Red Car Paint Retouching
Of all the car paint colors, red seems to be the most challenging. I’m not sure if it’s because we have the biological hardware and software to see red better or because our camera and screen technology isn’t as good at replicating it, but whatever the case, it seems to take more color correction retouching to create the fidelity necessary to compliment it.
This was definitely the case when it came to Simon Anderson’s photography of KIA’s EV6. The overcast weather was definitely a contributing factor as the foggy atmosphere flattens out the range of darks and lights in the red paint. To create the contrast needed, I find that Capture One’s tools give me more refined control compared to Photoshop’s so it is in the raw processing that I generally try to tackle the contrast and saturation issues of the red car paints.
Of course, these images came with all the normal retouching challenges, including heavy compositing and clean-up, motion blur, image extensions, mist illustration, and sun flare additions.
