@kvbarkley wrote:
It would not matter if they are blown if they were pure red, it appears they have a lot of blue, which is not blown out, but disproportionally increased.
This ^^
As I look at the image and inspect the pixels, the "magenta" color (that should be red) shows me the red channel is blown ... but the green and blue channel are not blown. This allowed the camera to continue to collect more "blue" but it was capped at the "red" limit and this resulted in a noticeable hue shift.
Even in the instrument display has this issue. Many of the "white" areas are reading 255, 255, 255. The highlights are blown.
Other comments: I noticed the OP mentions using "automatic white balance". White balance is only applied if shooting and saving as JPEG (it is not applied if saving as RAW but it will record the choice in the meta-data so that post-processing software could apply the setting).
In any case, "automatic" white balance is notorious among photographers because you never quite know what the camera will do. If shooting JPEG, better to set white balance specific to the scene.
ALSO... these appear to be product photos meant to advertise actual products for sale.
I am particularly fussy in "product" photos. My bias is that consumers deserve true color representation and it should be accurate. I have had numerous situations where I ordered a product based on color -- but upon delivery of the product, the color wasn't even remotely close to the online photo.
The only way to do this ... is to use a proper color-managed workflow. This means the color accuracy is calibrated at time of capture and at time of any editing/adjustment. If physical prints were produced, then that would become part of the workflow that also needs to be color-managed.
For product photos ... use a photography gray card and a color-checker (like an X-Rite ColorChecker card). This allows supporting computer software (e.g. Lightroom supports it) to "profile" the color accuracy and adjust the image so that your colors are bang-on accurate (as long as the image data isn't clipped from over-exposure).
Also color-calibrate the computer monitor using a device such as an X-Rite i1 Display, etc. This way you can be sure the colors are accurate on your display and you aren't mis-adjusting color to get it to look correct on your display, but not correct on other displays. (If someone else doesn't have a color calibrated display and they are unhappy about colors, that's on them to correct their own display.)
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
