So I have this link that is up on the top of the blog called ask the jerk. where people can ask me questions, and if they can’t be answered by doing a google search first I will answer them.
For example Mr R Wiedlin asks I really enjoy your photos. You really capture vibrant colors which I just can’t seem to pull out from my pictures. Do you have any tips, or can recommend resources for getting rich colors from photos, either during shooting, or during editing and cleanup phase?
The number one thing I can say is get your exposures right. A properly exposed photo will always have the best shot at giving you great color.
Second is shoot in the right light. The light will do more to determine if a photo is vibrant or washed out than anything else. It may sound counter intuitive but over cast and rain soaked days are the best to make colour POP! Sunny direct light will wash out the colour and make it look far more bland. Similarly, direct on camera flash will wash out some of your colour as well.
Third thing is simply the time of day that you are shooting. Certain colours are much more vibrant at different times of the day, golden hour (the hour before sunset) didn’t get this name because this is when the money shots are taken, instead when conditions are right red, yellow, & orange colours tend to pop. Similar to that there is what I like to call the post-golden 15 min of Blue. Which is the few minutes after the sun sets but before it is actually dark out when the blues and greens are most vibrant :)
Forth depending what camera you are shooting with there is often a setting for in camera colour profiles. These will let you control things like saturation contrast & color tone. Adjust accordingly.
In the post processing world you can start by correcting any exposure issues, followed by increasing contrast, then lastly if there is not quite the colour Pop you are looking for you can increase the saturation but I would be careful about that particular slider because it is really easy to make your higher saturation colour areas clip (meaning there is only one shade of colour found in a portion of the image as apposed to the a more life like gradient of colour)
I hope this all helps in some way.