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General discussion

Photographing the color purple

Nov 2, 2004 1:38AM PST

I own an Olympus D-560. It works very well except dark purples that are slightly on the blue side, especially in flowers. The camera shows those purples as blue, even on the LCD after the shot. I've tried all the White Balance options and both indoors and outdoors. I've used 4 different software packages. I've printed out blocks of various purples and photographed the print out with the same results. Is there some other trick? Other than a new camera? I'm looking at the C-5060.

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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 2, 2004 1:50AM PST
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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 2, 2004 4:47AM PST

I do not believe either my monitor/computer, etc is the problem. I believe the camera is the problem. Given a particular iris, another photographer, with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828 takes the shot with perfect purple and my monitor/computer handle that shot fine. However, I can't affort the F828 and wondered if there were other adjustments I could make to my D-560 or whether the C-5060 would do as good a job on color as the F828.

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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 2, 2004 4:53AM PST

" However, I can't affort the F828 and wondered if there were other adjustments I could make to my D-560 or whether the C-5060 would do as good a job on color as the F828. "

No. The LCD is a costly part of the camera and it is an area where you'll see the first compromises. You may not find what you want at the price you want due to this issue. I'd consider that the LCD is just a preview device to let you see if you got the shot and to delete what you don't want in the field.

Bob

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Addendum. Try the Pantone unit.
Nov 2, 2004 4:58AM PST

I've seen it improve lackluster camera images.

Bob

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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 2, 2004 3:59AM PST

With Adobe Photoshop Elements 2, you can choose:
Enhance - Adjust Color - Hue/Saturation

The window that comes up has a box at the top that is labeled "Edit" and is set to "Master". Try setting the Edit window to Red and increase the red saturation just a bit. If that doesn't get what you want, try desaturating blue a bit.

There are a number of controls on that page, play around and see what you can accomplish. If all else fails, click the Help button in that window.

.....

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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 2, 2004 4:56AM PST

Corel PhotoPaint can do the same with the controls you mention. However, to get it right requires using a mask of the petals in question and then changing the hue on the masked area. Otherwise you get reddish green foilage. I can do this and arrive at the correct results, but I'd rather have the camera do purple correctly the first time. As I mentioned in another response, the Sony...F828 photographs the purples in question correctly. I can't afford that, and would perfer to manage the D-560 or go a step up in camera to the Olympus C-5060 or other camera which could correctly photograph the color.

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Re: Photographing the color purple
Nov 9, 2004 12:44AM PST

I don't have a "magic bullet", but last night my wife and I were struggling very hard to get a good photo of a purple wool coat she is selling on Ebay. (We have a Canon G3) We have a softbox with a tungsten light, and even with "proper" white balance (which turns out very good pictures otherwise) the coat always came out blue-ish.

The only thing we could do is go into Color Balance in Photoshop and adjust. For what it's worth here's what we adjusted:
- In midtone reduce Red greatly (-50) and increase Blue moderately (+20)
- In shadows reduce Red moderately (-20)

Other than purple our camera works great.