topic Re: Camera desaturated part of the image? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

jessiesmith220 — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 17:05:40 GMT

Hello! Quick question! In both the raw and jpeg files from this session, i noticed that the roof of this building was desaturated completely in all of the images as we moved around the property. Not all taken from this spot. You can see the red color the entire roof is supposed to be in the top left corner, the tiny part above the window. That's the accurate color of the entire roof, but for some reason in all the files both raw and jpeg, the roof of the building is completely gray. Earlier in the session we were at a different spot and the color of those very red roofs came through just fine. No settings were changed between the two locations. Any ideas? I would understand it more if it were ALL the reds in the image, but as you can see it picked up a small portion of the actual color of the roof, just not the whole thing. I've never seen this happen before, I'm assuming it has to be something that happened in camera since it recorded this way on both memory cards! Any help is welcome!

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

Tronhard — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:36:19 GMT

Hi Jessie and welcome to the forum:
If you were to look at the histogram, l would predict that there is a significant amount of the image in the high key area, considering the building is white or very close to that: thus one could simply say that what you describe as desaturated is the result of being overexposed. Within the image, considering the subjects are back lit and yet still very bright, the image shown thus does not have the dynamic range to handle highly reflective background objects directly lit vs. darker back lit ones.

To demonstrate this, I downloaded the image you provided and, using Photoshop, reduced the exposure slightly, and the whites to get this result - given the background should not dominate the subject, which is clearly the family group.

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

jessiesmith220 — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:02:01 GMT

Thanks for taking a look. My issue is that it DID pick up the color of the roof in the one spot, where you can see it in the top left corner, so it should have picked it up everywhere. Even in other locations where the roof is slightly visible behind trees, it’s still gray and not red. What would cause the red to be shown in the one spot, but not the rest of the roof?

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

kvbarkley — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:05:13 GMT

Like Tronhard said, did you look at the histogram? If the red channel is blown, and the others at or near the sensor max, it could appear grey. Note the red that is there is in the shade.

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

Peter — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 13:57:55 GMT

The first thing I would do would be to check the raw clipping, like the others wrote. Rawdigger, darktable and Hraw are able to show you the raw clipping area.

Sample file from Hraw

Sample file from darktable with white balance turned off (therefore green).

The second thing to check would be the chromatic aberration removal settings.

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

Danny — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 13:09:55 GMT

Thanks for joining the conversation, jessiesmith220!

So that the Community can help you better, we need to know exactly which Canon camera model you're using. That, and any other details you'd like to give will help the Community better understand your issue!

If this is a time-sensitive matter, click HERE search our knowledge base or find additional support options HERE.

Thanks and have a great day!

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

jessiesmith220 — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 16:20:55 GMT

Hi Danny,

For these images I was using a canon r6 and a 28-70 2.0 lens. These are screenshots of the straight out of the camera raw file, no editing done. You can see in the first one that even through the trees the red color of the roof didn't come through at all. In the one of the boy holding his Mickey toy, the red is there everywhere it's supposed to be even though it's in direct sun, and then on the beach you only see the color come through in the one spot on the top left corner.

I appreciate the help!

Re: Camera desaturated part of the image?

Peter — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 17:04:17 GMT

Easiest thing for you to do is to share a raw file.

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

Tronhard — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 18:39:16 GMT

I agree with Peter. The images you are showing us are mediated by two sets of configurations: the settings of the camera taking the image and the settings of the screen displaying it. Sending us a link to the RAW file will allow us to see the histogram display which is the fundamental information required to analyze this.

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

Ron888 — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 04:53:15 GMT

Wow that is odd! I'm curious to see what went wrong

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

jessiesmith220 — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 18:30:01 GMT

Not sure if this is the best way to share a raw file (open to other instruction!) but here's a dropbox link to one of the raw files: Dropbox link to file

Thank you!

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

Peter — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 21:27:39 GMT

Only part that is completely clipped (red,gren and blue) is a small part of the sky right above the tree.

If I lift the shadows I get back the brown colour from this area.

If I do the same with the roof I get some brown colour from the part closest to you. Probably that part gets light reflected.

I would say that it looks like that due to the strong backlight and that the roof is shaded. Let's see what the others say.

BTW, would it look more natural if you darken the roof and the sky? Maybe not as much as I did here below.

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

jessiesmith220 — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 20:09:08 GMT

The roof of this building is iconic red (Grand Floridian Resort at Disney World) so anything other than the red shade and the family would definitely notice it and question it. The roof would have been more in the full sun in the few different images I shared where the color disappeared moreso than the shade, just crazy to me that the same thing happened in a few different images taken from different spots, but that in the small corner of the roof it DID pick up the color. Never had this happen before, and I shoot backlit all the time. So so strange! I appreciate you looking at it!

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

johnrmoyer — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 20:10:53 GMT

I looked at the CR3 file. I hope some of this might be helpful.

It appears that there is strong backlight and maybe a color cast to the light reflected onto the people. The selected color temperature of 5700K cannot be best for both the subject and the background since they are lit differently. Daylight would be best for the sunlit portions of the building in the background, but shade would be better for the shaded portions of the roof. Auto exposure and auto white balance might have done better than these manual settings, or, maybe a composite with white balance bracketing. I am not able to guess the reason for the green/magenta white balance shift in the camera settings. A smaller aperture would have put more of the background into focus.

A few things from the metadata:

MakerNotes:Camera	CanonExposureMode	Manual
MakerNotes:Image	WhiteBalance	Manual Temperature (Kelvin)
EXIF:Image	ExposureTime	1/8000
MakerNotes:Image	WBShiftGM	-1
EXIF:Image	ISO	640
MakerNotes:Image	ColorTemperature	5700
EXIF:Image	FNumber	2.8

Re: EOS R6 desaturated part of the image?

Peter — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 21:29:21 GMT

@jessiesmith220 wrote:

The roof of this building is iconic red (Grand Floridian Resort at Disney World) so anything other than the red shade and the family would definitely notice it and question it. The roof would have been more in the full sun in the few different images I shared where the color disappeared moreso than the shade, just crazy to me that the same thing happened in a few different images taken from different spots, but that in the small corner of the roof it DID pick up the color. Never had this happen before, and I shoot backlit all the time. So so strange! I appreciate you looking at it!

Better? I added a mask and changed the colour a little bit.