pictures looking dull

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ep82

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Hello All

Just wondering if anyone can give me some advice

I have recently noticed that when I view the photos on my computer, the pictures looks abit duller. The colours are not as bright! I dont think it's the monitor because the photos I view on this site still looks awesome. They are still sharp and some with really bright nice colours.

there are a few things which I think can be related.

1. I somehow changed the setting on my camera... Oh I have a Canon 400D. I tried looking in the settings for colour and see if I can change it to more vivid but I cant find it.

2. I have been using photoshop alot. every time I use it I have to use contrast and saturation to tweek them up. This is because I noticed it's not as sharp and colourful as it used to be. Could it be that fact I got used to editing so my normal pictures looks dull compare to it?

I normally have to use image size in photoshop and scale it down to 600 for internet use. But everytime I resize it. the picture looks really blurry and I need to sharpen it. is this normal?

Sorry for all the questions but I really want to go and take more photos but this problem has been bugging me and has been putting me off.

Oh. PS. I took some photos when I was on holiday a while back and they also look dull. The sky isnt blue, just grey.... and the colours are bland. BUT Im not sure if the sky is just dull on the days when I was there as I didnt noticed that much, or my camera just isnt picking up the colours LOL
 
Reset you camera to the factory defaults and go and test would be my first suggestion. The issue you discribe with you holiday snaps sounds like possibly a white balance issue is it set to cloudy or artificial light when it shouldn't be?
 
a1ex2001 said:
Reset you camera to the factory defaults and go and test would be my first suggestion. The issue you discribe with you holiday snaps sounds like possibly a white balance issue is it set to cloudy or artificial light when it shouldn't be?
Click to expand...

agreed... then post a shot on here to show.
You will find that most shots will need a boost in contrast to give them a little more punch anyway
 
you haven't switched from JPG to RAW have you?

RAW files out of the camera can often look dull and muddy compared to a jpg straight out of the camera. They need tweaking to get the best from them.
 
I have a similar issue, viewing via ms, firefox or picasa2 colours etc are fine but via cs2 the same pic is darker and redder.:cuckoo:
 
Slipper-one: that sounds like a colour-space issue, Id check your photoshop settings.
 
Both cases sound like it could be a colour management problem - if CS2 is managing the colour but has the wrong profile for the monitor the results will likely be poor.

Try this in CS2

View > Proof Setup > Monitor RGB
View > Proof Colors

This will turn off colour management by telling CS2 to proof to the monitor profile - in other words do nothing. If your shots suddenly look better then you need to examine what ICC profile has been assigned to your monitor. You might find it's the right one for your monitor but just not very well set up. In which case unless you want to buy a Huey or similar the simplest option is leave CS2 in proof mode. You won't be colour managed but it will at least stop CS2 from using the duff profile.
 
Don't know if this would help, I had a similar problem recently and began to panic thinking something was wrong with the camera, no matter what setting I had the camera set to on a bright day or what lens I had on each photo was very dull. I thought the camera had screwed up. Tried a different editing program from my normal one and all was ok. It turned out Photoshop CS3 had screwed up. I had to reinstall it to get it working properly again. Might be worth checking.
 
Thanks for the reply :)

I think It's best if I reset the camera, how do I do that? Is it under menu, settings 2, clear settings?? then clear all camera settings and clear all custom funtions?

About the photoshop part. I'm only using Photoshop 7 but the photo in photoshop is lighter than the photo in a folder (on filmstrip previews) I tried changing the colour to monitor RGB but it's still not the same colour as they are in the folder/online. Plus the colours setting doesnt stay, is that normal?
 
I think most photos could do with a slight contrast tweak ect... and as said above, the white balance could be your problem. If you shoot in RAW, then you should be able to change it in photoshop or digital photo professional (comes with your camera)
 
ep82 said:
Thanks for the reply :)
About the photoshop part. I'm only using Photoshop 7 but the photo in photoshop is lighter than the photo in a folder (on filmstrip previews) I tried changing the colour to monitor RGB but it's still not the same colour as they are in the folder/online. Plus the colours setting doesnt stay, is that normal?
Click to expand...

Did you turn on proofing as well? The title bar of the image window would show MonitorRGB when proofing is active. You could also try pressing CTRL-Y a few times which toggles proofing to see if you notice any change in the image.

The settings won't stay because it's only a switch in PS which controls how the image is drawn on the fly and it's part of the actual image data if you get my drift.
 
As pxl8 has mentioned, it most certainly sounds like a colour space issue and not just monitor calibration.

I'm not exactly an expert on the subject but I can describe the lesson I learn't a while back -

My camera's colour space setting was switched to adobe RGB, I then processed the photo's as I would normally in photoshop, when the time came to put the photo's up in an online gallery I noticed the pictures seemed dull, flat and almost missing some colour.
I also experienced the same thing when having my photo's printed at some printing shops.

The reason why:
A mis match of colour spaces.
sRGB is the t'internet's colour space primarily, if you make a photo in adobe RGB it must be converted first to sRGB for use with the web. Adobe RGB is a much wider (wider - meaning more colours) colour space than sRGB and without the proper conversions the result is a very lifeless image.

I always shoot RAW, and apparently the in camera colour space selection is irrelevant to those who shoot RAW as you can choose during post production, BUT, it is dependent on your software preferences and how they are configured.

This is my understanding of it so far and I'm quite sure I haven't even grasped the basics totally, if any one can give a more elaborate explanation then please do, we all could learn something very useful.

All the best
 
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