My wife's Samsung Galaxy phone camera seems to capture violet color correctly ...

My camera captures colors very well. If the color is not quite correct in one light, it will be in another. I have photographed this AV in different lights, different angles. It is true blue.

Is it acceptable to photoshop a plant to correct the color? I adjust lightness and darkness but, as I said, I don't have to correct the color as my camera is usually true.

I wonder how many other violets there are that don't photograph true.

I keep this plant because I use it to test. I had an area where I thought there was too little light and behold, it flowered in that spot. Then I moved this plant to a spot where I suspect too much light. It is a very dull purple. The pictures always surprise me, such a deep true blue.

It is beautiful in living color, but not in real life.

Lucky,

Depending on the computer monitor, the color might vary. For example, on my compeer, your color looks more violet. Looking at it on my phone, it is more blue. A couple of years ago on the Forum there was a long discussion on your topic. I don't recall the name of the thread. However, the main points were that the color usually photographs more blue than purple unless adjustments for the color can be made using more specialized types of cameras with adjustable settings or filters. One person who is a professional photographer explained how to get a more purple than blue color. I think Karin also contributed to the conversation. Added to that, it was pointed out that horticulturally, the color is referred to as Blue. It is horticultural blue. So, what we might call violet or purple or plum is in the scientific world simply called blue. The growers or vendors might try to describe it better, but most of the time, they don't get too detailed. For example, a plant called Starry Night Blue, in my environment, is bright purple, almost a plum color. So I always forget which one it is, because the name throws me off. That is why, when reading long lists of Optimara descriptions, often, the color is simply stated as blue, when they are referring to the general category or type.

And yes, you can photoshop the color to get something that looks more like your plant. It was suggested that vendors might do that.

If your plant is an Optimara, they are raised to grow in lower light than other plants. They can grow in a range of circumstances. They might not thrive, but they won't die.

Joanne

I just took the following set of photos of one of my blooming violets (Snowy Sky) using two different cameras and varied lighting ...

The first is a good representation of the plant under fluorescents ...

The second is the same camera and lighting, but came out more blue ...

... and the last photo is with a different camera and no overhead lighting ...

My first digital camera ALWAYS made violet colors blue. The technology seems to be improving today.

it is very useful to take it outside into very bright light, but no sun - northern light is best. or a good bright cloudy day. then the pic will reflect the true color. fluorescents make it bluer, of course, incandescent lightings adds a warmer tone - so it will look more purple. in general lighting distorts color.

northern light is truest (which is why painters prefer it for a studio).

on my camera i can do 'virtual color filter'. in general, for outside it is recommended to add neutral filter on the lens - to help with color distortion on sunny days.

Hi,

Aegis, which one is closest to the actual color? It is gorgeous. I never got it because I did not like the name, "Snowy Sky," as it sounded dull gray to me. But your plant is not dull. (I think the Soranos must live somewhere up north near the upstate New York snow belt, because they come up with names like Stormy Rage, or Snowy Sky. The last thing I want to think about when looking at violets is snow! I want to think about Spring!)

Yes, I seem to recall that the conversation referred to improved technology and color filters. I usually just use my Smart Phone because I can load it up directly to the compute, however, my family members have other, fancier digital cameras I have not tried yet. We bought them for baby pictures, but then got hooked on using our phones for the convenience. That was also the conversation we had a couple of years ago on the Forum.

This color issue became a topic of intrigue for me, related to some design work I was doing. I believe the human eye is more able to discern various subtleties in shades of blues, purples, violets, and greens. The human eye has more cones to discern these colors.

Also, blue and violet are colors that are seen by some insects. So in nature, there are a lot of purple or violet color flowers. In nature, wild violets also tend to be in shades of blue or purple or white. However, I have seen wild violets in yellow and pink as well.

As for hyacinths, currently in bloom here, the most powerful scent is with the darkest purple flowers. Joanne

Joanne ...

You have hyacinths blooming already ? Lucky you .... it was -1 here yesterday, and we'll get below 0 temperatures a couple more times this week before it's all over.

In the light, the plant looks like the first photo. With the lights off ... the plant looks like the last photo.

It's a great plant. It grows easily, blooms a lot, and propagates well.

It's a medium blue-violet semi-double with fairly large blossoms. It's got lighter highlights and a lighter edge.

It's one of my best performers.

It seems to me that it doesn't matter how true your photo is if it doesn't display that way on my monitor, correct? That seems to be one of the big sticking points. Reds always seem to be off and so do blues. A very long time ago some of us on a group wished vendors would use some kind of chart so we had some idea of what color we were buying. Someone objected saying, "Then my reds wouldn't be red any more!" :)

(Hey we had -12 yesterday. That is a pretty blue though.)

Diana

"Then my reds wouldn't be red anymore!" That says it all! Especially with reds, that often seem to revert to purplish.

That was a few years back and the reds have improved. I seem to prefer the ones that veer toward what I call "wine" and is possibly your "purplish." I always think Lyon's Red Rocket is toward a cinnamon but maybe brick is more accurate. However back then, no they weren't red :). If you stuck them under the right light you could pretend but take them into the real world and, no.

I dropped that fight but thought a big box of crayons would be a start since price was frequently quoted as a barrier to any suggestion. There are also very nice cards made for quilters although we wouldn't need the majority of them. I ran around my yard with them trying to put together planters one year. There are many well known systems, including an official one for flowers (somebody probably knows it), but they are prohibitively expensive. All we wanted was a clue - most of us knew that flower tinted like the bottom of the swimming pool wasn't really that color.

Now to try to stop Houzz from emailing me every time someone responds to something!

Diana

if you manage to get to your profile and find advance settings - there are sev switches there for controlling various e-mailing options. you need to turn them off.

You know, I really thought I had done that, but then I got an email when you responded to this! Try again, I guess. There are so many things there to be notified about too.

Diana

It's okay now. I just needed to fix the setting. I didn't need to log in and out or anything.

Here's Snowy Sky photographed under fluorescents with a Galaxy S4. This is pretty close to the true color under lights.

So pretty!