Any tips for enhancing rainbows?

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Ted
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columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 +0000, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much
less impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Ted

Have you tried a polarizing filter?

On 30/06/2010 08:08, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:
I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Bracket the exposure aggressively. The colours will usually look much
more saturated on the underexposed images (and the clouds darker). But
the best compromise image may be just 1/2 stop away from the exposure
that the camera would choose automatically.

Even saturated pure colours tend to go to pastel shades when over
exposed. The shot isn't that bad though and there is a hint of the
larger and usually much fainter secondary rainbow at the far right.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 +0000, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much
less impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

You should have adjusted the exposure by about 1.5 stop. Setting the
correct exposure is easy on the LX3 with its live histogram.

After that, adjust the curve to give the rainbow more 'space':

http://www.arumes.com/temp/p1120927_edit1.jpg
http://www.arumes.com/temp/curves_adjustment.png

Note that the exposure only uses five out of eight columns in this view.
The righthand three columns aren't used because of the underexposure.
You can see that I use about 60% of the dynamic range for the 40% of the
original exposure containing the rainbow. The other 60% of the original,
which contains the dark areas like the chimney and trees, only gets 40%
after the adjustment because these areas are less important. Look how
much this makes the rainbow stand out.

Finally, you may want to adjust the white balance and increase saturation
a bit, to limit the color in the sky, and to make the colorful rainbow
stand out even more against a gray background.

http://www.arumes.com/temp/p1120927_edit2.jpg

--
Regards, Robert http://www.arumes.com

In article ,
Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
On 2010-06-30, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:
I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Increase brightness and contrast:
http://cfajohnson.com/testing/p1120927.jpg


Thanks!
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columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article , ray wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 +0000, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much
less impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Ted

Have you tried a polarizing filter?

I'll give it a look, thanks!
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article ,
John Navas wrote:
On 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 GMT, in ,
(Ted Nolan tednolan) wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

1. Adjust levels
2. Correct color
3. Increase saturation

http://i48.tinypic.com/2k11fk.jpg


Oh, very nice!

Thanks
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 30/06/2010 08:08, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:
I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Bracket the exposure aggressively. The colours will usually look much
more saturated on the underexposed images (and the clouds darker). But
the best compromise image may be just 1/2 stop away from the exposure
that the camera would choose automatically.

Even saturated pure colours tend to go to pastel shades when over
exposed. The shot isn't that bad though and there is a hint of the
larger and usually much fainter secondary rainbow at the far right.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Thanks!

Yeah, there was a secondary rainbow, more visible to the eye than here.

Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

In article . net,
Robert Spanjaard wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 +0000, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much
less impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

You should have adjusted the exposure by about 1.5 stop. Setting the
correct exposure is easy on the LX3 with its live histogram.

After that, adjust the curve to give the rainbow more 'space':

http://www.arumes.com/temp/p1120927_edit1.jpg
http://www.arumes.com/temp/curves_adjustment.png

Note that the exposure only uses five out of eight columns in this view.
The righthand three columns aren't used because of the underexposure.
You can see that I use about 60% of the dynamic range for the 40% of the
original exposure containing the rainbow. The other 60% of the original,
which contains the dark areas like the chimney and trees, only gets 40%
after the adjustment because these areas are less important. Look how
much this makes the rainbow stand out.

Finally, you may want to adjust the white balance and increase saturation
a bit, to limit the color in the sky, and to make the colorful rainbow
stand out even more against a gray background.

http://www.arumes.com/temp/p1120927_edit2.jpg


Very informative, thanks!

Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 30 Jun 2010 07:08:42 GMT, Ted Nolan tednolan wrote:

I've noticed that whenever I take a picture of a rainbow, it looks much less
impressive than it did to my naked eye.

For instance this one from yesterday is ok:

http://www.tednolan.net/misc/p1120927.jpg

but looked much better in real life.

Any tips for punching rainbows up in GIMP?

Here's one I did with curves in Photoshop, using Lab mode and layer
blending:
http://mike.russell-home.net/tmp/rai...20927-lab1.jpg

The basic problem is an orange cast, and lack of contrast and saturation.

This is an interesting example that, only with your permission, I'd like to
make available to my forum for experimentation.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com