Motorsport processing...

[ukaskew]

Only dropped into Combe for 2hrs yesterday, my main aim being to get a few standard shots to try and process before the season starts proper for me in a week or two.

How does this look?

To my eyes it's a little over the top, compared to this, which has had virtually nothing done to it but doesn't 'pop' at all imo...

Just wondering what people do generally, straight from the camera mine look pretty flat and it's an area I really want to concentrate on this year.

 

[GaryS]

Top one looks fake, bottom one looks a bit flat but not too much. Have you tried changing the menu settings for the colours, there's a setting for making the colours more vivid on your camera I think?

 

[Ian]

Yeah I'd agree that the top shot looks a little overdone, but I'm stuggling with photos that look like the bottom one myself (like these).. they look a bit flat. If you could get somewhere in-between that should be spot on though. Btw, are you going to be up at any of the NW circuits this year Chris?

 

[Brown.]

Top has a touch much saturation....other wise i would happily jizz on that photo.

 

[Leeshez]

Stunning .

 

[Soph]

If you are using Adobe Camera Raw - Try upping the vibrance instead of saturation.
.

 

[powey]

the first looks very historic car book look
the second needs slightly longer shutter speed as otherwise looks abit dull

imo

 

[ukaskew]

Top one looks fake, bottom one looks a bit flat but not too much. Have you tried changing the menu settings for the colours, there's a setting for making the colours more vivid on your camera I think?

It's on Vivid already, although tempted to change it back to standard as when it's sunny the grass is waaaaay too green.

Btw, are you going to be up at any of the NW circuits this year Chris?

Nope not unless in win the lottery, even driving to Brands pretty much bankrupts me for a month, so just sticking to Combe, Thruxton, Prescott and an occasional drive to Brands and Silverstsone.

Top has a touch much saturation....other wise i would happily jizz on that photo.

Ironically I've not touched saturation. I genuinely have no idea what to do, so all I've done (in PS Elements) is adjust the levels.

the second needs slightly longer shutter speed as otherwise looks abit dull

That's at 1/125, can't really go any longer with cars at that angle without introducing loads of blur at the front or back of car. It's usually something I would be happy to do, but I'm trying to find a balance at the moment, 1/80 - 1/100 is looking promising for angled shots.

 

[dunganick]

I run almost everything standard on the camera (ive been told that nikon produce a blue tint and that some togs will lower the blue cast on camera)

I then normally stick them into light room, see how they look (often too dark or contrasty at slow shutter speeds. I then normally boost the black about 2%, sharpen about 4% and will adjust the exposure up or down a few percent.

This goes out the window if there are headlights, unusual lighting, or the colour or some reason is totally wrong.

Adjusting colour balance does my head in, after a while things i think look normal look luminescent.

One nice feature of lightroom is that you can apply your adjustments to all your photos and then go through and tweak them if they still look wrong. Sure you can do this in photoshop, but lightroom will be alot faster and give you quicker access to all your photos.

 

[BenWall]

I think the top one is way ott. I find that motorsport looks it's best when just punched (if you know what I mean) so that it's not as flat.

My edited version.

Yours

 

[dunganick]

That top edit is way over sharpened and the compressing is destroying the image too. I will have a go, but im useless at PP.

 

[BenWall]

Yeah I agree, was a fast fast edit though.

 

[Jungle_Jim]

my effort, consisting of levels adjustments, colour balance, sharpening and saturation, then you could warm up the image if you wanted but thats personal preference

original:

edit:

 

[ukaskew]

Thanks guys, might trek along to the BTCC at Brands this weekend, so will spend a lot of time messing around with the pics after and see how I get on.

 

[ukaskew]

Advice taken on board, I went to Brands on Saturday. General consensus is that these are mostly now too vivid, and looking back I agree. However, these two look pretty well bang on to me on my home PC and work PC, thoughts?

Those are fairly conventional, but the slow shutter speed stuff is still a little washed out in my eyes, what do you think?

Very hard to get the backgrounds back to 'proper' colour whilst retaining a realistic looking car, probably just about get away with it on silly-slow shutter shots though.

 

[dunganick]

Your Reds are Pinky and the Greens are Bright

Would just tone the saturation down a bit.

How do they come off the camera?

Like the McMillan Shot with the Flame, its also got the closest colours imho.

Nick

 

[GaryS]

Top two look oversaturated to me, the reds and greens seem overly bright.

I prefer the bottom two shots, perhaps very slightly washed out but they look more "real" than the top two in my opinion.

 

[ukaskew]

Your Reds are Pinky and the Greens are Bright

Would just tone the saturation down a bit.

How do they come off the camera?

Like the McMillan Shot with the Flame, its also got the closest colours imho.

Nick

Cheers for the tips, slowly getting there. I use the 'Vivid' default on my D90 which I think is the cause of my vibrant grass, will go back to 'Standard' next time out and work from there.

This is a completely untouched/uncropped/unedited image straight from the memory card...

and this was my edit...

I'm getting into this too much for somebody who hates processing, side by side I'm actually thinking the original is better now as the car actually looks more red

 

[Alex H]

I find it hard to criticise your work, as it's always spot-on, but I think the colours are a little too vivid. In particular the red on the kerbs. Other than that, the pic of Tordoff is epically sharp!!

 

[ukaskew]

Adjusted quite a few settings on the D90 when I arrived at Thruxton on Saturday, basically stripped it back to base level so the JPEG would end up roughly how a RAW file would come out.

What do you think? The grass is definitely more realistic now and to my eye they are finally starting to look how it did in real life...

I'm thinking they are maybe back to being a little flat again, but probably better than the other extreme.

 

[dunganick]

Much better, they are little flat, but then it was a pretty dull/flat lit day.

 

[capturedbyjames]

do you think turning the vivid setting off has made more of a difference then?

 

[ukaskew]

do you think turning the vivid setting off has made more of a difference then?

Absolutely, you could see it on the LCD immediately, especially on the grass which looked much more realistic.

I still use Vivid for absolutely everything else as I love the look of it, but with the silly shutter speeds I use for motorsport I think the processor was probably struggling to read what was going on.

 

[capturedbyjames]

cool, good tip... i'll keep it on then. until i get round to some motorsport stuff!