Colour editing: What's the difference between muted and desaturated?...

Tom Pinchenzo

Tom Pinchenzo

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I'm thinking Portra style lovely muted tones verses miserable grey desaturation.

It seems both 'muted' and 'desaturated' are the opposite of 'saturated' but they're very different qualities. Is it just that some tones are desaturated but not others?

Anyone have any thoughts?
 
Separate it out. Tone refers to the range from light to dark. The full range of tones might not always be present. Contrast is also a tonal variable.

Colours can vary in saturation.
 
To me, saturation is the level of colour that I control while muted is my perception of the colour intensity, often in the context of other colours & the images stylistic and artistic qualities.
 
Ok, I think the word 'tones' was the wrong one. I think I meant colour palette.

Putting it another way, in reference to colour, 'muted' and 'desaturated' mean the same thing (I just googled it to be sure) but the kind of colour palette people are referring to when they say 'muted' is very different to a desaturated. If you just pull down the saturation slider you get a cold, gritty, not very warm and fuzzy image. Contrasted with, say, Portra film, which is often described as 'muted' but it's a very different look.
 
I suspect Portra displays some hues more dominantly, while others are less intense. Never used it myself.
 
Not sure this answers your q but..... Think of a wheel that can slide along an axle. The full range of intense colours (hues) is arranged around the rim of the wheel. Along the length of the axle, the axle changes from white to black (lightness, brightness). Saturation is the degree you move out from the black/shades of grey/ white of the axle mixing any given hue with it. Thus desaturation (moving in towards the axle from pure, fully saturated, hue) can involve going towards grey but can also involve going towards white, which will obviously look very different. In other words, desaturation isn't just one effect - it depends on whether you're adding black, grey or white to the colour.
 
Tom Pinchenzo said:
I'm thinking Portra style lovely muted tones verses miserable grey desaturation.

It seems both 'muted' and 'desaturated' are the opposite of 'saturated' but they're very different qualities. Is it just that some tones are desaturated but not others?

Anyone have any thoughts?
Click to expand...
I would have said it was down to terminology, and both expressions have a similar meaning.
I wouldn't say they have very different qualities.
Just because a colour is desaturated doesn't mean it is "miserable grey" just that the colour is less intense, which to me, is another way of saying "muted."
 
Muted, to me, is a connection between the colour and the tones - that is to say, it's a reduced contrast (perhaps no blacks or whites in the image) and slightly desaturated, or moving colours into similar bands (eg making reds more orange to reduce the colour palette of the image).
 
Difficult question to answer so this is my interpretation:
Others will probably disagree ;)

I would say in this image, the colours are "Muted" as it was taken pre-dawn before the sun came up.
Dunnottar Castle by Mike Stephen, on Flickr


I'd say this was "Desaturated" as the natural colours aren't as vibrant as they were on the day.
A wee experiment blending a colour and mono image with 50% opacity.
Footdee by Mike Stephen, on Flickr
 
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mstphoto said:
Difficult question to answer so this is my interpretation:
Others will probably disagree ;)

I would say in this image, the colours are "Muted" as it was taken pre-dawn before the sun came up.
Dunnottar Castle by Mike Stephen, on Flickr


I'd say this was "Desaturated" as the natural colours aren't as vibrant as they were on the day.
A wee experiment blending a colour and mono image with 50% opacity.
Footdee by Mike Stephen, on Flickr
Click to expand...

Mike, your photos demonstrate my point quite well. I think I’m slowly getting my head around it - I think whole muted and desaturated effectively mean the same thing muted tends to be used when there is a dominance of warmer tones. I think my example of portra has low saturation but dominance of warm tones, making it more pleasing.
 
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