TL - green gem color correction

[zeolite]

TL, I took your picture and added as much color saturation as is possible in Photoshop. Bitmap (.bmp) and jpeg files can only be altered a little bit, because the files are heavily compressed. Actually .bmp is not compressed, but still has low data, compared to raw. Below is the before and after of your picture.

 

[zeolite]

Below that is a picture of my Mali green garnet, shot in Canon RAW. RAW files are 4 times as large as jpeg, and allow very much more correction of the image, even after the picture is taken. On the left side, I processed it for minimum color saturation. On the right, I processed the same picture for maximum color saturation. See how much more color correction, when using RAW, is possible. Most point and shoot digital camera can't shoot in RAW.

 

[T L]

Thank you Mr Zeolite. It's still more saturated than your "saturated" version, but it does look better. I appreciate it.

 

[kenny]

I'm very interested.

Like a dummy I've left my Nikon D200 set to JPEG even though it can shoot RAW.
I almost always mess with the exposure in iPhoto to get it to look more lifelike.

Below is a screen capture pic below of the iPhoto controls I have. (I plan to get Photoshop and change to RAW now)
Often when making an adjustment the image will benefit from only a little change, and when I try to change it more something else will go wonky.
Like when I increase exposure too much some of the colors will sort of bloom out of control.
Then if I try to tone that down with the highlight control everything gets a sort of plastic look - hard to put into words.

So will shooting RAW allow me to push some parameters further without other things going wonky?

 

[zeolite]

I'm very interested.

Like a dummy I've left my Nikon D200 set to JPEG even though it can shoot RAW.
I almost always mess with the exposure in iPhoto to get it to look more lifelike.

Below is a screen capture pic below of the iPhoto controls I have. (I plan to get Photoshop and change to RAW now)
Often when making an adjustment the image will benefit from only a little change, and when I try to change it more something else will go wonky.
Like when I increase exposure too much some of the colors will sort of bloom out of control.
Then if I try to tone that down with the highlight control everything gets a sort of plastic look - hard to put into words.

So will shooting RAW allow me to push some parameters further without other things going wonky?

Things go wonky when you try to push brightness beyond 255 (clipping) or push color saturation to the point of clipping. Your iPhoto appears to have excellent control functions, but you are still operating on jpeg data, which is very limited. RAW is much better.

My corrections are in this order: First correct color balance, until white look correct. Then adjust color saturation slightly, if needed to match the actual gem, by looking at it next to your monitor. Then try increasing contrast until it looks bad; then back off somewhat. Then only after adjusting contrast, adjust exposure, if it changed during contrast. Then set sharpening for the correct output type. I use a plug-in sharpener (PK Sharpener). I use one sharpening setting for web, another for large prints.

 

[kenny]

For white balance do you include a little area of white or 18% grey at the edge of the field (to be cropped out later) ?

 

[zeolite]

On most pictures, I view the picture and move the color temperature slider around until it looks good. At the S.D. Museum "all that glitters", all of the backgrounds were white, so I just tuned to white.