Purple

[F, Calla & Luca]

I love blue, purple and pink flowers. Whenever I photograph purple flowers they appear much bluer than they actually are rather than purple. Suggestions?
Here is an iris that is really very purple.

[Linda and "Toby"]

Hmmmm... it could be that your post processing software is making the colors "cooler." Using Photoshop, I ran it thru "Auto Color" then "Auto Tone" for you. Does this look closer to what it should be?

[F, Calla & Luca]

Yes, that's getting there. Thanks. But what post processing software? Just uploading it to Picasa? Anyway, it looks wrong on the camera screen.

[Mandy&Bailee]

you could always change the camera settings from standard to vivid when you know you are going to shoot something with bright colors like flowers/plants. the above image just needs tweaking in photoshop.....
the original image is a tad over-exposed (too bright) and it's washing out the purple in the flower.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Aha, I have to look this up. It is a bit overexposed, it was very sunny. I think I do better when it's a litle more overcast.

[Mandy&Bailee]

you're right - overcast days actually work well for vibrant colors :) you don't have the refractory light from the sun

[Mandy&Bailee]

here, Parker, I played with your image in Lightroom - what do you think now?
looooooooove lightroom!!!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Much closer to the real thing, which is somewhat darker purple, thanks. Still wondering why this happens with purple flowers in general.

[Mandy&Bailee]

okay, Donna - couldn't resist - played with your image, too.....

[F, Calla & Luca]

I don't know if this resembles the original more but it is beautiful.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Beautiful colors. Did you post process the picture to get them or were they really this vivid?

[F, Calla & Luca]

My picture was as is but then Mandy and Linda did some post processing. Glad to see you hve time to drop in while on your adventure!

[Richard Crowe]

Colors and monitor calibration... There are great differences in the color reproduction on various computer monitors. If the monitor is not calibrated, you really don't know if you are working with true color values or colors thrown off by a monitor which is not recording them accurately.

There are tools with which you can calibrate monitors but, you can get in the ballpark with this web site:

http://www.displaycalibration.com/

Some relatively inexpensive tools with which monitors can be calibrated are:

COLORMUNKI

http://www.amazon.com/Pantone-MEU116-ColorMunki-Calibration-Softwar...

SPYDER3EXPRESS

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002OCF57K/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?p...