Experiment: Desaturation

Barry Hannah died on Monday. I was home alone last night and decided to try a few experiments with desaturation -- something I've been wanting to try for a while after being inspired by a few things here and there, and most recently, by Chris Hunt.

For these, in Lightroom, I took the saturation down to -48 or so, upped the color temperature a bit (warmer), and played with the saturation of the oranges, yellows and reds to find the right mix of desaturation and warmth.

In this one, I heavily re-saturated the blue and yellow tones to emphasize Barry Hannah's tome -- Airships. I thought that that, paired with the shallow DOF on his name, might make it stand out, maybe as a kind of ode.

Here's the image:























I rather liked the way it turned out. The only thing I'm not sure about is if it looks too dark.

I tried another one with my husband's amp. It sits in our incredibly 70s-ish hallway (thanks to the wallpaper, among other things), so I also gave it some fairly heavy vignetting in post-processing to try to convey that vintage feel. Again, I'm not sure if it looks too dark:






















I could probably have stood to brighten it a bit. Maybe I'll try that and repost later.

Otherwise, I like the results.

I am also curious to try out this treatment with photos that were taken outside on bright, sunny days. If our weather keeps on as it's been going, though, I might have to wait a while for a chance at that!