Such great color! How?

[panheadz_rock]

I've been following this guys photography for a while now and I would love to know how he gets such great coloring in his photos. They seem to just pop out at me in a way. When I take photos, even if they are good, then never have the colors that his do. Is it something he does in-camera, or is it post production on photoshop or something? Here are some links to a couple pictures I really like of his.

IMG_4222 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

IMG_3914 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[OsmosisStudios]

That's done with RAW processing and some photoshop work.

dSLRs in particular are notorious for low saturation and colour, especially in RAW. That's the point. It means you can apply your own settings manually.

[panheadz_rock]

Ok, thanks. I'll have to look into Photoshop and learn how to use it.

[kencaleno]

For jpeg, try this in photoshop:

Here's how to "pop" the color using LAB (Lightness-Alpha-Beta; (Not"Lab") color.

Image>mode>Lab color

Ctrl+ M -This brings up a grid-by holding the "Alt" button and clicking on the grid,you will get either large or small squares

Press "alt" and click on diagram to get small squares.

Selecting Channel "a",Hold and drag cursor a short distance ( about one and a half squares-right to left) along top right corner of grid,and do the same to bottom left corner(left to right). Channel "a" allows to to fine tune reds and greens. Just adjust until the color is good for you.

Repeat the exercise using channel "b"-this fine tunes the blues and yellows.

When you have got it how you want: Click "OK"

Image>Mode>RGB color

[LeeR]

One of the most important things to do to get this kind of coloring is to get the exposure right. Nothing kills color like poorly exposed images. Second, a basic levels adjustment will take you a long way. I posted a tutorial last week on how to do that and you may find that helpful. The methods Ken and Osmosis suggest also work well, though they are a bit more complicated.