Contrast & Saturation, when is it too much?

[Gerome]

Playing around with Picasa recently taught me the benefit of turning up the contrast in high sierra scenic photos. Something like a 20% increase seems to eliminate most of the haze that every long distance shot my p&s takes. I've just finished editing a kayak video. I rendered it without thinking about adjusting the levels, but when I watched my shots into a deep canyon I knew I could eliminate the haze and make them pop by increasing contrast. Now I've re-edited adding saturation and contrast to almost every clip. It feels like a video made on good old Velvia, and almost like a cheap way to create HDR. I'll render it next week to show the comparison. But when is it too much?

For comparison sake, here's my friend's photo using the same P&S (pentax optio wpi) that I have.


Here's my hack Picasa saturation and contrast adjustment


And here's the same location using a p+s with Velvia (50 I think)

[squirrelmurphy]

I'd say that #2 is a good of example of when saturation is overdone. Velvia shot has a neat look, but the white balance is pretty screwy.

[Hugh Conway]

Agree on the oversaturation.

Is the vignetting in camera or photoshop for the Velvia?

[andrewjesaitis]

I'd agree about the oversaturation especially in the red/orange channels. I personally like contrasty shots, but I want to see it again with less saturation.

[Tippster]

We won't even talk about that Velvia shot. What the hell happened to all the reds? How cooked was the film before you shot it, how old is the neg, etc....

As far as the 1st two images go I'd simply split the difference. You went too far with both the saturation and contrast. This is where learning about curves would help you in your post processing.


My take: