Dense Forest at Sunset

Hmm, again this site has desaturated my image. Why does that keep happening? It's happened twice in a row now. It never used to happen. Am I missing something?

Also, I should've selected a black background. My bad.

I thought the forest may have been on fire in the thumbnail and it wasn't so that's a plus. The light here is very warm but rather scattered and strongly defined. I think the light adds a little to the scene but I'm a little torn about the kinda spotlighting effect here. Also, that white sky up top isn't adding much. I'm not sure what you're seeing with the desaturation, because to my eye it definitely couldn't use any more! It's very vibrant. I changed your background.

Thanks for the background change.

So you really thing this is saturated to the max? Don't you think that it's bland color-wise compared to the image you just posted today? I sure do.

As for the light, thanks for the feedback. I'm torn about it, too, which is why I wanted others' opinions.

I can't possibly see it needing more saturation. It's all about how much saturation is available in the scene before things start looking outta-whack. That changes for everyone I know much I don't think you can get away with any more than this. My computer may be displaying it as you originally intended though, I don't know.

Love the serenity of thi image Kory. The warm spotlights add interest.

I think the warm spotlighting makes this unique. I also think your comp is very well done as you managed to separate a lot of trunks to give them space. Well done.

Cool. I like how the sunset is sprinkling in bits of warmth in the frame yet doesn't overpower the lighting.

The orange light makes for some great highlights and spices up the comp. Sort of with the background were just a bit darker so as to not draw my eye away from the orange flecks.

very natural look to the processing, a beuatiful rendering of a difficult subject to photograph

Kory,

First off, this is a lovely forest scene. The scattered and directional, beautifully warm light really make the image for me. With the exception of the forward trunk, I like the somewhat open space that you found where most scenes like this are so dense with trees and bush.

As far as the color and saturation goes, it looks just right on my "calibrated" monitor. I'm using FireFox 3.6.8, which is color managed. for the heck of it, I looked at your image at it has a profile of Adobe 1998. You should be saving these as sRGB. As I'm sure you know not all browsers are "color managed" and unfortunately we have to play to the lowest common denominator. I also opened this page in IE 8 and while they look nearly identical, the IE 8 version is ever so slightly less saturated - barely noticeable.

I would try a couple things. Check your image in the "Save for web and devices" dialogue and make sure you have the "2-up" view. Make sure the "convert to sRGB" is also selected in the pull down options. If the image isn't already sRGB, then there will likely be a distinct difference in the two windows. Taking your image as working Adobe 1998 and converting it to sRBG, then putting it in the save for web dialoge, they look the same. anyway, this probably isn't the place for a color management discussion, but I suspect that's what's going on.

For you or others who are interested, here's a nice page that illustrates this issue quite well.

The image looks great in a color managed browser

It has nothing to do with "this site," it's a browser and color profile issue.

Hope this helps and you've posted a lovely forest image.

Lon