Autumn Leaves and Flowers, LR Preset that works ( RX100 )

SONY DSC-RX100 (10.4mm, f/4.5, 1/100 sec, ISO125)
SONY DSC-RX100 (10.4mm, f/4.5, 1/100 sec, ISO125)

In digital photography some people are almost obsessed with natural color. But what means natural color and does it really exist?

Long time ago I shot slide film. Kodakchrome 64 first and later I switched to Fuji Velvia. The Fuji Velvia became my favorite slide film because of it’s sharpness, low grain and high contrast but mainly because of it’s color. The colors of the Velvia were great but they were anything but natural. There was even a massive color shift in long exposures. I loved it.

With digital things changed. First compact cameras had very unpleasing, sometimes even strange looking colors. First generation DSLRs were better but not by much. Shooting RAW improved things. Of course each camera maker has it’s own signature but thanks to the RAW format you can change the look of the files. With some post processing you can get Fuji colors out of a Nikon or Canon and vice versa ( if you want ).

Colors and tones are more like a starting point today and camera makers moved closer together but there is still a preference to certain subjects: Nikon, Sony to landscape and nature and Canon, Fuji to portrait, indoor and available light. When I changed from Nikon to Canon almost 6 years ago I start to shoot more portraits than ever before. Skin tones were much more pleasing than with my Nikons. Contrast seems to be lower too which also helped for portraits of course. Fuji is just about the same. Maybe even more so. That’s why daylight landscapes can look a little flat right out of the camera.

The Sony RX100 produces a file that is rather “natural” looking but for my taste there is too much dynamic range. I prefer to have deep blacks in my images. For the shot above I used the free of charge LR preset E=ekta+chromeo ( Ektachrome ). It’s pretty clear what it does: It introduces a custom tone curve, pushes the reds and boost saturation with the dynamic slider and edges with the clarity tool. Maybe it’s a little too much but it can be easily changed by tuning down the clarity setting to 10 or even Zero. Leaving only the color shift and deeper blacks. I took these images in my backyard only but I think they illustrate pretty well how nice this preset works.

And here is another example: In both cases I prefer the punchier version. Of course I would not post process all my vacation shot this way but for some landscape shots it can give better results.

SONY DSC-RX100 (10.4mm, f/2.5, 1/320 sec, ISO125)
SONY DSC-RX100 (10.4mm, f/2.5, 1/320 sec, ISO125)