10D color problems

[ILoutdoorcpl]

Hello everyone. We are new to this site and I'm sure this question has been asked before but I wasnt able to find it in all the posts. I recently purchased a 10d which is my first digital slr and I'm having problems with the color quality. I've never had these problems with my A2 or the point and shoot digital we had before. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[timmyquest]

Point and shoot cameras do a lot of things to your images before you ever actually see them. They apply a lot of color, they sharpen them etc etc.

Part of what is nice, although for many coming from the world of P&S's, is that the camera (DSLR's) does very little to the images.

This is nice because it allows you to later apply what color you want to.

For instance you can saturate the whole image bumping all the colors up, or maybe you want to tone down the red found in someones face.

The choice is yours!

There are things however that you can do to get the camera to do more for you.

Look in your manual and you will find information about the jpeg settings, aside from resolution size there is also

Color
Contrast
Sharpness

You can adjust all of these to your liking.

But if you wanted my advice, i'd tell you to shoot in adobe RGB and then make the changes yourself in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

[robertwgross]

... I recently purchased a 10d which is my first digital slr and I'm having problems with the color quality. ...

Try to tell us what you mean by color quality.

For example, is it consistently shifted too far red or too far blue?

Is the color just kind of muddy all the time?

Is the color grainy? For example, instead of the sky being pure blue, it has lots of non-blue pixels in it.

---Bob Gross---

[ILoutdoorcpl]

I guess the best I can describe the problem as is dull. The colors seem dull and muted. The colors just arent as vibrant as what we're used to with our A2 and point and shoot.

[scottbergerphoto]

The color reproduction of Canon digital cameras is the best around. It sounds like you are shooting jpeg, have your color space set to Adobe RGB, and are viewing the images in a non color managed application like Windows Explorer. That will give you washed out color.
Make sure that if you are using an application that is not color managed that you shoot sRGB or convert raw to sRGB. In addition you need to calibrate your monitor if you haven't already done so.

If you post what settings you are using, we can help.
Regards,
Scott

[ILoutdoorcpl]

Scott, that sounds exactly like the set-up we're using. I'll make a few adjustments and try again. Thanks to everyone for their feedback on this problem, we are new to this and its a little overwhelming at times, thanks again. Jim

[slin100]

I guess the best I can describe the problem as is dull. The colors seem dull and muted. The colors just arent as vibrant as what we're used to with our A2 and point and shoot.
The contrast from 10D images are relatively low compared to those from a P&S. If shooting JPG, you can bump up the contrast setting in-camera, or you can adjust the contrast in Photoshop. There's a technique called Local Contrast Enhancement, which consists of an Unsharp Mask of around 10-20,50,0, that works wonders.