My red is the wrong colour red

[karina_arnold]

Hi could someone please help me I sell handbags on e-bay I have

several red ones and everytime I take a photo the red is all wrong

Instead of being Dark blood red it is more a candy apple red . I am

using A panasonic Lumix FZ30. I do not know a lot about taking

photos . So any help would be graet PS I am going mad with this

Urgent help needed to maintain sanity

[jwd]

You probably need to set your white balance. If you are using an automatic setting, try some others. Check the camera manual for the how-to details. You can probably also work through Photoshop - or Paintshop - to fix the red,

 

JDougherty

[jcuknz]

It is quite likely you need to calibrate your monitor to a set standard. If that doesn't fix the problem then you need to supply your files to Ebay with such a mis-balance of colour that they look right on E-Bay. This is a simple if un-scientific approach, though involves a lot of work to set up a layer which you add and merge with the final shot after it looks good on your monitor prior to sending it to E-bay. Do you shoot in RAW with the FZ30 and handle files in what programme?

 

But unless your monitor is correct you have no true way of knowing what your files look like when Ebay transmits them. Plus your potential customers most likely do not have calibrated monitors so there is little chance of your product being shown exactly right.

 

NOW if you were putting photos in a magazine THEN there is some point to being concerned as to getting it correct ... but with the web there are so many un-controllable parameters it is questionable as to if it is worth being unduely concerned.

 

But get your own monitor calibrated first then you have a basis to work from. Also check you webpage from another machine, if you get a same or similar result then it is probably the files you are sending which need to be changed one way or another.

 

There is also the problem that that every since color television started, and digital photography is a child of that process, red has been a difficult color to render properly electronically and most productions try to avoid it if they can. Red is the first colour to break up when things go slightly off.

 

Maybe I am being unjustifiably gloomy, for your sake, I hope somebody sits on me and tells me I'm talking bunkum :-)

 

A simple solution is not to advertise your red bags, just the other colored ones. Else admit the red ones are not exactly correctly represented and offer a sample 'patch' at perhaps a small fee to cover costs

[troyammons]

Welcome to the digital camera world. Some are better than others at accurate color.

 

What sort of lights. If incandecent or mixed light that is probably the problem. Try it in natural indirect light on a tripod.

 

Make sure the camera is set on iso 100 or lower.

 

If all that fails try a custom white balance. Should be in your manual.

 

You could also try a polarizing filter. Actually I like them for product type photos. They reduce unwanted glare and reflections and deepen color.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Before you get confused by any of the answers so far on this thread or start buying gear

stop and buy and read through two books:

 

1.) Real World Digital Photography, second edition by Eismann, Gray and Duggal.

 

2.) Color Management for Photographers by Andrew Rodney.

[stephen_lutz]

Buy some photo floodlights (Photoflex makes some affordable ones). They will put out light at a constant color temperature that you can calibrate your camera to. You can either used the "tungsten" setting, or set your camera to a specific Kelvin color temperture. Also, you should shoot RAW for maximum flexibility for adjusting the shot after you get it in Photoshop.

 

As others have said, color calibrate your monitor as well. All of this will allow you to correct the color as closely as possible on your end. All of this goes out the window when it hits the web, as colors on uncalibrated monitors will be all over the place. I only get really hyper concerned about color management when I am printing something.

[Ed_Ingold]

The first step is to calibrate your monitor, as many have said before. This way any corrections you make will be accurately represented on other calibrated monitors. More important, any corrections you make will be as accurate as possible on un-calibrated monitors or through non-CMS compliant programs.

 

The next step is to calibrate and profile the image capture process. A lot of things can affect color, including lighting, background and the general location of the shoot. Color temperature of the lighting is a nominal value, affected strongly by voltage, color of any reflectors and modifiers, or the nature of the light source itself. Electronic flash color varies with power level, and fluorescent lights do not behave like black body emitters, so color temperature has little meaning.

 

If you want to emulate the appearance of the object as accurately as possible as it would appear in sunlight, you have to use a color check chart in one of the shots, and each time you make a significant change that could affect color temperature. There is software to interpret the results and create a custom profile for the image, which you then "assign" in photoshop (then "convert" to a standard color space for compatibility). You have to set the camera to eliminate or standardize in-camera color adjustments as far as possible, and are best to avoid or minimize JPEG compression.

 

I use a Gretag-MacBeth Color Checker (24 patches) or Color Checker SG (140 patches) and a Photoshop plugin - Pictocolor "InCamera" - to do the analysis. I generally do small adjustments to color and contrast for better appearance afterwards. Total accuracy does not necessarily give the best appearance, tending toward "flat", but it is a good place to start. It is not necessary to repeat this for every shoot, if your setup and equipment is reasonably consistent.

 

For non-crital applications, you may be able to fiddle with adjustments until you get something good enough, using Levels and (more important) Curves. A true profile covers a wide range of color combinations (RGB) and intensities, whereas manual adjustments affect mostly mid-range values.

[Hector Javkin]

The best approach is what Ellis suggested above, reading about digital photography so that you understand the process. However, from your question it sounds like you're a bit panicked and in a hurry and may not have the patience to that at this time. Some things you can try that are relatively straightforward.

 

First, give your photographs a little underexposure. Shoot in manual, and shoot at a slightly higher shutter speed than the meter suggests.

 

Second, try taking your photographs under different kinds of light. Our eyes adjust to differences in light, so we don't even notice. If you're shooting indoors, try it outdoors, at different times of day. Avoid fluorescent lights.

 

Third, adjust the white balane in your camera. Your FZ30 has a lot of control of white balance, but the instructions are not very detailed. First, follow the instructions for setting the white balance by pointing the camera at a white object. If that doesn't work, see if the adjustments to white balance (towards red or towards blue) give you the color you want.

 

If these things don't work, you will have to take the time to understand the process, as Ellis suggested.

[Spearhead]

I disagree on the reading. For someone whose photography interest is solely for posting on ebay, I would recommend finding a local expert and having them do your setup. It would save a lot of time and frustration...

[inspiration point studio]

Here's an alternate approach but it will require you to have Photoshop and a gray card. When you take a photo of the product, include the gray card within the photo frame. After you take the photo, open it in Photoshop. If the file does not have a built in color profile, use Photoshop to assign it to sRGB. Next, use the level adjustment tool, select the gray eyedropper and use it on the gray card. That should correct your problem, or at least get you closer to what you want. The final step is to crop out the gray card and post your eBay picture.

 

Calibrating your monitor will only help to make sure you are seeing the picture color correctly, but it does not guarantee the rest of the eBay buyers see what you see. The majority of the eBay population does not have a clue on monitor color calibration. So spending all that time on color management (for eBay) is a waste of time.

[Hector Javkin]

Michael's approach above will also do it. If you don't have Photoshop, your can do the same thing with Photoshop Elements, which is a cheaper, simpler program, and several other programs. If you don't know what a gray card is, go to any pro camera shop and buy one.

 

Finally, if you're still in trouble, post the picture here. Somebody will probably adjust it (based on your "dark blood red" description) and post it back. I don't know the rules about this on photo.net but, since you are doing this for a money-making venture, you should pay them for it. (They may insist on doing it for free, explaining that you can't afford their work -- I know I can't afford the work of a lot of people who regularly contribute to this forum ;-)

[kathywilson]

Karina - thank you for trying to make your image fit your item! What you need to keep in mind is that no two monitors on the planet will show the same color, and there's nothing you can do about it. If the red is wrong - use any sort of image processing program and change the color. Then/OR, in your eBay post, simply describe the color as it is. There's no need to panic or sweat it :) It sounds as though you may be using flash - if so, get out in natural light and turn off the flash. Or, having just looked yoru camera up -- change the white balance. Your camera should have no trouble getting the red right, you just need to play with it.

[robin_sibson1]

You surely know that the advice with digital cameras is 'expose to the right' - that is, make full use of the dynamic range by exposing so that highlights are not quite clipped. What is often not made clear is that clipping has to be avoided in each of the red, green, and blue channels - people tend to think of bright white objects as the problem. In fact it is perfectly possible for a strong colour to produce clipping in one channel but perfectly acceptable exposure in the others, and the red channel is particularly vulnerable. When this happens, the bright red object will be represented with too little red relative to green and blue, and the character of the colour will change from, say, scarlet to pimiento. Only very saturated colours are affected, and all colours that do not hit the clipping limit will appear normal. I encounter this problem quite frequently in botanical work with very vivid red flower colours, and to a lesser extent with vivid blues.

 

What to do, IF this is indeed the problem, which it may or may not be? First, assuming your camera has RAW more, use it. You'll need to do colour adjustments for which 8-bit JPEG colour data is inadequate. Then process the images in a utility like Photoshop Elements that allows you to display burnout if it has happened in any channel, and to work, at least to the extent needed here, with 16-bit colour data. Reduce exposure until the red channel no longer burns out, then juggle with the tone curves to produce an acceptable web image. If that doesn't work, you may need a camera with a sensor with more dynamic range.