Struggling with Digital - Washed out etccccc

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Prince-Myshkin

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Ed
Edit My Images
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Good afternoon all

I made the transition do a digital SLR after forcing myself to learn with a film camera a few months back. I initially bought a d3000 and am now looking to upgrade to a d80 or d90. Whilst I have enjoyed the whole digital expereince so to speak, I can't help but feel slightly disapointed with many of the photos i take.

Compared to the results I had with film, many of my pictures look very 'washed out' and bland, a world away from the sharp and brilliant colours I see on flickr, seemingly using the same equipment. To counter this I have set about changing settings on the camera. I often boost the contrast and saturation, stick the white balance to cloudy, and use the colour balance tool once the photo has been recorded. The product is undeniably warmer colours and tones, yet due to the techniques used the photos have a certain yellowish and fake look. They are not bright and true like I would would! 1. I'm not sure whether i should be leaving the settings as they are, or whether this playing around with them is normal

Moving on from this, it has occurred to me that perhaps I am expecting too much from the initial image, and that a great deal of the effects seen in other people's work is due to sound post processing on photoshop or likewise. I haven't tried my hand at PS shop, liking to think that the fault lies more with me, but perhaps it is necessary in order to get really good photos. In essesnce 2. Is photoshop required for really sharp and bright photos
 
are you shooting raw or jpeg? all raw files need processing to some degree, with jpeg the camera does this processing. I personally think you have to use PP to get a picture to where you want it.

you should really post a pic to show us what 'washed out' means to
 
:LOL: what you need is a Velvia setting for the camera * :LOL:

I'm not familiar with the D3000, but on my Canon 450D there are different "Picture Styles" which apply a similar kind of effect to changing film - the Portrait setting is similar ot Kodak Portra - gentler tones and slightly lower contrast, Landscape is a bit like velvia only not quite as wild and so on. I tend to shoot RAW+jpeg, the jpeg file gets the picture style applied which you can get a feel for things, then the RAW allows you to make adjustments in CS5 to suit the image. Most RAW files straight out of the camera look pretty flat, slightly soft and overall a bit "mehhh" but they're the equivalent of a flat negative, a little bit of darkroom (or Lightroom :LOL:) genius is all it takes to make a stunning shot.




* actually - i think that the Fuji FX-S5 Pro had just that - a series of film simulation modes that more or less corresponded to various Fujichrome films.
 
cannockwolf said:
are you shooting raw or jpeg? all raw files need processing to some degree, with jpeg the camera does this processing. I personally think you have to use PP to get a picture to where you want it.

you should really post a pic to show us what 'washed out' means to
Click to expand...

Usually shooting in the highest quality JPEG on offer. Shot a couple in raw in order to try my hand on PS but haven't got round to it yet!

How do I put a put photo in a post:(!

Thanks for the comparisons TheBigYin! I usually shoot in A but maybe I should make better use of the programme settings as they're there. In A/P/M do you leave the contrast etc on Auto then, rather than set your own preferences?
 
Prince-Myshkin said:
Usually shooting in the highest quality JPEG on offer. Shot a couple in raw in order to try my hand on PS but haven't got round to it yet!

How do I put a put photo in a post:(!

Thanks for the comparisons TheBigYin! I usually shoot in A but maybe I should make better use of the programme settings as they're there. In A/P/M do you leave the contrast etc on Auto then, rather than set your own preferences?
Click to expand...

I do tend to shoot RAW+Jpeg, with an appropriate picture style setting, everything else set "flat" other than white balance - either Auto if I'm feeling lazy or Manual White Balance if i've got my Expodisc clone with me.
 
TheBigYin said:
:LOL: what you need is a Velvia setting for the camera * :LOL:

* actually - i think that the Fuji FX-S5 Pro had just that - a series of film simulation modes that more or less corresponded to various Fujichrome films.
Click to expand...

Correct. One of the main reasons why I still haven't "upgraded" from mine. Nothing's come close enough to warrant it!
 
In your D3000 in the picture settings there should be a setting there marked Vivid, this will make the photos pop but it maybe too much.
 




1st taken with normal settings

2nd taken with white balance pushed to Cloudy, contrast boost and sharpening boost

I prefer the 2nd but it is too 'yellowish'!
 
Myshkin, the fact it looks washed out might have something to do with the fact you took a picture of some greyish brown objects under what appears to be incredibly diffuse cloudy light :)
What you're seeing on Flickr is the result of either 1) Waiting for better light or 2) Crafty post processing, or a combination of both.
 
The edited one does look rather yellowish and I suspect it bears little resemblance to the original scene you saw?

The question though is what was it you saw in this scene that you wanted to capture - and I suppose a large element of what you saw was the very drab nature of those old abandoned chairs in that setting? That being the case you've certainly captured the drabness of it all, but beyond that we need the image to succeed as an interesting photograph.

This is with the contrast and colour saturation boosted, and sharpening applied...

4787754311_9a72afd011_o.jpg


THe other thing you need to understand is that unless you processed your own films, then someone else made similar decisions at the printing stage as you're now required to make in digital editing. Digital just requires a different way of going about adjustments that were previously made in the darkroom.

Instead of shooting off a roll of film and leaving someone else to sort out the developing and printing, you're now looking at your digital images and wondering why they aren't the 'done deal' that your prints were. Editing is an essential part of photography whether it's done in the darkroom or on your computer, and it's something you need to get to grips with if you want to make the most of your new camera, but it's not a race - take your time - most of the adjustments your images require will be pretty simple ones like the ones I've made here. :)
 
There are a lot of free photo editors eg Photoscape, Silkypix, GIMP that are worth a try.

Also suggest you don't change your camera just yet.

Dave
 
CT said:
THe other thing you need to understand is that unless you processed your own films, then someone else made similar decisions at the printing stage as you're now required to make in digital editing. Digital just requires a different way of going about adjustments that were previously made in the darkroom.

Instead of shooting off a roll of film and leaving someone else to sort out the developing and printing, you're now looking at your digital images and wondering why they aren't the 'done deal' that your prints were. Editing is an essential part of photography whether it's done in the darkroom or on your computer, and it's something you need to get to grips with if you want to make the most of your new camera, but it's not a race - take your time - most of the adjustments your images require will be pretty simple ones like the ones I've made here. :)
Click to expand...

Very interesting point.
 
Thanks Prince for posting this, you are not alone, I am having exactly the same problems. I thought it was me, I hadn't really taken into account the way a photo is processed. Thanks guys for all the replies too - very useful, looks like I had better do some processing tutorials!! :)
 
Hi Myshkin, first of all I dont think you are the first one with this problem :) I remember when I first bought my 450D I felt dissapointed, after keeping with it for a few months I still felt I needed to improve the quality of my pictures and upgraded. Not a complete mistake as the 50D did have a couple of more useful features for my needs, however I learnt that the quality was down to understanding a bit more about processing, something that I am still learning about.

Like CT mentions, how your finished picture looks depends entirely on how you remember it looking. When we capture an image on camera we also have a backup of that image in our heads, only you can interpret that when it comes to the editing stage. Here is another version, but I think when you come across a place like this you are also taking in the mood of a wider scene, the mood of things is what we want to capture as well and this is where it becomes difficult imo. You have now narrowed it down to three chairs against an old shed face on. I am no expert but maybe a different angle might have helped in these circumstances. Not sure if you can return to this location but experiment with moving the chairs, put some distance between the chairs and background and give yourself a shallow dof.

Chairs.jpg
 
http://www.nikondigitutor.com/index_eng.html

Take a look at this link and click on your camera. This is the official Nikon demo (video) site to help show all about your camera. It doesn't cover everything on each camera but may help you decide where your going wrong, or what the other cameras in the lineup can do.

Realspeed
 
Shoot in RAW and then use the vibrance function in Photoshop. It's essentially the processing the camera does when it converts it to JPEG, but you get to do it yourself in your own time.
 
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