This time of year we have had on rare days of bright sunlight, and most of the time sun is so low that there are no possibilities to have great colours. So taking photo in winter has many times been shooting darkish, cloudy and greyed scenes.

I have been tempted to try boosting the vividness to a degree I got kind of colour blinded – until I think I learned an important lesson: Don't always try to boost colours, some times you will have better results when actually dumping the colours, or even converting B&W. Here is an example of a scene where I think colour dumbing was the the best result, what do you think:

This is the original RAW as seen by Picasa:



This what I first tried, trying to increase the vividness, not quite natural:



This is the result I like best, increasing the brightness and contrast but dumbing the colours to get a more natural result:



I know all this might be elementary to many of you, but for me it was a heureka. My development as a amateur photographer went in general kind of in the lines of this series of examples, so I hope there is something for you too...

[wtlwdwgn]

I struggle a lot with grey and white. Although #3 is probably more "correct" the colors in #2 are quite pleasing to my eye.

[daacon]

Georg - I am not sure I agree that #2 looks too unatural. I think it is my favorite of the bunch but what the heck do I know

[gawan]

Steve, Dave, thanks for the comments, of course I tried to make the second as pleasing as I could. I think the third approach is nevertheless a good one, at least to me the most pleasing in this example.

I might just have a dumbed period going on

Here is a B&W version

[Rense]

George, I agree with you. I think #3 is the better of three. #2 has too much of a Hollywood-disaster-movie-anouncing-the-end-of-the-world-feeling, IMO... I hope you understand what I'm saying.

[gawan]

Thanks, Rence, I understand

This might be a little unfair as I am the only one who has seen the scene in that light. I love vivid colours but in this kind of dumb light one must boost them to get more than was actually available, so I got to like the other approach too.