How to pick up neon/bright colors with DSLR?

[shinseiromeo]

I have a 450D and have tried many different lighting techniques and adjusted white balance, but for the life of me I cannot get the exact color of a new guitar I had painted recently. It's a bright neon orange to the eye, but it comes out a dull orange and sometimes a "plain" orange in photos. I can't seem to find a way to get the neon to pop.

Does anyone have any pointers on how to get the "true" color in a photo?

[ImRaptor]

RAW and adjust in post process to match what you saw.

[shinseiromeo]

Roger. I was going to do some PP work to it, but is there any way to capture neon colors in camera?

[number six]

Roger. I was going to do some PP work to it, but is there any way to capture neon colors in camera?

It'd be helpful to see some of these pics. But it sounds like you want more saturation, which you can adjust in-camera for jpegs.

-js

[Tiberius]

Have you got an 18% grey card? If you have one, then you can use it and a curves adjustment layer to make the colours pop.

[neumanns]

You may be out of gamut also...If that's case there's not a lot you can do.

[shinseiromeo]

It'd be helpful to see some of these pics. But it sounds like you want more saturation, which you can adjust in-camera for jpegs.

-js

It comes out plenty orange, it's just that the type of paint is House of Kolor neon orange. Right now in my living room, the only light on is my laptop, and the guitar is practically glowing orange. It's bright! It's just that I can't get the photos to make it glow like it does in real life. Even adjusting saturation did nothing in CS3. You can see even in the two photos below the orange looks a different shade.

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/49/l_12593cc6c02b46fd8f336602f60f890b.jpg

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/28/l_c5a61ad76cc941d2a1043935f64e3f87.jpg

[shinseiromeo]

Have you got an 18% grey card? If you have one, then you can use it and a curves adjustment layer to make the colours pop.

I do not. Do you have any brand you recommend?

[Gentleman Villain]

I do not. Do you have any brand you recommend?

Check out the whibal card....It's possible to get a small whibal card for about 30 bucks

Here's a video tutorial explaining how to use:
http://whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/WhiBal/01/

It's possible that you will still have problems getting a real-life portrayal of the color of the instrument regardless of white balance. It's possible that Canon can't record the colors exactly as you see them in real life....There are some situations where Canon just can't do it.

[couleur]

did you convert them to CMYK? CMYK files dont read special colours... special colours are like lime green hot pink and so on...

[Picture North Carolina]

...also be careful if you intend to print the image. To many printers including both home and lab models, brighter colors - especially bright, iridescent oranges, reds and yellows, are out of gamut. When soft proofing and printing, I often see even bright, natural reds and oranges such as found in fall colors, disappear.

[Thalagyrt]

Hey! That's not a real guitar! :)