Lightroom blues

OK,

I am a macro specialist, and I love Lightroom for that purpose. For the one time a year I get to shoot blue water, I am struggling with getting decent results for the blues. Made a preset; looks ok but is a bit intense. Then of course comes the shift from ProPhoto to sRGB for the web and all %ell breaks loose, and I get the washed out purple cast. I know why...gamut and all, but how to avoid and fix it is the issue. I have CS4 in Prophoto colour space, but have tried it in Adobe RGB as well...should I be exporting to convert to jpeg/sRBG rather than "Edit in Photoshop"??

Any hints would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Marli

What profile are you using in develop, camera calibration? I was having trouble until I switched to the setting made for my D2X.

Now it looks more like the Nikon blue I'm use to.

Todd

Yup, concur with the above-the nikon presets make a huge difference.

Adam

I actually do use a camera calibration for the D2X (Mode III). The problem isn't within Lightroom itself, nor exporting to Adobe RGB, it is when I export to jpeg for web use. As the gamut is so large in ProColour, when I export, all the blue info disappears, and I am left with a disgusting pale mauvey blue. The "emerald sea" greens from BC stuff also wash out. I can't get them back in Photoshop, as the info is gone....Is there a better way to process stuff for web use? Should I forget Lightroom, and work in PS?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Marli

I actually do use a camera calibration for the D2X (Mode III). The problem isn't within Lightroom itself, nor exporting to Adobe RGB, it is when I export to jpeg for web use. As the gamut is so large in ProColour, when I export, all the blue info disappears, and I am left with a disgusting pale mauvey blue. The "emerald sea" greens from BC stuff also wash out. I can't get them back in Photoshop, as the info is gone....Is there a better way to process stuff for web use? Should I forget Lightroom, and work in PS?

 

Any thoughts are welcome.

 

Marli

Soft-proof your conversion to sRGB in Photoshop just like a print ... you know what I mean?

Hi Marli,

I use LR a lot for all my processing, and find that although you do of course lose some color info in conversion, I can still get good blues and or greens! The only time I get really washed out blues or greys is when my white balance is off on capture. In order to regain the colours, the WB process IN lr pulls the colours to far away from the original. I usually correct this using the hue slider.

Which version of LR are you using? What process are you using to convert your raw files to jpeg for web use?

I use Jeff Friedls plug ins for lmost all my exporting to web. If you use LR mogrify , you can specify different redering techniiques-one of these may suit you better.

Hope that helps....

Adam

The only time I get really washed out blues or greys is when my white balance is off on capture. In order to regain the colours, the WB process IN lr pulls the colours to far away from the original.

If you are shooting RAW, the white balance (at capture) is irrelevant.

Soft-proof your conversion to sRGB in Photoshop just like a print ... you know what I mean?

Actually, no, I don't know. Please illuminate me. I have tried several ways of converting to sRGB: in Photoshop (convert to profile), by exporting from LR 2.5, and even in the web area of Lightroom (that was hideous). I never had this issue with scanned slides, but then again I wasn't using Lightroom then. Here's what is really weird. The washed out file (viewed in Photoshop) looks just fine when I put it on my desktop. My monitor is calibrated with a Spyder 2 Pro. I have tried having my working space in ProPhoto, Adobe RGB and sRBG, with the same results.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, as this is very frustrating.

Cheers,

Marli

Actually, no, I don't know. Please illuminate me.

Read this ... http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...-proofing.shtml ... and instead of making a print using a printer profile at the end you are going to make an sRGB jpeg instead.

In a nutshell, you open the image in its native color space in Photoshop looking like you want ... then you make a duplicate of the image (two of the same now open) and turn on soft proofing for one to simulate the conversion to the new space - in this case sRGB. Add edits ... curves, hue/sat, levels, etc ... whatever you need to do to make the proofed version look as much like the original as you can. When done, make the sRGB jpeg using the proofed and edited version.

See if that helps a bit ... a bit of a pain, but that's the only way to control what is happening.

Thanks, Jeremy, I'll give it a try.

Cheers,

Marli

Obviously, you can adjust WB on RAW images.

However, if you sue the TAT to adjust WB in Lightroom, this will adjust the WB in the whole image, whch can result in washed out/muddy blues. This can also be true using the sliders.

If however, you get the WB right on capture, you can avoid this. Matching colour temp on strobes for example.

Best

Adam

Obviously, you can adjust WB on RAW images.

 

However, if you sue the TAT to adjust WB in Lightroom, this will adjust the WB in the whole image, whch can result in washed out/muddy blues. This can also be true using the sliders.

 

If however, you get the WB right on capture, you can avoid this. Matching colour temp on strobes for example.

Not exactly ... if you are shooting RAW, the WB setting at capture has no impact whatsoever on one's options in post when rendering an image from that data.

You do need to set the WB, but this can be done just as effectively in post as at capture - when shooting RAW, there is no difference.

I'm trying to switch over the LR from just using Bridge/Camera RAW. I too am struggling with the blues...and the auto functions.

I'm using the trial version for now so no manual;

1) Where is the preset for the camera talked about above? I need Nikon D300 and 300s

2) How do I get it to just not do anything when I look at the image. ie turn off Develop auto presets? I've changed them in prefs, even set up a "null" develop preset and told it to use it, but it still insists on do an auto develop which doesn't work out well for uw shots. I want to look at the shot exactly as it was captured and then make adjustments.

TIA,

Jack

Hey, Jack,

I still have blues issues, but only when I switch from Lightroom, which uses a Prophoto colour space, to sRGB for the web, but it's getting a bit better. Here is a video about the profiles:

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/peachpittv-for-p...mera-profiles-2

Don't expect them to be called the same thing as your camera model. You will see Nikon D2X profiles, which are mainly what I use, unless I want supersaturated colour, when I use the Vivid setting. Several will be shown in the Calibration section of the Develop module (at the bottom). I use several different ones, depending on the colour and contrast effect I desire. I have also developed presets that effect chromatic abberation, luminance, vibrance and hue shifts for different lenses and conditions. (i.e. 105 macro vs my Sigma fisheye). I also have changed the hue and saturation settings within the calibration module in each preset that I have made. These are applied when I import the photos into Lightroom. They are not a final choice..tweaking has to be done, as lighting conditions vary so much underwater.

You need to tell Lightroom do do nothing under the develop settings in the Import window when you import the images in order to bypass the annoying auto develop setting.

I highly recommend checking out Adobe TV and Scott Kelby's book, The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 book for Photographers. Then again, you might want to wait for the new version which sounds like it will be out this spring, which means CS5 will not be far behind...gotta keep Mr. Adobe in the money!

I have sent you my presets; hope they work for you.

Cheers,

Marli

I have been using Nikon Capture NX2 (and earlier) for all my processing and conversion for a long time. It has a built in understanding of the Nikon cameras and all of the color modes. It Exactly duplicates the settings of the camera itself which is very useful for RAW manipulation. When used for conversion to Jpeg, I never have these issues with altered colors or loss of detail. In fact I never really considered this problem, it just works.

I also find that it does not force a particular workflow on me or alter my file/directory based organization methods. When I have experimented with Lightroom I found this to be really frustrating. Early LR versions also had major performance problems on my 30-40k photo library...

Dave