A huge advantage of digital photography is the ability to adjust the color saturation of an image. Before computers this was so difficult as to be impossible under most conditions. Now it is just a slider you tweak.
A number of software programs now have both saturation and vibrance adjustments: vibrance tends to keep skin tones from going as crazy as the other colors at high settings. So: to lessen the color levels for panels 1, 2, 3, and 4, I used saturation to lower color levels; for the images in panels 6, 7, and 8, I used vibrancy to increase color. And for panel 8 both vibrance AND saturation are turned up all the way.
Bottom Line: The ability to adjust the saturation back up or down to where you want it, or to a new interpretation of the image, is an extremely powerful tool.
The way you see these images also depends on your monitor and viewing conditions, which is mostly beyond the scope of this site. If you see the color saturation very differently than the way I label it, that means your monitor and mine are widely different. Color management and monitor calibration have been an ongoing nightmare for me, but I worked out most issues before I started this project.
85mm, f 1.2, 1/2000, ISO 100
Left
Right
Saturation adjusted to zero: not the best way to produce black and white from a colored image in computer.
Barely perceptible saturation. Almost has the hand-colored look that wanders in and out of style.
Saturation is adjusted quite far down.
Saturation just below a "normal" level, given that there is pretty much no normal level. Almost everyone, given control of the saturation knob, will adjust it to a different level as the "perfect" amount.
This is what I thought was the "right" saturation for this image, before I started creating less and more saturated versions, using a little bit of vibrance, rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from getting too strong.
This is just a bit stronger than I chose as ideal, shown in panel 5, but from viewer to viewer and monitor to monitor, no two people will choose the same saturation as ideal. This was done using vibrance rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from getting overdone.
This is a lot stronger than my original adjustment, done using vibrance rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from weird coloring.
This is way too much saturation; it is here for comparison. Both saturation AND vibrance are turned up all the way.
Saturation adjusted to zero: not the best way to produce black and white from a colored image in computer.
Barely perceptible saturation. Almost has the hand-colored look that wanders in and out of style.
Saturation is adjusted quite far down.
Saturation just below a "normal" level, given that there is pretty much no normal level. Almost everyone, given control of the saturation knob, will adjust it to a different level as the "perfect" amount.
This is what I thought was the "right" saturation for this image, before I started creating less and more saturated versions, using a little bit of vibrance, rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from getting too strong.
This is just a bit stronger than I chose as ideal, shown in panel 5, but from viewer to viewer and monitor to monitor, no two people will choose the same saturation as ideal. This was done using vibrance rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from getting overdone.
This is a lot stronger than my original adjustment, done using vibrance rather than saturation adjustment, to protect the skin tones from weird coloring.
This is way too much saturation; it is here for comparison. Both saturation AND vibrance are turned up all the way.
