Expert: LizaL - 11/17/2004

Question
I took Canon Raw pics of Bryce Canyon and have saved them to JPEG (because Moto Photo req'd).  All of the red/orange and yellow colors have printed as shades of brown.  The blues/green shades are fine.  I had to change from 16 to 8 bit channel in order to save as JPEG.  What can I do to get them to print the vivid colors that I took and appear on my computer screens.  I have not calibrated my screens yet, but have never had this problem before when shooting JPEGs vs RAW.  Thank you for any assistance!  I use Photoshop CS

Answer
Hi JT,

I think I can help you some here, but I'm going to have to assume a couple of things. Please correct me if I'm wrong -- but according to what you told me, I'm thinking you had the film processed at MotoPhoto, then scanned the pics into your computer? Or else MotoPhoto processed the images and burned them to a CD for you?

The simplest thing for you to do is bypass MotoPhoto and the print (and/or CD)stage, and download your photos to your computer yourself. You don't say which type of Canon you used, but I'm assuming it was digital. If this is true, then you no doubt have the capability to download the pictures you take to your computer.

At any rate, you can use Photoshop's Levels and Curves options in order to heighten the colors.

Levels and Curves are powerful tools, and can't be explained completely in a forum like this. But in a nutshell . . .

1. Levels is found under the Image pulldown menu, under Adjustments. When you open the dialogue box, you'll see a histogram -- that is, a sort of "map" of all the colors in your picture. You'll see a pop-up menu that allows you to edit the R, G, and B channels individually, or all at once with the RGB selection. (By the way, an 8-bit RGB image is the default for Photoshop -- which is sufficient for reproduction.)

Again -- in a nutshell -- the sliders below the histogram window represent the shadows, midtones and highlights of your picture. Moving these sliders will let you adjust those values.

2. Curves is also found under the Image pulldown menu, also under Adjustments. Curves is different from Levels in that you don't have a histogram to go by, but instead, a diagonal line that reaches from the shadows to the highlights of your picture. You can click on that line to place an editing point, then move the line around to change the highlight, midtone and shadow values of your picture.

So using these tools, you should be able to recapture the vivid colors of your original prints. But if at all possible, I'd download the images from camera to computer and work from that aspect, as opposed to a scan, or even a JPEG that's been processed by a film developer. You can't really take advantage of Camera Raw if you first save an image as a JPEG.

Incidentally, here's a link for a PDF file from Adobe that might shed some light on Camera Raw and how to use it:
www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/ps_workflow_sec2.pdf

Hope this helps!

Lisa