Washed out images
Digital Cameras, SLRs, and getting that perfect picture in Photoshop.
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Washed out imagesI'm using a CANON 500D with the standard lens and have been for some time now, it takes good photos but they never seem to capture the warmth of the scene and a lot of the images can look bland because of it; is this something that can be solved with a different lens or settings or is post-production editing necessary?
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Re: Washed out imagesSeeing some of these photos would help, but it sounds like a combination of wrong white balance and low contrast. To combat both of these, use a lens hood and take your photos in raw format; the lens hood cuts out extraneous light, and in raw format you can change the white balance (I always leave mine on auto and change it later if needs be) and bump up the contrast, as well as change colour balance.(Original post by Tateco)
I'm using a CANON 500D with the standard lens and have been for some time now, it takes good photos but they never seem to capture the warmth of the scene and a lot of the images can look bland because of it; is this something that can be solved with a different lens or settings or is post-production editing necessary?
Cameras don't take great photos, you often find they need some processing. -
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Re: Washed out images(Original post by DanBrwn)
Its probably your white balance. As for the washed out part, use a lens hood to increase contrast.
If not you just need to turn the colour temperature and contrast up in Adobe Camera RAW or something similar
I use a lens hood, they aren't majorly washed out but just don't seem to have the colour I would expect, maybe I'm just expecting too much from an unedited image!(Original post by TheSownRose)
Seeing some of these photos would help, but it sounds like a combination of wrong white balance and low contrast. To combat both of these, use a lens hood and take your photos in raw format; the lens hood cuts out extraneous light, and in raw format you can change the white balance (I always leave mine on auto and change it later if needs be) and bump up the contrast, as well as change colour balance.
Cameras don't take great photos, you often find they need some processing. -
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Re: Washed out imagesPerhaps...(Original post by Tateco)
I use a lens hood, they aren't majorly washed out but just don't seem to have the colour I would expect, maybe I'm just expecting too much from an unedited image!
Post a couple up, it'll be easier to figure out if it's just how an unedited image looks or if you can do something before processing if we can see some examples. -
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Re: Washed out imagesAre you shooting in RAW or jpeg ?(Original post by Tateco)
I'm using a CANON 500D with the standard lens and have been for some time now, it takes good photos but they never seem to capture the warmth of the scene and a lot of the images can look bland because of it; is this something that can be solved with a different lens or settings or is post-production editing necessary?
What are your picture controls (or whatever Canon calls them) set to ?
Is there a relationship between the shots you do not like and ISO used ? Even with the best cameras in the world colour depth, tonal range and dynamic range drop off (sometimes pretty dam quickly) as the ISO goes up. Any on camera noise reduction will tend to wash them out a bit too. Similar to the way our eyes lose all those things as light levels drop, till eventually everything is black and white.
Also white balance as Dan states. Most cameras are crap under artificial lighting, without flash, add in higher ISO to boot on some bodies and disaster looms. -
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Re: Washed out imagesDo these images appear washed out when viewing them on your computer, or when viewing them on a website (e.g. Facebook, Flickr)? If it's the latter, you may have set your colour space to Adobe RGB. Changing it to sRGB will help rectify the problem.
