Online buyers beware!!!!!

LMAFO!!Absolutely. I have no problem with companies who tweak the pictures to give a more accurate rendition of the corals color.What I do have a problem with is the blatant misrepresentation of the coral and then them calling it WYSIWYG. I asked a vendor once where I could buy the purple egg crate they were using.LOL

 

+1 Exactly.

FYI, advertising agencies have been 'doctoring' pics long before the digital age. Elmers glue in the bowl of Cheerios instead of milk, painted rather than cooked Butterball turkeys, and when is the last (or even first) time you've seen a Big Mac that resembled it's perfect, mouth-watering pic? Eye appeal to boost sales is the whole purpose for advertising.

 

Well yes, I suppose I should have clarified my statement.

Using photoshop (or the like) for correction in order to make the image more true to the actual representation is fine. I've done this myself. Using a photo editing tool to over-saturate and mis-represent colors is another thing entirely.

And Curt made me smile.

 

EVERYTHING is photoshopped these days. The food we eat, the actors we watch, the models on TV are made thinner, etc etc. And yes of course, most online dealers make their corals look as good as they can. That's why ya buy from trusted sources and do your own homework. They're job is to sell their product, your job is to buy quality product.

But yes Inwall, there is some purdy sand out there.

 

Yes, everyone has very good points! You say they try to make it "resemble" the original image but do you know how easy it would be just pull up the saturation 10 points or bring out the green to also come out a tiny bit neon. Some of these tiny little things are what really get us to click the button on them. I think some of this how they get away with it is you almost make excuses yourself by saying "Well, they have strong and more kelvin lighting so maybe thats why," or "They have perfect water conditions and they deal with a more water system than me so thats why it looks so great." Your mind some how always thinks its never their fault and its always something is wrong with my system. Very interesting and some what mind boggling! I would be interested to know if anyone got something that they had a little suspicion about! It would be fun to really go into research about it....

 

Bump for anyone that didn't read my last comment!

 

When used properly, photoshop can actually make the picture look more like the actual specimen. Colors, of course, should not be intensified though.

 

BTW....it's not only photoshopping. We had a couple of 3Reefer's who were attending a frag swap for the first time. I warned them that these corals are going to be displayed under serious blue lighting and if their lighting isn't that blue at home, you are not going to get the same amount of fluorescence.