Email: brqyvn@gmail.com
Hi Pentaxian friends.
I don't know if it's just me, but it seems that photographs are, more often than not, over saturated these days. It is so much that way that camera makers over saturate their JPEG images right out of the camera. To top it off, reviewers praise manufacturers for doing so and condemn the brands that produces natural looking images, calling them soft. I think they confuse natural looking images with soft looking images. If you read this, you likely use Pentax equipment which has always been accused of producing soft images in JPEG mode out of the camera. (We, Pentax users, all know that the saturation and clarity and numerous other presets are left for us to change... to our taste.)
Who am I to make judgment on what the general public like or perceive as being a great image or clear image? I look at images on various forums and some of the pictures are so over saturated that they look like someone poured varnish over them. I find myself doing the same at time. Images should look like our human eyes see them. If the real world would look like some images posted on various sites, we would have to wear shades all the time.
Best Regards,
Yvon Bourque
Hi Pentaxian friends.
I don't know if it's just me, but it seems that photographs are, more often than not, over saturated these days. It is so much that way that camera makers over saturate their JPEG images right out of the camera. To top it off, reviewers praise manufacturers for doing so and condemn the brands that produces natural looking images, calling them soft. I think they confuse natural looking images with soft looking images. If you read this, you likely use Pentax equipment which has always been accused of producing soft images in JPEG mode out of the camera. (We, Pentax users, all know that the saturation and clarity and numerous other presets are left for us to change... to our taste.)
Who am I to make judgment on what the general public like or perceive as being a great image or clear image? I look at images on various forums and some of the pictures are so over saturated that they look like someone poured varnish over them. I find myself doing the same at time. Images should look like our human eyes see them. If the real world would look like some images posted on various sites, we would have to wear shades all the time.
 |
| As captured by the camera |
 |
| Over saturated |
 |
| Under saturated |
 |
| As captured by the camera |
Over saturated
Under saturated
That said, if over saturation is viewed as an artistic expression, maybe you should try under saturation for a different artistic expression. The images herein were taken with Pentax cameras and each set has an image as produced by the camera, one over saturated and one under saturated. All images are good images in my opinion, they just convey different feelings. What do you think?Best Regards,
Yvon Bourque
8 comments:
Not only saturation, but I think the appropriate use of contrast is related.
In fact, you can often improve an image more by a slight increase in contrast, rather than the un-natural saturation boost.
Kym, you are right. I use contrast, clarity and vibrance to achieve the most natural look without making my images cartoonish. I use Lightroom V.3 and shoot mostly RAW.
I'm with Kym on this. Calling your adjustment just over or under saturation is over-simplification. There's too many other adjustments involved for your samples to be representative of saturation changes.
Michael,
I agree as well, but for illustration purposes, it was easier to show an out-of-camera image, then one with over saturation (and other changes as well), but definitely over saturated, and the same for the under saturated pictures. The point I'm trying to convey is that we all tend to manipulate images to where they don't really look like natural scenes. Then again, we can call that artistic expression.
I call it digital art and yes it is artistic expression. I would love to paint but I have problems drawing. At least playing with different settings permits me and others like me to express themselves artistically through A0 the eye of the camera and then 2) technology..
Jean Claude,
I'm on your side. Whatever pleases you is okay. Again, my point is that today, including myself, we tend to manipulate our images with tools that sometimes makes the pictures over saturated (over simplified) or even look cartoonish. If that's what you are looking for, that's great. If what we want to do is represent a place or image the way it looked in real life, we should make it look like it looked in real life.
Doing one, the other or a bit of both is what makes photography such a beautiful art...
Freezing that moment in time...
I agree with you. Saturation is so pumped up nowadays by photographers. Not only that, they seem over-bright in my opinion. If we were to see that sort of skin brightness in images on the web in real life, we would need sunglasses.
Post a Comment