[Teri]

I took this picture this morning as I have said before Im just learning my camera. I took so many pictures of it trying to get it right..my question is even though I like the colors that came out here to the actual eye there wasnt as much purple but its the way the picture came out..what did I do wrong? I tried several settings but each of them came out with the same bright colors.

[smarti77]

Hi Teri - There is a few things you can try with post processing if you have the software.
Shooting in 'raw' format (if your camera allows it) is the bet way to control the colours.
I tried a few easy adjustments in photoshop to reduce the purple/magenta...
Mainly just levels and colour adjustments...

[NT73]

It may be because it is set to Night Scene mode, according to the EXIF.I don't know as I don't use any set modes like that.

[BeaglesToo]

Wow Smarti77 I love what you did with it.
Lorraine

[Teri]

Yeah that is nice I like what you did with it as well..thats pretty much the way it looked.
Im not sure on the format that these two pictures were takin in I forget..I shot it in several different ones.
Im thinking this one here was done with the night scene mode & Zoom...
that zoom likes making me mad for sure. LOL Ive gotten one picture to come out decent enough to keep using the zoom..

[Keith Alan]

Without knowing anything about your particular camera it's hard to say what went wrong or right from just a photo posted on the web, Teri.

Here's a few ideas that might help you, as you experiment with certain shots that are more difficult than a standard "sunny afternoon" type photo (which most cameras do fairly well at).

You mention using different 'scene' modes, and while they can be very helpful at first it's important to someday understand exactly what the camera is doing in each of these modes, so you can better decide which one is right for a particular situation.
Many times a scene mode will pick an appropriate white balance setting, and WB has a huge effect on the colors you end up with.
With sunrise/sunset photos there is no rule as to which WB setting to use, being more a matter of taste.
A quick guide is that the sunny WB setting is the first to try.
The "cloudy" setting will be warmer/redder.
The "flourescent" setting will cut out a lot of blue, as will using the onboard flash to illuminate someone or something in the foreground, because when you use any onboard flash the camera will automatically revert to the WB setting that's best for flash with no override possible on many cameras.
"Incandescent or tungsten" (the lightbulb icon) will reduce the orange color associated with indoor lightbulbs.

All of this is just to point out that 'scene' modes often pick their own particular WB setting, which you can discover by looking at the exif data from each photo you take, hopefully alongside some written notes on what settings you used on location.
This is the fastest way to learn what your camera is really doing.

There are a few free programs that you can download to show you the exif data from your pictures.
Exif data contains all of the camera's settings at the time of exposure, and is embedded into the .jpg or RAW file, to be read later by you and me, your editing software, etc.

I use IrfanView and Opanda to read exif.
They are tiny little applications that are free to download.

I think these photos look nice, despite not being exactly what you saw at the time of exposure.

[digitalzen]

Cameras do not "see" color the way the human eye does. Both film and digital cameras tend to spread their sensitivity more evenly across the entire spectrum, where the human eye is most sensitive in the yellow range.

Post-processing is the easiest way to correct colors to look more "natural," although from another point of view it's we who see "unnaturally."

I have an article on free software here: http://tinyurl.com/y5gp7e

dz