bluemoon said:
something else to think of, we are unable to remember colors. Our brain is just no wired that way. There are some exceptions to the rule, but they are few and far between. . . I work with colors in my daily job and have learned that my memory tricks me often and now have Pantone books in strategic locations.
pierre
I'd like to see the scientific papers that explain how and why this could be true. I remember colors quite clearly myself for a good while. It is only after years as memories naturally fade, and our recollection of all details, not just color, diminishes. There have been a few papers written on the subject of memory and color, and the science demonstrates that we actually remember things better when they are in color, particularly NATURAL colors, vs. when they lack color, or are artificially colored.
In that context, I can easily understand the OP seeing the red as his images are being replicated by LR, and not remembering the color of the real flowers that way. The real flowers obviously have natural color, whereas the rendition of those flowers in LR is less natural. That discrepancy, and the OP's sensation of it, more than anything else here, is absolutely real. The closer the OP can get his flowers to render like the real natural color, the less he will feel that something is off.
There are limitations with rendering realistic color when it comes to digital photography. For one, silicon is extremely sensitive to red and infrared light. To attenuate this sensitivity, camera manufacturers use IR cutoff filters that have a gradual incline in the passband as it enters the reds. This limits how well we can naturally resolve reddish colors. Further, most computer screens are 8-bit sRGB, and the sRGB gamut is a rather limited one. It does not allow the greatest extent for deeper reds. Combine that with potentially limited or incorrect recording of reds by the camera sensor, especially for brighter colors that may be close to the non-linear shoulder of the sensor's response (i.e. closer to the clipping point of the signal), and getting realistic reds can be very difficult.
Calibration with a color checker card is one way to improve results. I wouldn't call it a panacea, but it can help when your working with extreme colors. Keeping your exposure in the linear range of the sensor will also help. That usually means reducing the exposure a little bit, which might hurt shadow detail if you have any...but it will preserve more accurate colors at the high end of the signal.
Manual tweaking of colors with the color channel sliders in LR can do a lot, but it works best if all of your channels are sufficiently below the clipping point of the signal. You need some headroom to shift colors around without unnatural casts appearing.