photo session help needed, urgent!

A

alveraz

Veteran
Here's what's happening, hopefully someone can help. My sessions are suddenly losing all contrast when I post to a gallery or send via email. It looks great in CaptureNX, Picasa, windows picture viewer and in my folder on my PC. Even after I convert to jpeg.

But when I email it (jpeg) and look in the sent file, the images are flat and retaining no contrast, this never happened before, looks terrible. This is also happening when I upload them to a gallery. It also loses the contrast in quicktime picture viewer, paint and HP photosmart. It's like it retains the contrast in some places and not in others.

Is this something I did in my camera setting? I shoot in RAW, below are the setting for the current session in question...

Nikon D200
2009/06/29 08:01:00.6
Compressed RAW (12-bit)
Image Size: Large (3872 x 2592)
Color
Lens: 85mm F/1.8 D
Focal Length: 85mm
Exposure Mode: Manual
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
1/160 sec - F/2.8
Exposure Comp.: 0 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 160
Optimize Image: Custom
White Balance: Direct sunlight
AF Mode: AF-S
Flash Sync Mode: Front Curtain
Flash Mode: Built-in, Commander, i-TTL-BL
Auto Flash Comp: 0 EV
Color Mode: Mode II (Adobe RGB)
Tone Comp.: Auto
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Saturation: Enhanced
Sharpening: Auto
Image Comment:
Long Exposure NR: Off
High ISO NR: Off
Group A: TTL +1.0 EV

_______

Note:

I tested it by posting it below, all the saturation is gone! But in my folders and picasa, it looks how I edited it, with saturation. You can compare this one with my other images in the Nikon thread, much, much different.


corporateb600.jpg



Thanks for the help!
 
In the meantime, is there anyone out there that can let me shoot them two photos real quick to saturate for me? I need to send these to my client and I'm freaking out.
 
When you say it loses contrast after emailing or whatever, are you viewing it in your browser? Are you viewing it in the same format when they look fine? Color space could be the issue, but I don't know enough about the programs you mentioned to know what they read. sRGB is what you want.
 
Sounds like a color profile conflict when you save it out and a different profile where you are uploading to.

Are they sRGB?
 
Sweet. Good to see it helped. I always force the software to accept the sRGB profile just to make life easier when I start cross-overs to different outputs.
 
Yeah. I made a post a while back about how to make your browser support different color profiles. The picture above looks fine to me b/c I'm using FF with profile support enabled. Safari does this by default.
 
WaveRiderXIX said:
Sweet. Good to see it helped. I always force the software to accept the sRGB profile just to make life easier when I start cross-overs to different outputs.
Click to expand...

I'm curious how you force your software to do this. My CS2 now opens all RAW this way now, it wont go back to srgb. How do I get it to open it in srgb again? It seems as if I cant get access the color profile unless an image is uploaded, but it's in RAW so I cant access the image profile tool while the raw image is open, frustrating.
 
I think you might e confusing the types if profiles. It doesn't open them in srgb, it out puts them in that format. Just check when you save to make sure that is the right type.
 
I went back and double checked. I'm opening an image I shot in RAW (srgb) in camera setting. I'm opening it in CS2 and it immediately goes flat. Below it says its in srgb color mode (RAW viewer) but clearly it's not. The image looks fine in picture project.

Weird.
 
When you say, RAW (srgb), there is no color profile associated with the file. Only by the nature of you opening it in Adobe Camera RAW does it begin to use a profile, and that is only for display on your screen. Now, if you have specific adjustments made in camera that make the image look different than when you open it in PS, that would be due to the thumbnail the camera makes is different than the RAW file itself.

Just like your computer or browser, the camera must have a file type with an assigned color profile to display on the back of your camera. When you take a photo and it puts the picture on your LCD, it is an actual JPEG that is embedded inside the RAW file for preview purposes (half the reason RAW files are so large). The preview on your camera is not actually displaying the RAW data when you look at the LCD on your camera. Typically the JPEG that is created for preview that is embedded in the RAW file uses the same saturation, contrast, etc. setting that the camera normally would if you were shooting to JPEG only.

All that to say, if you have your camera setup so that the JPEGs look sweet out of camera, and that the saturation and contrast and everything else are tweaked, then that will be the version you see on your camera LCD. But when you actually open the image in Adobe RAW, you will only see the very raw content the sensor captured with no adjustments like the camera made to the JPEG preview that is embedded in the RAW file. So, if the color looks correct, but it is just flat and less saturated than your camera LCD, then that is normal. You just need to make all the adjustments to the setting in Adobe Camera RAW before exporting a JPEG that your camera usually makes for you when it creates the JPEGs in camera.

Now, if it is making all the colors looked jacked, skin tones look green or really hosed, then that is a color profile issue.
 
Excellent! thanks so much, Dan. The only concern is, when I open the raw file in NX, it looks great. How come NX shows it the way I see it in my display and Picture Project (all 3 great) but CS2 shows it flat? All of which are set to srgb.
 
NX is different b/c it can actually read from the RAW file what the jpeg processing settings were in camera and recreate them so you don't have to start from scratch like in any of the Adobe apps or Aperture. It's one of the reasons a lot of Nikon shooters lover NX so much.
 
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