Macro Rose Cloudy White Balance Camera Faithful Picture Style |
It can be challenging to record the colors of some flowers the way they appear to our eyes, such as the orange of this rose. How your camera reproduces the color is dependent on two different settings.
First, the White Balance adjusts color to compensate for any hues introduced by the light source. If you are working with indirect window light, then sunny (even without sun) or cloudy are appropriate White Balance choices.
If the colors still don't look true, experiment with the Picture Control or Picture Style settings. This is a menu choice that provides options such as Standard, Landscape, and Portrait. If the colors are not turning out to your liking with the Standard Picture Style, experiment with Faithful, Neutral or a similar option. (Choices vary depending on the camera brand.) I recommend avoiding Landscape or Vivid color settings. These add more saturation to the colors already in the scene and can lead to a loss of detail in the petals.
Even shooting a raw file may not be a big help since there is no neutral tone in this close-up to correct the White Balance. You can experiment with different color Profiles in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom's Develop module. But we humans have a poor memory for exact colors. So I strive to produce accurate color in the camera while I'm shooting, using a combination of White Balance and Picture Style.