Reds with bluish tinge

[snapper]

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.

[Canis Vulpes]

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.

[robski]

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.

[Roy Ledgerton]

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.

[Roy Ledgerton]

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

Regards

Roy.

[Roy Ledgerton]

Hi Chris

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

Regards

Roy