Composing with Color - Part 3

by Alain Briot
This essay is part of Chapter 5 in Alain’s second bookMastering Composition, Inspiration and Personal Style
7 - Saturation
To see in color is a delight for the eyebut to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.
Andri Cauldwell
Saturation is both an important and an overused aspect of color. In short, it is just too easy to over saturate a photograph, either globally or locally, in order to make it more colorful or more interesting.
Certainly, it can be said that over-using the two other variables of color is just as bad. Making a photograph too light or too dark is not good either. And having too many different hues in an image is a sure recipe to make it look gaudy. Similarly, reducing the hues to a minimum may remove interest in the image altogether.
None of these are good, and all of them are symptoms of image maladies, a concept we will explore in depth in the chapter of the same name later in this book. But right now I want to address saturation spec...