Photo Enhancement

First off, let me say that the wood dealer involved here has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with KKF.

I just bought a piece of koa. Here's what it looked like in the dealer's photo:



I got it today and took my own picture (after wetting it with water as the dealer said he did):



I don't even know how that first picture was taken.

Moral: stick with a trusted dealer.

It looks as if the top picture was taken with a flash. That will drastically change the appearance of a block. There also seems to me some kind of artificial light source giving it that yellowish (incandescent) look. NOT COOL! Hopefully, if you want to return it, that dealer has a money back guarantee and you'll just be out the postage.

Try over saturating with your phone or computer software. Typically this comes with your phone under edit.

Like this:

I'm not saying that's what the vendor did, just a thought. ..

You may well be right chef. With today's software you can do just about anything to a digital photo.

Well that sucks. Try contacting the vendor. Hopefully they could work something out with you.

Bummer about the photo but that looks like a good piece of Koa.
I don't think your photo is showing accurate colors either.
My opinion is that it looks like a good piece with great figure.
I can understand your surprise but I would keep it and use it.

In my opinion, if you're not going to be at least a little picky about color accuracy, you should always have something recognizable to serve as a reference in the pic, whether it's a nickel or a piece of white(ish) paper or anything that can help the eyes compensate a little.

Better to just try to make the pics suck less, in my opinion, but many sellers can't be arsed to learn how.

I know I am going a bit off topic here, but........
I stink at photos but am getting better....I think.
Koa can be a tough one, and the background can change the way the camera records the the photo in auto mode.
If I took 3 photos with black, gray and white backgrounds the block color would be different in each.

I agree with Myron, probably taken with a flash, and maybe used an "auto-correct" option in one of the editing programs. The combination of the two can do some really hideous things to a photos color. Something to keep in mind though...all accurate digital portrait photographs are 'enhanced'. It's the only way to get accurate colors under most artificial lighting conditions. I try to keep it to a minimum, but I do use a white reference chip in all my photos for color correction. basically, it's the same thing that used to get taken care of during the enlargement phase of film photography.

Oh, I also agree with Mark, despite the color confusion it does look like a pretty nice piece.

Be well,
mikey

marc4pt0 said:

Try over saturating with your phone or computer software. Typically this comes with your phone under edit.

Like this:

Click to expand...

I like the 'enhanced' piece!

While seller's picture looks very different from real pictures, the block actually looks pretty good. I believe it would shine and make you happy when you put a proper finish on it.

Looks like a white balance issue. Photo may have been taken with a mix of natural and incandescent light. The vendor probably either did not look closely at the pics when posting them online, or had no idea how to correct.

There are a lot of different ways to change/impact color with digital photography - either in the original picture, or post production in editing software.... so no way to know for sure what this particular person did.
pretty sure we could recreate the result with at least two different approaches though .... and that's without photoshop. With photoshop or editing, could get there quickly for color but would have to spend some time to keep the background looking natural.


My guess is this was purely camera.... To my eye, I can't say if it's flash or fixed lighting for certain but looks like it's actually a light bulb and color balance on the camera. You can see a shadow on the right side and the reflection/shadowing makes it look like the light source is in the upper left. A flash would be more head on (assuming camera mounted). The bigger issue is it's a warm temperature light (incandescent bulb probably) and that gives that color shift. If the camera is set for the right type of lighting (white balance or color temp settings), or that's corrected for afterwards, you'd end up with more natural color rendering.

unfortunate that the colors were not more naturally represented. The piece does look like it's good some very good grain and figure though. Hope you can still use it to get the results you want.

Personally, when posting pics of my work, I always try to use enhancements to get the closest to real life feel of the piece. Every now and then, I'll make a dark, dramatic picture, but I tend to post another with it that gives a truer feel. It bugs me when people use the edit option to make something less remarkable look more remarkable.

I absolutely LOVE your own pic, the block is very nice!