Adjusting colour saturation
 

Hi:

I know, the Canon is famous for being very honest with colour reproduction. But, sometimes you really want these saturated colours that people have become accustomed to. I'm planning a trip to Costa Rica, 30% is national parks lots of wild wildlife and colourful birds, and I want to make sure that I get all of it first shot (because I probably won't have a second) and that it looks like "nature++".

Two questions:

- how do I boost colour saturation? I've downloaded the presets but none seem to be designed for this.

- can you do this in post production without too much noise penalty? Which way is best, to have saturated raw footage and reduce saturation in post or normal saturation in raw footage and boost in post?

(yes, as you might have guessed, I haven't worked with this before).

Hi Erik...
 

Whoooah, that's a question or three....

First off, are you unhappy with what's coming off the A1 as it stands (saturation wise)?

Have you tried boosting it in the presets (on your own) and with what effect?

I, personnaly, and I stress, this is just me, have boosted the "saturation" by maybe 20 points and just left it at that.

That's good for me - looks good coming straight off the camera, in post and everywhere else.

If you have a problem with the colour or saturation not covered here then maybe you need to be speaking to Canon before you embark on this trip!

CS

The preset "VIVIDRGB" does, as the name implies, just that.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....7&postcount=78

the vivid preset is great for outdoor shots. Makes the images look better than they really are. its brings the reds out a little too much but that can be adjusted.

open up an image and an RGB WFM - as you increase saturation in a properly exposed image you will begin to lose information in one or two of the color channels - so there is a downside to increasing saturation.

it seems to me that the milky color settings maximize effective dynamic range, with no downside for folks if color grading is part of the workflow


any thoughts?

Why not pol. filter?

you should create your own preset based on the needs at the time.
it doesnt take long once you get the hang of it. vegas has great color correction and boosting the saturation in there may be a better idea.

i've attached some birds i filmed last month. i used only a slight boost in the "color gain" and "R Gain" and"G Gain" in-camera and used the "sun" color temp , probably between +4 and +8 to give some of those shots a warmer feeling. the shots are overexposed by 1 or 2 stops. always tweak this kind of BS in the VF, not the LCD..once you get an accurate setup in-studio.

Eric, why overexpose? What is "pure" white can never be reproduced in post if needed.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, Thanks Eric W for the clip, nice!

I will try that VIVIDRGB preset. Luckily, I have a short trip to Tenerife before so I might get a chance to try. I don't consider "getting a hang of it" in the jungle an option - at least not one I'd like to rely on.

Cheers, Erik