(embiggenable) • iPhone
before LAB curves adjustment ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
after LAB curves adjustment ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
ON THE SUBJECT OF GREEN IN MY LAST ENTRY Thomas Rink commented (partial):
At times, I find it difficult to make the green of vegetation look "right" in pictures....
my response:
CAVEAT It should be noted that my response is predicated upon my experience with my picture making devices (iPhone / Olympus µ4/3 cameras) and the manner in which they "see" color. And, re: devices "seeing" color, all camera / device manufacturers' picture making software has their own unique manner of turning digital information into color. Just as various makers' film did in the analog days.
In my experience, I have found that, in general, both my Olympus cameras and my iPhone (to a lesser extent) seem to have what has been descibed by reviewers as an ever so slight warm color bias. And I notice that bias most in pictures with a lot of green wherein the greens, to my eye and sensibilities, contain a bit too much yellow. The result is that, in cases where there are multiple shades of green, the greens can start to kinda blend together, color wise.
I discovered a solution to this issue way back when I started messing around with color adjustments in LAB color space. The solution, for my image files, is as simple as it gets ...
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... after converting an image to LAB color space, I go to the "b" channel (Yellow/ Blue) and put an anchor point at the 0 input/0 output point (the exact center of the curves line). Then I put an anchor point on the yellow side of the curves line (above the 0/0 anchor point and drag it downward until, using my monitor as a visual guide, the greens look as I remember them from when I made the picture. Then I add another anchor point at the top of the curves line to straighten the line between the 2 anchor points.
Next, I go the "a" channel (red/green) and place an anchor at the 0/0 point on the curves line. Then I add an anchor point in the green side of the curves line (below the 0/0 point) and drag it up (adding magenta) ever so slightly, again using my monitor as a visual guide to determine whether I need to make this adjustment - sometimes I do, sometimes I do not. Many times the "b" channel adjustment is all an image file needs. In any event, I then convert the image file back to RGB color space.
What I see most from the above process is that, especially once the yellow is adjusted, there are more shades of green and, over all, the greens look more "accurate". I have provided before / after pictures so, if you are viewing them on a reasonably calibrated monitor / screen, you can judge for yourself.