Is this color balance "right"? Who the hell knows!
“I’m not going to go too far though, because it will make the image look unnatural.” This is Chris Orwig discussing his use of the recovery slider in the Lightroom develop module, and his choice of words relates to a critical approach to developing images — using any adjustment in any program. It’s not about making things “right” as much as it is about making things “not wrong.”
When I am processing images, I often feel like I am in a vacuum. I am making the tiniest of adjustments as I try to make an image look right. But what is “right”? Right often feels like a moving, confusing target. It’s much, much easier to focus on making an image look “not wrong,” not unnatural.
Overdo It To Do It Right
After setting his recovery slider to achieve a natural effect, Orwig moves on to the contrast slider, and says, “I’m going to exaggerate for a minute.” This exaggeration is to help him see what’s really going on. As he plays with each control, he goes to extremes to clearly see how his actions affect him image.
Exaggerating with each control helps Orwig fine tune adjustments as he focuses on avoiding what looks unnatural, which is, arguably, the only way (through relative comparisons) to identify what is natural.
Now I see! The same image looks more "right" when compared to what's clearly unnatural.
Chris Orwig Focuses on Being Reasonable
These thoughts occurred to me while checking out Chris Orwig’s great “Photoshop Lightroom 3 Essential Training” at Lynda.com. (The specific tidbit came in his “Basic Develop module workflow” — Chapter 26.) When Orwig arrives at the contrast slider, he explains that as he increases the contrast, he also increases color saturation. “So now that warmth is way too warm,” he says. “Too warm” is another way of saying “unnatural.”
Avoiding unnatural warmth is a lot easier than achieving “correct” warmth, which, of course, is totally subjective. Orwig says, “So let’s bring this contrast back down to something more reasonable.”
In photographic processing, as in life, being reasonable is a lot easier than being right.
