correctmyphotos

Sometimes you just have to see better color to know.
The other day our Rotary Club  cooked 250 hot dogs for the Burnsville Kids of Summer program’s final day, a project we have done for about 20years. Heather and I took a few photos of the event. When I got back to the office I edited a few with CorrectPhoto and sent them to Heather for our clubs website. She went back to her office and uploaded a few of my photos with a few of hers. (Heather is the editor of our club’s website.) Now Heather does have CorrectPhoto and loves it, however, she has it on her home computer and not on her office computer so she bypassed the photo editing step and uploaded uncorrected photos. (Sound familiar?) When I saw the photo gallery of the event I mentioned to my friend Bill and mentioned the fact that Heather hadn’t had time to color correct her photos. His comment was, “Only you would know that?” That is really not true, but it did get me to thinking about how does one really know the color is not right? I guess the reality is that most people just accept the color they get from their digital camera and don’t realize that the color could be better. So, do you think the color is right or okay in the following photo?

Is the Color Right? Look at the mustard bottle and the girls shirt.

Now compare it with this photo. Now, doesn’t the original photo look dull and lifeless compared with the color corrected one?

Look at the mustard bottle and the girl's shirt to see the difference in color

Do you need to see the photos side by side to tell the difference? (continue reading…)

I often ask people with digital cameras if they are pleased with the color they are getting from their camera.  The answer is usually, “Yeah, I guess its okay.” If I push a little and suggest that maybe the photos are a little dull and maybe not as vivid as when they use a film camera they acknowledge a bit of disappointment with digital photography. But, even if they know the color is not right they don’t have a clue as to how to fix it.

Fixing Color is Difficult
If you have tried to use the software that came with your camera or some other photo editing software like Photoshop Elements you know it is one of the most frustrating and difficult challenges. If the tools in Photoshop were easy their wouldn’t be a market for the hundreds of thousands of articles and the many books devoted to Color Correcting Photos in Photoshop. For most of us, it is just too much work and take too much time to fix the color. And, if you’ve tried to use the auto color feature you probably found that it really doesn’t do much good on most photos (see the middle photo in the example below).

The Original Color (left) is dull, Elements Auto Fix is a little better (middle), OneClick Color is accurate (right)

So, is there really and easy way to fix color?
I am going to assume you have Photoshop Elements to edit your photos, but you don’t have a good understanding of Levels and Curves and all the other color tools (and really don’t care to learn it).
(continue reading…)

Do you think the color of your photos is correct? And, do you care?

Chances are when you look at your digital photos on your computer screen or the prints you just picked up you don’t really ask yourself, “Is the Color Right?” And, unless some Smart Alec like me comments about the color (remember, that’s my business) you probably think the color is okay. Well, chances are pretty good that the color is not right. Look at the following photo comparison of Spearfish Falls in Spearfish Canyon, SD. The original photo (left) is dull and lifeless and seems to have a grey cloudy day color cast. The color corrected photo is much more alive and looks like the scene I saw when I took the picture.

Spearfish Falls-Before/After Color Correction

The nature of digital cameras is that unless you take the time to white balance your shots (and who has time to do that?) the color will be off to some degree. In fact, most will be dull and lifeless. And, it will vary with lighting conditions both outside and indoors. When shooting outdoors you will get the best color on a bright sunny day.  Generally, the color of indoor shots will vary greatly depending on the lighting conditions. Yes, with more expensive cameras you can compensate for incandescent or fluorescentlighting, but you will probably forget to make the adjustment. Here is an example of an indoor flash photo from a real estate listing. The room really is not a dull as it appears in the original photo posted on the internet.

Flash photos can appear dull and lifeless

 Even photos taken on a bright and sunny afternoon can appear dull. Now, if you saw the photo on the left by itself you may not think it is too bad. But, compared to a color corrected version it really is dull. 

Even a photo taken on a sunny day can be dull and lifeless

How White Is Your Dog?-Dickens is a Westie and He is White.

This is Dickens, a West Highland White Terrior (Westie) and he is white. “Well, ya! So What?”, you say. One of the more frustrating things about being in the “color” business is that most people, except for pro and semi-pro photographers, tend to be insensitive (how is that for being polically correct?) to color. They either don’t recognize that the color of their digital pictures is wrong or they just assume that the photos from their digital camera just aren’t as good as Kodak or Fuji film. In a way, that assumtion is correct, however, the color information is really there (unless the photo is over or under exposed) and it can be fixed. Here is a comparison of the original photo and the cropped and color corrected shot of Dickens.