Cheyenne

Took this the other day but I'm not looking at advice on the light, pose or any of that but I'm asking about color and tones. To me, my images come out with an oversaturated look and hell almost cartoonish in color. This was negative in saturation.

What white balance do you use? Also are the camera and your screen calibrated?

I just always leave it on AWB and shoot raw. I have been told many times it would help to gel my light but with the strobe I have that just seems tricky so I just leave it be. Any advice?

I think the reason why the picture appears 'cartoonish' is due to the palette of colours and the contrast of her hair, skin and the wall behind, combined with the lighting used (which is good, just to be clear).

How are you metering?

I don't know what the heck I'm doing processing-wise and achieve what I consider to be the right result simply using Adobe Camera RAW (ACR). Over a few years, I have learned what each of the sliders do to the image and what I like/dislike. I have no idea what most of the sliders are doing in a technical sense, only what the effect looks like.

That said, the two pics you posted remind me of the effect I get if I overdo the 'Clarity' slider, one effect of which seems to be an emphasis of blacks and dark colours. You can get away with it with men but it doesn't look good with females, in a similar way to sharpening.

If this isn't it, perhaps it at least provides a clue to what's happening.

windpig wrote in post #18781208
How are you metering?

I use center weighted and underexpose a stop and then adjust the light to my subject.

It looks like you're making global adjustments across the whole image rather than isolating elements.

In an image like this with background and subject having similar tones it helps to create a little contrast with targeted editing.

Just my opinion.

Evertking wrote in post #18775809
I just always leave it on AWB and shoot raw. I have been told many times it would help to gel my light but with the strobe I have that just seems tricky so I just leave it be. Any advice?

Do you adjust the WB in post processing? I never use AWB, most of the time I set it to Sunlight or Flash (when in studio) and I get pretty accurate results which I can tweak further.

I just leave it AWB and see what I get
So what do you suggest if ya shoot OCF outdoor? I don't gel my flash but am going to start.

Evertking wrote in post #18784056
I just leave it AWB and see what I get
So what do you suggest if ya shoot OCF outdoor? I don't gel my flash but am going to start.

I would use Daylight outdoors unless I want to make the tones warmer. I always use one WB for one shoot so that if I want to amend it later then I can use the same adjustment on all photos from the shoot.

I also have the Color Checker Passport which helps to get the colors I want.