Any hints on getting photos of magenta?

["Umm fish?"]

Hi! I'm trying to take pictures of a royal gramma and I really find it impossible to record the colors I see. Any hints?

This is about the best I've come up with so far.

Canon 20D
100mm macro lens
onboard flash


Thanks!

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

You have Photoshop? Lightroom?

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Are you shooting RAW? It looks way over-saturated which may be causing your problems.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Ah, Photoshop. Sorry.

I messed with it somewhat and couldn't get a color change that looked anywhere realistic.

Shooting RAW.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Yeah, I see what you mean. When I mess with the saturation of the shadows it gets closer. Of course the rest of the photo looks like hell, but I can deal with that.

I try to mess with it more tomorrow and see if I can post results. Thanks!

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Here are two super quick edits I did to try and get a feel for what you are trying to do. These are extremely basic and should in no way, shape, or form be considered a final product. Notice the red lips in #2 lol. I'm just trying to better understand your question of "hits on photos of magenta". I don't know the colors you see which you are trying to reproduce. I just Google imaged "royal gramma" and used a bunch of low quality images as a guide.
Origional

Edit 1

Edit 2

I guess this is vaguely what you are going after?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Yeah, the head colors in #2 are heading in the right direction to what I see, though when I head that way I start getting the "chalky" look that you are getting, too. What did you do in that last one?

Sigh. I should really just go to sleep before I drive myself nuts. Thanks for working on it.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

In number 2 I simply played with the levels in the red channel (of the face only). There is a lot that could be done to clean that image up but I would rather have the origional file as opposed to spending 45 minutes on a low resolution pre-edited jpeg.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Well, you know, I'm not sure if this image per se is worth a ton of work. It just frustrates the heck out of me that I can't get the colors of these and the orchid dottybacks to come out remotely close.

This one is closer of the fish's head. Oddly enough, most of the work was done by raising the color temp of the RAW file off the chart into the yellow range.

So, I need to figure out how to do that selectively.

 

["Umm fish?"]

But, what I forgot to say is, if you'd like to give it a try I can send you a link to the RAW file.

Thanks, again!

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Yeah lets try that, I don't know that you will learn much from it though. Lets figure out why you aren't getting the colors that are there in the first place. What equipment are you using? The lens might play a big role, especially with magenta. If it is the 100mm macro, which I suspect, I don't think the lens would be your problem though.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Link sent.

It was the Canon D20, 100mm macro, and onboard flash.

The lights are 250W 20,000K halides, but I get the same results when I shoot downstairs under fluorescents.

 

["Umm fish?"]

But I really do have to head to sleep. Thanks for your help, but don't stay up all night.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Alright I got your RAW file, lets take a look at this thing...

 

["Umm fish?"]

Thanks, TvS!

I've been working on this one. It's not too bad and the background is not as hideous as the last.

Now, though, the purple fringe is pretty bad. Sigh.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Okay I played with it for a bit and this is what I got (I said screw the particles in the water, you did fine with those): Opps I forgot to blend the pectoral fins! -_- I meant to mix the purple and pink so they just fade into eachother softly...and make the pink closer to purple. I got so excited I forgot all about it. Oh well I'm pretty happy with it otherwise.

You did a pretty good job on yours, how did you do it?
I'll try and outline my basic procedure.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

So what do you think? I have never seen a royal gramma in real life. When you throw in your unique lighting setup I am shooting blindfolded in an edit revolving around exact colors. Before I detail the steps I took, I want to make sure they were the right steps. I am pretty close to you on the purple but what about the pink?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Nice job! I think we're getting closer. The pink is an artifact. Well, maybe. The lights we use mess with the colors so much. At any rate, it's not what I see when I look at them under aquarium lights.

I did all of that one in the HSL screen in the Camera RAW editor.

Thank you! I'm learning a lot through this process.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Any better? This was done just messing with the HSL and the camera calibration controls.

 

["Umm fish?"]

BTW, I haven't been bothering with dust, noise reduction, or sharpening. I figure this is mostly an exercise in color.

Thanks!