Having to adjust Orange levels in RAW

[Maleko]

Unfortuantely I havent got any photos at work to show an example of this.


In photos that I take with orange/red levels in, when I process them in RAW the orange/red seems slightly washed out.


For example, a photo of a person when put into RAW can seem a bit greenish and washed out. I have to boost the HSL for Red in the Orange selection, well by boost orange I have to add more red in theOrange HSL Hueby bout -25 (more red than orange). this then makes the skin look more natural. It is also seen majorly in my nieces hair, as she is a proper red head, when I process it without editing the orange, the orange is washed out quite a bit.


So each time I have a photo of a person or with strong orange/red levels in it, I have to edit it. Hope that makes sense! If needs be I will upload a photo tonight.


The way I can notice is when I compare the original shot JPEG preview image to the saved JPEG from the RAW file, when you compare the2 side by side, theres a MAJOR difference.
Maybe its my lack of knowledge in RAW files, and I know the shot JPEG is only a preview, but surely it should still be a match to some extent? Why would I have to adjust the Orange levels all the time?


Im using Photoshop CS4 for RAW processing.

[Madison]

Doesn't the Photoshop raw converter include color specific saturation, hue and lightness controls? Lightroom has 'em. You *could* do it inside Photoshop itself after the RAW tweaks in Hue/Saturation and adjust the reds.

[Keith B]

The jpgs have been (over?) saturated in the camera according to the selected picture style. Especially if you use the portrait picture style. They are also too red for my liking.


The raw is going to be closer to what it actually looks like. I prefer this because I can control and fine tune the saturation myself.


If you want the jpg preview to be closer to the RAW set your picture style to Neutral. Or use Canon DPP to process your RAWs and it will apply the picture style you choose to it and it should match the jpg.

[Don Burkett]

I will add that red, orange and yellows are tough colors to reproduce exactly. You have to be very careful with your lighting.

[Madison]

I will add that red, orange and yellows are tough colors to reproduce exactly. You have to be very careful with your lighting.
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True that!

[Stratification]

You may also want to check the color space you're using, if it's set to Adobe RGB you'll almost certainly have to massage images more to get the colors you were expecting. It's easy to tell if this is the case though. If you images start with _MG then you're using Adobe, if they start with IMG then you're set to sRGB and something else is the issue.

[Maleko]

cheers for the replies guys!


i use sRGB on the camera, I found a raw file I could use to show you can example.


Here is the preview jpg image taken with the raw file on camera:





Here is how it appears after opening the raw file and saving without any edit:








Now with the adjusted orange levels to bring the wood back to more natural colour:








Unfortuantely I havent got any raw portraits to show as an example.
I guess all im after is, is this normal? or am i settign somethign wrong? It just seems to me like a drastic change in colour?