Why do some photos have very good colors and others do not?

[foyer]

Lightroom Version

Newest

Operating System

1. Windows 11

I have photos made by daylight, with Smartphones as well. There are some photos getting super colors when editing, I can use any preset and the colors very often / always are super. And there are photos taken in daylight where I can't get a single good color when editing.

Why is that? What is the difference between those photos? Is it because of the ISO setting, the aperture, exposure time, white balance or...? So what is / are the setting(s) causing that?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Without seeing these photos your guess is a good as anyone else's guess.

 

[foyer]

Well, they look like usual photos with common colors, I would think, nothing special about it. So I assume, there must be a pattern as to why the colors are great in some photos and not a single usable one can be found in the others. And I assume, there's some rule or something about when you can get particularly good colors or not.

 

[clee01l]

I agree with Johan. Please post some examples. I ask this question. What is "daylight"? A bright, sunny, cloudless day? Overcast? Cloudy? Early morning? Late evening? Noon? All of these affect the reflected color of the objects that you capture.
Are you shooting RAW where you can adjust the White Balance? Or are these JPEGs with the WB set (perhaps wrong) by the Camera?

 

[foyer]

With "daylight" I just wanted to say that there should have been (more than) enough light, so the colors could not have been affected by this.

Which of these do effect the colors the most, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance? Or any other settings? I assume, the white balance.

Will try to find some representative photos.

 

[Gnits]

Also, subject matter. Example. Green foliage may be hidden due to light reflecting off leaves. Using a polariser may help here. On the other hand, a combination of a polariser filter with a wide angle lens on a blue sky will result in unwelcome colour shifts across the sky.

 

[clee01l]

With "daylight" I just wanted to say that there should have been (more than) enough light, so the colors could not have been affected by this.

Which of these do effect the colors the most, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance? Or any other settings? I assume, the white balance.

Will try to find some representative photos.

It would help if you answered questions that were posted by Johan and me. If your WB is off and you shoot RW, you can correct it in Post. Shooting JPEG with the wrong WB in the camera can cause weird colors.
The reason that we ask questions is to try to narrow down the issue.

All of the answers so far are just guesses since we don't have all of the information that you do.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I doubt that the OP is still following this thread. It started on January 12th, and the OP stopped responding the same day. Only today somebody else all of a sudden reactivated it.

 

[GregJ]

I have a lot in common with the OP.

I've spent 50 years wondering why all of my photos aren't great.

To this day and even with the best cameras in the world and lots of hard-earned knowledge, I still delete a lot of losers from my daily shooting.

One thing that hasn't changed in all those decades of shooting and trying to get better shots....

Bad light is still bad light and good light is something I never stop looking for but can't often find.