How can I improve the crispness and vibrance of colours in my photos?

Question

I am a hobby photographer - generally landscapes and some cricket action shots and model photos. I find that the majority of my images are not quite crisp enough. I use manual focus and it seems in focus when I look through the viewfinder, but once I see the photo on my computer (I use a digital SLR camera) there's only ever a very small percentage of my shots really in focus properly and the rest are wasted.
What am I doing wrong? Is it my eyesight perhaps? Do you have any tips to get better results other than using autofocus, which as we all know isn't always ideal and doesn't always give a great result anyway?
Also my photos generally seem quite dull with not much contrast and not much colour vibrance. How do I improve this? I'm guessing with Photoshop - which I really need to learn more about.

Answer 1

I have noticed that sometimes the photo file looks great on the computer but the print out was not good. I do not know from your info if this is true. If it is how about a better printer and paper. Also make sure ink cartridges are not low. Also mega-pixel size is important 7.5 or 8.0 now available.
Try website below some of the info is good no matter what the brand. How about ordering prints on line . I love snapfish for sharing photos too!!

Answer 2

For landscapes, you'll be shooting wide angle for the most part, which has increased depth of field; so that shouldn't be much of a problem. If you find that the images are coming out slight soft, then the focus may be off, the lens is questionable or you might have your vision checked. What shutter speed are you using, by the way... if less than 1/60th second for static subjects and blurred, then it's caused by camera shake; if slower than 1/250th second for running subjects or fast moving cars, you'll have to bump up the ISO and use a faster shutter speed, like 1/500th second or faster, depending on the speed of the subjects.

For cricket matches, that's another matter altogether. That would depend on the lens you use. The lens may be slight off, and it might not be your vision. I hope you're not using a generic lens... if so, borrow a similar focal length lens for your camera and shoot a few shots and compare. I had a horrendous and embarrassing experience during my best friend's son's graduation a few years ago and I quickly sold the new and until then UNUSED lens at a loss, and quickly went out and bought the same brand lens as my camera manufacturer, and I've NEVER had any issues of "softeness." ALL the images taken with new generic lens came out soft around the edges! And some were totally soft, not crisp.

Perhaps your vision is off a bit? Does your camera have a diopter assist where you can add/remove a few diopters? Try auto-focus (I must rely on auto-focus because of my own poor sight). Why don't you borrow a UV or Sky filter and shoot a photo with and one without? I use UV filters on all of my lenses for purposes of protection against humidity, dust, airborne dirt and accidental fingerprints (good thing, too; a few years ago, before anyone could notice my little godchild opened my camera bag, removed the lens cap off the lens and left a nice red gooey smudged fingerprint while she ate her candy... I quickly replaced the filter, which was less costly and easier than replacing the lens).

By the way, since I just noticed that you use a digital camera, make certain that the lens' front AND rear elements are clean AS WELL AS the sensor. This can sometimes cause problems.

Put a newspaper on the wall, mount your camera on a tripod about 4 feet away. Do a manual focus and take the photo, then do an auto-focus and take the photo. Compare. That should tell you how your vision compares with the auto-focus in that situation.

Other than that, the only other thing that comes to mind is the use of an Enhancing Filter when outdoors (Hoya or Tiffen). That will certainly add some sparkle and "pop" to your colors!

EDITED: I just thought of something. What you see in the camera's LCD is always going to look better than what you see on the computer monitor because it is smaller or more compact, so the images look crisper in the LCD. You'll get a better view of what you've captured by actually looking at the print, depending on your printer's quality output, of course (the images are only as good as the printer; also, because of the monitor's back light, the images on the monitor always look better than the prints).

Good luck and best wishes.

Answer 3

hiya slasher, good ?

I find that auto focus is my friend. Big time. I am older, and have to wear grannies (don't laugh, it'll happen to you-time catches us all sooner or later!) You don't indicate which camera you have, but if you have al servo focus, this can help in sports situations. Otherwise use the autofocus. The fact is the camera can focus faster than you can.

You could also be having a shutter speed problem, in which your shutter is too slow for the action and the blur is actually the movement being recorded. Increase your shutter speed (for sports I like at least 1/250, but you may need a faster shutter than that. Adjust the aperture so you get a faster shutter speed; it may be necessary to set the ISO to a higher setting.

In your landscape work, you may have a depth of field problem-be sure that you are shooting around ƒ16 or ƒ22-so you get a lot of the composition in acceptable focus. Adjust your shutter speed to give you these apertures, and use a tripod.

Now, your color issue can be a number of things-your camera might not be that great. If thats the case consider an upgrade to something like a rebel (Canon 400D/350D aka XTi and XT.) I have the XT and use it with my film lenses and have been really happy with the results. Additionally, if your camera will shoot in RAW format, use it, and use 16 bit color depth. Photoshop CS will allow you to do most editing in16 bits, although the filter choices are extremely limited.

Make sure your color space is set to Adobe RGB-not sRGB (the s stands for sh**y). sRGB is a web gamut which gives you flat color-it is not as wide as Adobe RGB.

Finally when you print, make sure you are using a good printer-Epson is my personal favorite. Use the canned color profiles that come with the printer in photoshop and use good paper. Epson premium glossy is fine stuff.

hope this helps,

Answer 4

Seriously dude, being a purist isnt always the best thing. Use autofocus. It is much faster and so much more accurate than you and I. Yes, it isnt ideal in some situations but that's when you need to pay more attention to what you are doing. There are always ways around it.

And as for saturation, you can increast that in photoshop but dont go straight for the hue/saturation controls. Go to the menu and select Image - Mode - Lab. And then Image - Adjustments - Hue/Saturation. Increase the saturation to where you want it and click OK. Then Image - Mode - RGB.

The reason for using Lab mode rather than RGB mode is because with lab, you saturate the whole image more evenly and eliminate the risk of posterization in coloured highlights.

Answer 5

Color Saturation:
On the capture side, be sure to use a hood over your lens. This will help prevent stray light from hitting your lens. Stray light on your lens can compromise your contrast and possibly weaken your colors. Lens hoods also help prevent those lens flares if you have a light source in or near your image.
If you are in a high contrast situation (bright scenery with some dark shadows), you could also be compromising your histogram. Learn to work within your dynamic range (about 7-8 stops worth) and familiarize yourself with polarizers and neutral density filters, or shoot during the time of day when the sun is not so bright. You can't shoot a high contrast scene and expect good definition and saturation at every light zone....something's either going to black out or white out.

On the Photoshop side, add some saturation...say 10-20 units worth. This can be done either during the RAW conversion (if you are working with RAW files) or after, right inside the Photoshop program. Don't overdo it.


Sharpness and Noise:
On the capture side, be aware of your Depth Of Field (DOF). You may be focusing on a near object, but just ahead of it or behind it, you may be out of range. Also, maximum DOF does not necessarily mean maximum sharpness.
Maximum DOF occurs at your smallest aperture...but I would avoid the smallest aperture because lens refraction starts to occur. Also, learn about this concept of a lens "hyperfocal distance" (see link below)...every lens has one.
Maximum sharpness occurs at your lens' "sweet spot"...probably around F8-11 for most lenses. The lens sweet spot is where your lens is optimized for sharpness and will vary between lens makes.
For the bonus, how do you achieve maximum sharpness AND maximum DOF? Say, you want to use your lens' sweet spot at F8 for sharpness AND maximize the depth of field? The quick answer is you need to tilt the lens forward with a tilt lens that will cost you over $1000. Or, you can indoctrinate yourself into the world of Large Format photography and learn about camera 'movements'...that will open a new world to you.

On the Photoshop side, try the "unsharp mask"...I know it sounds counterintuitive, but this mask will help sharpen your photo. There is also a sharpen filter you can play with. Don't overdo it or the photo will start to look unreal.
There is a nice Photoshop plug-in that I use called Neatimage that will remove high ISO noise AND sharpen the photo. (I believe the current versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements already have their own noise reduction tools.)

Hope this helps

Answer 6

All the above posters point out things to consider, and they're all correct.

BUT dSLRs do put out slightly soft images before post processing. A littl unsharp mask and levels adjustment in Photoshop should work wonders. Many dSLRs also have in-camera settings where you can apply sharpening and saturation.

I have had cataracts removed from both eyes, and for several years have not been able to depend on them for acute focusing. Thank goodness for autofocus! For most things, it nails the focus pretty good!

Answer 7

1. high pass filter: make a copy of the original on a layer of it's own. Filters/other/high pass. Adjust so you get just a small halo on the image. Then select "overlay" as the blending mode.

This will help with the crispness.

2. levels: Use your left most slider to darken the shot... the right most to lighten the shot and the middle to adjust the exposure of the shot. This will help with the color vibrance.

beaux

Answer 8

you can sharpen your images a tiny bit in photoshop but really( as you know) there is no substitute for a well focused image to begin with.it could be your lens, or it could be a tiny bit of camera shake (are you using a tripod?), it might be you eyesight also.i dont know what to tell you. maybe take the shot when it looks in focus, then move it out slightly, and again etc, i know it sounds ridiculous but you are bound to get 1 useable shot. also photoshop is my best friend when it comes to tweaking shots in terms of contrast and colour balance, best thing to do is play around with it.

Answer 9

I would experiment with your apeture settings which affect focal range and color saturation, I have take a number of shots of the same subject with the camera mounted on a tripod, and gone throught the range whilst noting the settings, the camera does record this info with image data. Different lighting conditons also affect color depth, I use the bracket function which takes a series of shots over a range of - & + apeture from nuetral. Happy snapping

Answer 10

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