« Previous  

Recent Blogs
Muted colors.


Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Muted colors.
Hey Humzoo, I know there are quite a few photographers out there, so I was hoping someone could help me out. I shot my first wedding this weekend with a Canon Rebel XT. I usually shoot in straight JPG because most of my photos are of the dogs/dinner/nature. Stuff that I don't worry too much about the colors and lighting coming out perfect.

Well, this weekend I shot in RAW, a negative format native to Canon cameras. I've shot in RAW before, but on a limited basis and most of the stuff I did was going straight to web. My problem is that I've tried printing out a few of the photos I've tweaked and cropped but the colors appear very muted. I've got a Canon Pixma 460 and had never had problems printing out photos. If I were to print a JPG from my camera the colors would look perfect.

I am opening the RAW files in Photoshop CS3, editing, then saving as a JPG file, then trying to print. I've also tried doing the "Save for web" option.

I've done some searches around the web and they make mention to color profiles and converting from RAW to sRGB and RGB. I've tried multiple settings, but I haven't found anything that gives me a great print out.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I'll post an example later on tonight.
Tags:  photography
11 Comments
igna83
1) This is actually a question for Pastafarian, but he's at work - I'll try to get him to take a break to read your blog. I know that I work with all RAW photos in Lightroom first, before Bill ever sees them in CS4, where I usually adjust the lighting and color.
Angi   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Pastafarian
2) You probably want to try boosting your Vibrance and/or Saturation while processing in Camera Raw. The camera is doing this for you automatically when shooting jpegs (depending on your settings), but RAW is just that, completely raw.
Pastafarian   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
daveheinzel
3) Sounds like you would benefit greatly from using a different app for processing photos, either Lightroom, Bridge or something else (I use Apple's Aperture, similar to Lightroom). Rather than editing photos on an individual basis, you can see them all at once and apply adjustments to groups of photos. RAW images are great to use, but once you save them as JPGs, you lose a lot of the color information that's in the photos to begin with.

At this point though the problem is dealing with what you have in front of you, dull JPGs. What I would recommend is creating a Photoshop Action that will boost contrast a little and boost saturation. Then apply that Action to all your photos, saving new versions of them in a folder somewhere (I would save copies in case you mess up, which can happen when batching photos like this).

If you're unfamiliar with Actions, they're awesome. Basically you open a photo, and make sure the Action palette is visible, then create a new Action and hit the Record button. Make some adjustments, then save your image where you want it to go. Close the image, then stop recording your action.

To apply an Action to a group of photos, go to File -> Automate -> Batch. Then choose the Action you want to use, the source folder, and where to save the images (which you can disable if your Action includes the Save As part that you did with your test image).

Anyway, that's the 30-second tutorial. There are a lot of details that you may want to know, but that might help.
Dave Heinzel   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
gotshoo
4) I'll give it a try tonight.

Question, why would my photos look fine then on my monitor (note: not calibrated), but muted when printed out?
shoo   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
gotshoo
5) Thanks for the feedback Dave & Pastafarian.
shoo   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
daveheinzel
6) If the photos look that different onscreen vs printing, then it's likely a color profile issue. It might be as simple as converting them to sRGB or another profile (I use sRGB, but that's mainly for web and onscreen I think). I have wasted hours on color profiles though, so prepare for manual adjustments at some point.

Another option might be to tweak your print settings rather than the photo. Usually in Print dialogs, there are options to add contrast, boost saturation, etc. These controls are all different, but you might get lucky finding a sweet spot there that would let you skip editing the photos themselves.
Dave Heinzel   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
George
7) Not so much an issue of color profiles than one of different output devices. The profiles are what, in theory, are supposed to make everything match. It has never worked yet on a consistent basis. Having said that, I've been out of the industry for quite a few years now but I'd be very surprised if it ever works well.
LimeyGeorge   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
gotshoo
8) Tried several different options with the printer. I am going to end up needing a new ink cartridge. I am downloading an update for the RAW codec and going to try that. My printer does support ICC and sRGB.
shoo   Tuesday, May 26, 2009
gotshoo
9) I think the issue may have been the color profile that was defaulted with the printer. Did some print tests with other photos that I had taken before the wedding and their colors were messed up too.
shoo   Wednesday, May 27, 2009
gotshoo
10) Also made sure to use new photo paper.
shoo   Wednesday, May 27, 2009
gotshoo
11) Yup, that was it. Finally got a decent print. Big relief.
shoo   Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Leave a Comment


Your Name
Enter the text from the left:
Publish Comment