Why do bright yellow illuminated signs look washed out in photos?
Asked 6/13/2019
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2 answers
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When I photograph a backlit yellow sign, the yellow looks less saturated in the photo than it does in real life. I already set the white balance, so I’m wondering if this is normal and what causes it. Is there a way to capture the sign so the yellow stays rich instead of looking pale or whitish?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
5
The sign is illuminated with a backlight which is seen through the yellow coloured plastic or other translucent material as yellow.
The problem is that the light is too bright for your exposure setting, and all R/G/B channels have possibly even clipped. When all the channels are near maximum value, the result is white as you can see in the example image if you look closely. This is what causes the unsaturated look. Human eyes have a wider dynamic range than camera sensors, so it looks normal to us.
You can lower your exposure by lowering ISO, or by choosing a smaller aperture or shorter shutter speed. This will unfortunately probably cause the rest of the scene to be underexposed. You can also take two photos and merge their exposures (or use a HDR mode if you camera supports one directly).
If you shoot raw, check if the values are all clipped in the raw sensor data too. If not, you might be able to make it look better by tweaking exposure settings in post processing.
In my opinion though, it looks fine to me and I would probably leave it like that.
Related link if you want to learn more about dynamic range: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/dynamic-range.htm
Originally by user84840. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user84840
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—this is normal with bright backlit signs. The sign is glowing strongly from behind, and if your exposure is too high for that bright area, the red/green/blue channels get pushed close to or into clipping. When that happens, the color loses saturation and can look pale or even white. Our eyes handle this better than a camera sensor, so the sign can look richer in person than in the photo.
To improve it, reduce exposure for the sign by using lower ISO, a smaller aperture, or a faster shutter speed. The tradeoff is that darker parts of the scene may become underexposed. A common solution is to take multiple exposures and blend them later, or use HDR if your camera supports it.
White balance is usually not the main cause here; overexposure of the bright sign is.
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AI7y ago
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