Reds with bluish tinge
 

Red flowers always have a marked bluish tinge. I use a Panasonic FZ20. Other images such as landscapes, birds etc do not show this effect. I have searched the instruction book to no avail. I assume there are camera settings which will solve this problem. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks in advance.

Roy

Could you please post some sample examples so we can see the issue

This is a typical example of the problem. The flower - a Pyramidal orchid was much redder. Hope the file is attached. Not sure if I have followed the correct procedure.

No photograph to be seen! However, I seem to remember reading somewhere that certain flowers reflect wavelenths that we can not see but film/sensors can and this shows up in the image when on screen or printed.

Roger, could you please attach an example or upload a sample to the gallery so we can view the issue described.

Second try at attaching a photo showing bluish tinge to basically red flower. If unsuccesful would appreciate advice on how to do it.

Roy

Sorry Roy, still no pic. When you compose your post, select "go advanced" and if you scroll down below the text entry box, you should see a range of options below, one of which is marked "manage attachments", click on this and click on the "browse" button in the dialogue box presented. Find the file you wish to attach on your computer and then select the "upload" button in the manage attachments dialogue box. Remember that attachments should not really be bigger than 1024 pixels max dimension and no bigger than 200kB file size ideally. You should resize your picture befor you upload it if it is bigger than this.

Duncan

Thanks Duncan. Third time lucky - fingers etc crossed.

Roy

I played with your photo in Photoshop reducing the blues & reds actually and I could not see any real discernible difference between the two.

Now maybe it's my monitor but this looks more lilac in color than blue. Am I seeing a different color than everyone else?

Yes it looks lilac to me too. If there are a few strong colours in the scene it can often bias the Auto White balance in the wrong direction. I often include part of a grey card in the corner of the frame if I want Colour accuracy.

Certainly looks lilac on my screen too (probably the screen)! Can't really add much to your query except that I find it difficult to get accurate colour rendition of flowers. Many gardening catalogues these days will have an "escape clause" stating that there may be colour variance when your new prized ..... flowers! They usually blame this on the difficulty in capturing the true colour due to the printing process. You would be aware of the terrific difference in colours recorded depending on time of day.

The eye is not too sensitive to colour when compared with luminance but when it comes to colour looking right to the brain it will notice colour shift faster on natural colours that are expected in the location of that person. I am a white European male and I understand my brain will notice greens and white/pink flesh tones before anything else. The green background looks correct on three monitors I use through a day, If I am being picky then I would advise to increase red channel no more than 5 in photoshop which will not make that lilac Royal Mail red.

Edit: I understand 90% of the Worlds white male population is to some degree green/red colour blind. For this reason the company I work for changed product markings from red/green to red/blue for eject tabs that need to be pushed in sequence to eject the product from its cradle.

You can also get a hugh difference in recorded flower colour between shooting in the shade to direct sun light.

I am lucky on the colour blind front - 10% of males have the genetic fault where they are completely colour blind and see red/green as grey.

Yes I agree lilac is a more accurate description. The camera was set on auto white balance. Metering was centre-weighted. The photo was taken at about 7pm. I have played around with colour balance in PaintShopPro ver.7 and the attached is the closest I can get to the true colour of the flower head. I shall try using a grey card next time. Many thanks to everyone who have responded with advice.

Roy

My experience with FZ7, which may have a similar internal set up to FZ20 is that poor exposure can affect colour quite a lot. If you have same EV± function as FZ (not the EV bias, next setting 'up'), it will automatically take 3 exposures with what it regards as the correct one in the middle and ±1/3 or 2/3 or whatever you set the bracket to. If this does not cure, you can also manually set the colour balance towards red or blue. Personally I don't find that helpful; much better done under your control in post-processing as you did above. Sorry only just spotted this thread.

Thanks Chris. I'll try taking a group of three as you suggest.

Regards

Roy.

Hi Chris

Just tried your suggestion to auto bracket. It has produced acceptable results. Thanks again.

Regards

Roy