# How much saturation do you usually add/remove in your photos?



## marekjoz (Sep 21, 2012)

Honestly, this is not intented to bash Ken's +4 setting, but looking again at his photos I am intrigued - maybe this really normal and people really need to add so much?
I use 0 or +1. Very rarely, if it's underexposed and hard pushing was neccessery, I have to give +2. 
What settings do you use?


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## charlesa (Sep 21, 2012)

Saturation 0, vibrance never above 10


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## Albi86 (Sep 21, 2012)

charlesa said:


> Saturation 0, vibrance never above 10



I think he's talking about in-camera settings.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 21, 2012)

In camera I shoot at 0.


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## marekjoz (Sep 21, 2012)

I assume we shoot raw and set saturation in conversion in dpp or lightroom or we shoot jpg and this would be in camera setting.


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## charlesa (Sep 21, 2012)

Even in-camera saturation 0, I prefer neutral or faithful settings.


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## mws (Sep 21, 2012)

In cam, 0, in PP depends on what it's a picture of. I usually add a little. I love the look of kodachrome and velvia.


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## EYEONE (Sep 21, 2012)

In camera I leave it alone. But if you shoot in RAW it doesn't matter does it?

Only in the rarest of occasions to I even touch the Saturation levels in LR. I might mess with vibrance a tiny bit, but hardly ever do I mess with Sat.


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## Albi86 (Sep 21, 2012)

EYEONE said:


> In camera I leave it alone. *But if you shoot in RAW it doesn't matter does it?*
> 
> Only in the rarest of occasions to I even touch the Saturation levels in LR. I might mess with vibrance a tiny bit, but hardly ever do I mess with Sat.



Exactly, so this is why those poll entries made little sense to me.

For landscapes I might add some saturation in LR. Let's say up to +10. Generally speaking though I prefer to work with the saturation sliders of individual colors or use the brush to select specific areas.


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## bdunbar79 (Sep 21, 2012)

Albi86 said:


> EYEONE said:
> 
> 
> > In camera I leave it alone. *But if you shoot in RAW it doesn't matter does it?*
> ...



+1 all the way.


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## cliffwang (Sep 21, 2012)

I also don't use jpeg file output nowadays. Just wonder what kind situation you still need to output jpeg files from your camera?


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## marekjoz (Sep 21, 2012)

cliffwang said:


> I also don't use jpeg file output nowadays. Just wonder what kind situation you still need to output jpeg files from your camera?



I don't use jpgs direct from the camera, but wedding or sport shooters sometimes do. 
I Know that it depends on the situation but as Ken usually adds 4, then Maybe you also have some preferences.

What is misleading here is that in DPP you have same number values in slides as in a camera and some people (like usually me) use DPP instead of Lightroom but I meant in postprocessing of course or jpg in camera.


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## joshmurrah (Sep 21, 2012)

As others, I shoot RAW, and add anywhere from none to +10 or so in ACR afterwards depending on how dull the image is.


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## preppyak (Sep 21, 2012)

Albi86 said:


> For landscapes I might add some saturation in LR. Let's say up to +10. Generally speaking though I prefer to work with the saturation sliders of individual colors or use the brush to select specific areas.


Yep, and even then its rarely over +10 or +15. Sometimes I will get a very specific color I want to highlight and I'll go more.


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## keithfullermusic (Sep 21, 2012)

This is a silly poll because it depends.

On high ISO indoor shots I usually bring it down, because everything looks yellow, even with WB balance adjustment.

For gritty looking street shots I usually bring it down.

For landscapes I either only bring up vibrancy or some saturation.

The list goes on.


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## zim (Sep 21, 2012)

where's the option for 'only in post and depends on the photo'


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## unadog (Sep 21, 2012)

Your question is not well framed. You might want to try a new poll, as it looks like this one is just starting. Here is why.

Whether I shoot RAW or JPEG, I choose a PICTURE PROFILE/STYLE that already has less saturation. 

Either in camera or in Lightroom, I pick a Picture Profile (Landscape/Portrait/Faithful/Natural/Etc.) Then I adjust teh saturation settiings in camera or post to reduce saturation.

I also shoot in AdobeRGB, not sRGB.

So THERE IS NO STANDARD "SATURATION BASELINE" to reduce from. It depends one the profile and color space you are shooting in. There isn't a number that applies to all.

I shoot Marvel Cinestyle, Technicolor Cine or ProLost Flat.

http://prolost.com/blog/2012/4/10/prolost-flat.html

ProLost Flat starts with Natural, and then sets Saturation to -2. So in a sense, -2, but that is much different than "Landscape -2 sRGB."

Sorry, I didn't mean to shout. 

I just wanted to emphaisze that there is no "Saturation" benchmark, like Greenwich Mean Time, that eberything can be compared to.

Cheers!
Michael


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## ScottyP (Sep 21, 2012)

Not sure what +1 or +4 in-camera translates into relative to LR, but as I know the common rap on Rockwell is oversaturation, I assume that+4 is pretty heavy. 
In LR I generally leave saturation alone and use vibrance instead, usually about +10 or 20 ticks.


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## slinky (Sep 21, 2012)

ScottyP said:


> Not sure what +1 or +4 in-camera translates into relative to LR, but as I know the common rap on Rockwell is oversaturation, I assume that+4 is pretty heavy.
> In LR I generally leave saturation alone and use vibrance instead, usually about +10 or 20 ticks.



also around there.
Vibrance for photos with fleshtones present, saturation for those without.


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## Click (Sep 21, 2012)

bdunbar79 said:


> In camera I shoot at 0.



+1


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Sep 21, 2012)

Lots of Nikon users boost the saturation, Canon has more contrast by default, so it does not appear toneed more saturation.


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## pdirestajr (Sep 21, 2012)

I only increase "vibrance" in post slightly (depending on scene). I find it a "smarter" saturation slider, in that it won't clip the already saturated parts of the image.


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## marekjoz (Sep 21, 2012)

I know what you all mean saying, that the poll may be misleading or there is no simple answer. Anyway I still find your answers pretty useful:
1. Rather vibrance in Lightroom, not saturation 
2. If anything, rather +1 than +4

It's still useful information for me and thank you for participating. What I find from your statements is, that you rather do not tend to oversaturate photos, making them look more artificial, but sometimes more interesting. It's maybe easy to make fun of Ken, but it could occure, that in reality many of us oversaturate our photos.

I also understand, that there is no standard or baseline but the question in workflow is - how much time do you spend on each photo? Of course - no simple answer here, as it can be 30 seconds or 30 minutes. But I assume, that if you work on 100, 200 photos from an event, then you don't spend 30 minutes on each photo, but rather try to copy/paste settings used in one photo to others, which seem to be similar in their lighting conditions. As I shoot RAW only, I simply found out, that in DPP I tend to set Standard or Faithful style, and after having normalized brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights I always check if the photo could not be a little more saturated. But in Lightroom I also prefer to deal with vibrance.
If the photo doesn't require perspective correction I prefer anyway to use DPP because I think, that their DLO is better, than LR's Profile Correction.


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## unadog (Sep 24, 2012)

marekjoz said:


> It's still useful information for me and thank you for participating.



I agree, it is useful.

When I shot film for scanning, I always shot a lower contrast, lower saturation color negative film. My favorite was Portra 160NC.

I found then and I still find now that you can always ADD contrast and saturation in post. Basically you are compressing the range and throwing away data.

You cannopt go in the opposite direction in post. If you reduce contrast or saturation (on a JPEG, etc) you get banding, because the data just is not there.

I also come from a fine art background. To me lower stauration & contrast lend themelves to a more complex, nuanced image.

Good luck!

Michael


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## CharlieB (Sep 24, 2012)

I've found that what worked ok with my XTi was huge overkill for the 5DII, if that means anything. I'd dial in a two clicks of saturation + on the XTi, but keep it "default" on the 5DII


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## K-amps (Sep 24, 2012)

With the 5Dc, I found myself boosting vibrance but not boosting saturation. With the 5diii, I don't feel this need, in fact sometimes need to -1 saturation.

I do however almost always increase blacks and/ or contrast; this has a byproduct of "virtually" boosting saturation in itself...


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## Kernuak (Sep 24, 2012)

For the majority of shots, I don't alter the saturation. However, for some sunset landscapes, I increase highlights saturation in Lightroom according to what individual shots need. As a general rule, I add a medium contrast curve in Photoshop (I know, it's sometimes a bit contrived the way I've developed my workflow, but it's the easiest way to get what I want without finding time to relearn a better method), which sometimes results in oversaturation, so for quite a few wildlife shots, I actually reduce saturation after applying the curves adjustment. In camera I have it set to the Standard setting, but I shoot in RAW anyway, although I have done my last few shoots in JPEG and RAW, as one recent shoot needed a quick turnaround at a press event and I haven't bothered to change it back.


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