-australian-dictionary/

So your correction issues are browser related, not AP site related.

[ricktas]

If you shoot in jpg. yes drop the exposure compensation a fraction. You can recover shadow detail much easier than you can recover blown highlights.

[Mr Felix]

Re the spelling and correction, what browser are you using? The spell check is NOT ausphotography related, it is your internet browser. You can download add-ons that are 'Australian dictionary's' for your browser

For example, if you use firefox : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/english-australian-dictionary/

So your correction issues are browser related, not AP site related.

Thanks.

Yeah, I seem to get railroaded into the american version rather than the oz one.

:confused013