Make Your Colors "Pop"

Click to enlarge (20120318_134251_nl_b_lr3_epl1)
Olympus E-PL1, 14-42mm II at 22mm,
1/160 second f/5 ISO 200. A "Normal, Large" JPEG.

In recent months-years, it seemed to me that many other photographer's shots seem to have that "spice" to them that mine seemed to lack. A fellow photographer (whom I sold my original Nikon D40 to in 2009, in fact) pointed out the reason--I needed for the colors to "pop."

It's funny--I had expended so much effort trying to make the colors "right" (not a bad thing in & of itself), especially in terms of using the "eye-drop" white balance tool for RAW files, that I had not really thought about the possibilities and, in fact, dismissed the comment initially. After awhile, though, I decided to try it out, and I must say, I really like the results.

The attached photo shows a "before & after" of such a recent shot, my shot Adrian playing putt-putt at Fire Mountain in Tyler near his 3rd birthday last March. The "before" shot is probably more "correct" in terms of its colors, but the after--it really "jumps out at you," yet (to me) does so without seeming artificially "jacked up" or "cartoonish." That is one element to remember in this--you don't want to overdo it and have the shots end up looking totally ridiculous in the process.

In this case, I used a set of Lightroom 3.5 presets that easily do this for you in an instant; however, with this photo, the preset was too strong and "cartoonish," in my opinion.¹ The problem: Lightroom 3 doesn't allow you to vary the strength (or "opacity") of a preset action, though--it's all or nothing. The workaround (which I found by a Yahoo! search):

• I did an "export" of the image with no parameters changed
• I applied the preset, did another export under a similar (but different) name
• I opened both files in Photoshop (CS, yes, I'm cheap, ha ha)
• I navigated to the "window" of the edited version
• I did "Select...All" then "Copy"
• I navigated to the "window" of the original, then did "Edit...Paste"
• The image now looked like the edit, but with the "layers" palette now visible, & with the option to vary the "opacity" (it defaulted to 100%), I simply varied the setting up & down until it looked right
• I then did "flatten image" under the "layer" menu
   

That's it!

So try it sometime, you may find that giving a little "pop" to the colours in your photographs (but again, don't overdo it and make them appear "cartoonish") can really add some "spice" to your photographs.

(And to my original D40's new owner, thank you for the tip!)

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¹The presets were created by a photographer (Oh So Posh) who shoots with a Nikon D700, a camera that typically has very "neutral" colors by default. However, this image was shot with my Olympus E-PL1, which is known to have more "punchy" default parameters by default. This probably explains why it was too strong here--I have noticed that the action's settings are more appropriate as-is when I apply them to the RAW files from my Nikon D5100.