Lost Colour

W
Posted By
wilkie
Aug 31, 2005
Views
529
Replies
5
Status
Closed
First, I’m no expert, so I don’t know what I’ve done. I just purchased Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Book for digital Photographers, and it’s got a bunch of really neat info. However, when I went to the print at my local lab (twice at two locations), my images were so dull and dark and colourless, I fear I’ve messed up my whole system.

In the book, he tells you to make a couple of adjustments. First, to switch the RGB colour space to Adobe RGB (1998). Second, he asks us to change the auto colour algorithm throught the levels dialogue/auto/find dark & light colours and change the target colours as follows:

Shadows: R=20, G=20, B=20
Midtones: R=128, G=128, B=128
Highlights: R=240, G=240 B=240.

These values are also recommended when colour correcting using curcves, which he guides us through.

So after making all these changes, my output was, well, awfull.

Have I screwed up my photos? Did I set my settings for the wrong output? Should I re-install Photoshop and go back to the factory presets, which, frankly, seemed OK to me?
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TN
Tom Nelson
Aug 31, 2005
A wide-gamut colorspace like Adobe RGB will look dull when reduced to the printer’s colorspace. You’re generating colors the printer can’t reproduce, so it squeezes all tones together to fit them into its view of the world.

You’re better off generating an sRGB version and increasing the saturation and/or contrast to your taste before trying to print it.

FWIW I agree about changing the Auto Colors defaults. Just keep in mind that Auto Colors. Auto Colors and the like do not do a good job of optimizing tones in many photos. You’re best advised to learn Curves.

Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

In article ,
wrote:

First, I’m no expert, so I don’t know what I’ve done. I just purchased Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Book for digital Photographers, and it’s got a bunch of really neat info. However, when I went to the print at my local lab (twice at two locations), my images were so dull and dark and colourless, I fear I’ve messed up my whole system.

In the book, he tells you to make a couple of adjustments. First, to switch the RGB colour space to Adobe RGB (1998). Second, he asks us to change the auto colour algorithm throught the levels dialogue/auto/find dark & light colours and change the target colours as follows:
Shadows: R=20, G=20, B=20
Midtones: R=128, G=128, B=128
Highlights: R=240, G=240 B=240.

These values are also recommended when colour correcting using curcves, which he guides us through.

So after making all these changes, my output was, well, awfull.
Have I screwed up my photos? Did I set my settings for the wrong output? Should I re-install Photoshop and go back to the factory presets, which, frankly, seemed OK to me?
W
wilkie
Sep 1, 2005
Thanks for the reply. While we’re on the topic, here’s a real dumb newbie question: I know you don’t recommend it, but if I hit auto color, it seems to affect color and contrast (i.e., levels?). If I hit auto levels, it seems to affect just the contrast, but not the color. Just for argument’s sake, if I wanted a one-stop adjustment, would I sinmply use auto colors, auto levels, or both?
TN
Tom Nelson
Sep 1, 2005
From Photoshop Help:
The Auto Levels command automatically adjusts the black point and white point in an image. This clips a portion of the shadows and highlights in each channel and maps the lightest and darkest pixels in each color channel to pure white (level 255) and pure black (level 0). The intermediate pixel values are redistributed proportionately. As a result, using Auto Levels increases the contrast in an image because the pixel values are expanded. Because Auto Levels adjusts each color channel individually, it may remove color or introduce color casts.

The Auto Color command adjusts the contrast and color of an image by searching the image to identify shadows, midtones, and highlights. By default, Auto Color neutralizes the midtones using a target color of RGB 128 gray and clips the shadows and highlight pixels by 0.5%.

In article ,
wilkie wrote:

Thanks for the reply. While we’re on the topic, here’s a real dumb newbie question: I know you don’t recommend it, but if I hit auto color, it seems to affect color and contrast (i.e., levels?). If I hit auto levels, it seems to affect just the contrast, but not the color. Just for argument’s sake, if I wanted a one-stop adjustment, would I sinmply use auto colors, auto levels, or both?
S
saswss
Sep 1, 2005
In article ,
writes:
First, I’m no expert, so I don’t know what I’ve done. I just purchased Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Book for digital Photographers, and it’s got a bunch of really neat info. However, when I went to the print at my local lab (twice at two locations), my images were so dull and dark and colourless, I fear I’ve messed up my whole system.

In the book, he tells you to make a couple of adjustments. First, to switch the RGB colour space to Adobe RGB (1998). …

This is good advice.
Perhaps you are not saving the color profile in your image files. Or perhaps your lab is not using the color profile.

—

Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.
R
Roberto
Sep 2, 2005
wilkie wrote:
Thanks for the reply. While we’re on the topic, here’s a real dumb newbie question: I know you don’t recommend it, but if I hit auto color, it seems to affect color and contrast (i.e., levels?). If I hit auto levels, it seems to affect just the contrast, but not the color. Just for argument’s sake, if I wanted a one-stop adjustment, would I sinmply use auto colors, auto levels, or both?

If you really want only a quick "one stop" type adjustment I would suggest you try Auto Contrast, Auto Color only if you need to neutralize a color cast, and if images are too dark, adjust midpoint via curves or levels (the one-stop method being to use levels to move midpoint towards 0).

There’s some good info on setting up and using auto color in Bruce Fraser’s article on creativepro.com:

www.creativepro.com/story/feature/17164-1.html

Bob Shomler
www.shomler.com

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