How can you tell if photos has been saturated/over photoshopped?

DracoKat

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I've been disappointed by corals I've gotten as WYSIWYG, and it looks nothing like the photos.

Understanding that there's lighting differences between the photographer's tank and mine, but there are plenty of instances where they would overly photoshop the photos to overly enhance the colors.

What are some tell-tale signs that you know of to look out for?
 

AcroNem

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Over saturation is kind of easy to spot. Someone with more knowledge of editing techniques should chime in. I tested out a company recently (I won't name them, don't call out here PM me if you want to know) they assured me the colors were true under 20,000k and it was total BS. It was kind of obvious but thought it could still look great but a lot of vendors will still lie to your face. So I won't be ordering from them again.
Here's the real vs advertised, still looks good, but nothing like their pic. I will now assume that everything from this vendor is fake.

20170212_180807.jpg

Screenshot_20170118-145916.png
 

ahiggins

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the ones good at photoshopping will take a big on a black background of only that frag. Those are the hard to tell ones.
if stuff is in the background its usually a good indicator of "realness" like coralline algae for example. Unless I know the company, I usually ask for pics under whites to gauge the color. Anything can stand out in 20K with a filter and look amazing.
 

Broadfield

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Over saturation is kind of easy to spot. Someone with more knowledge of editing techniques should chime in. I tested out a company recently (I won't name them, don't call out here PM me if you want to know) they assured me the colors were true under 20,000k and it was total BS. It was kind of obvious but thought it could still look great but a lot of vendors will still lie to your face. So I won't be ordering from them again.
Here's the real vs advertised, still looks good, but nothing like their pic. I will now assume that everything from this vendor is fake.

20170212_180807.jpg

Screenshot_20170118-145916.png

It is hard to tell from your picture since it's so blue... looks to be around 30k, maybe higher? It's so blue that the orange in the coral isn't showing up. I'd be curious to see what it looks like under 20k and you taking the picture!?!
 

ahiggins

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Sort of along the same lines...if something is called "super rare insane unbelievable color crazy red"...I automatically assume it's altered. Just for the simple fact that most things have a name and if you're going to wow us with all the adjectives you can think of....probably isn't going to wow me that much.
 

coralvault

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HOnestly its not the saturation that is the biggest issue, but the alteration of the colors.. It is very very easy to take out color shades and make a green color appear bright bright yellow... Thats what I really hate is getting a regular green acro which was shown to be bright yellow. Really the only way to tell would be to have a green object in the background but its also easy to spot edit.... So really no way of knowing if your getting a green or yellow sps.
 

Broadfield

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shows my coralline analogy perfectly lol
and the purple fish....how cool is that!

Yeah, but you can easily just change the color of the coral... or just change anything about the coral for that matter without affecting the rest of the image.
 

Rory's Reef

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I've been disappointed by corals I've gotten as WYSIWYG, and it looks nothing like the photos.

Understanding that there's lighting differences between the photographer's tank and mine, but there are plenty of instances where they would overly photoshop the photos to overly enhance the colors.

What are some tell-tale signs that you know of to look out for?

Personally, I find that reading people's reviews usually points me in the right direction. From there I've managed to compile a list of vendors that I trust to provide an accurate picture.

Also, If you see something like this don't buy it or anything else on the site lol... This is the same vendor I believe that AcroNem posted going for $350...
Screen Shot 2017-02-24 at 10.54.56 AM.png
 

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