Quandary

[Ernest Pratt]

Here is a quandary. I took this picture getting ready for graduation and worked on it for a while, thinking all was well. Then I realized that the gown is supposed to be purple. All of the other colors are pretty close. Has anyone else run into this sort of thing. If so, suggestions on how to fix it would be appreciated.

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[timtam]

looks like there is still a blue cast to your image. Try adding red with the slider or use lightroom to do a targeted adjustment. You can also use the white balance dropper to pick a neutral gray and work from that starting point. Usually adding a little warmth when shooting peeps. If there are no neutral grays or whites to pick then try picking the whites of her eye as a neutral gray. I trust you shot the image in RAW so you can adjust the white balance. Also try using a gray card in the test shot and shoot with fill flash, even outdoors but turn it down 2 stops. You are shooting with green light when in the shade due to reflection off of the foliage.

[Ezra Morley]

Is this more like it’s supposed to look? I only had a very compressed JPG to work with, so hopefully you’ll get better results with your original file…

Do you have Adobe Lightroom? That’s what I used for this quick edit. If you do have Lightroom, I can share the settings I used, so you can get the same look.

The lighting is a little weird. As @Timtam said, it’s the green foliage creating a greenish tint on everything. Even the whites of the eyes are tinted green, so that throws off the WB/Tint.

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[Ernest Pratt]

Thanks to both of you for your insight and assistance.
Unfortunately, I am working only with Adobe Photoshop Elements. I do need to upgrade.
The adjustments buddingphotographer made are pretty close.

Thanks again.

[Ezra Morley]

Which version of Elements do you have?

[James Staddon]

A friend gave me an Expodisc as a gift recently, and I’ve started using it to nail down the perfect white-balance in difficult situations like you mentioned here. It’s something to look into as a possible solution in the future. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/expodisc.htm

[timtam]

I have an Expodisc also. It is good for getting the WB close in camera for mixed lighting situations; especially flash, so the images look good on your camera display during the shoot. However; Using a small gray card at your subject and shooting raw and adjusting in post is probably the cheapest and still the best way to do it. Just get a business card sized gray card.

Sometimes thing just go your way. Consider the two attached images. I took 3,200 images at this performance. The stage lighting was held up off the floor with masonry blocks spread across the stage. The blocks were near perfect gray cards for all my shots. See “Image 1”. I still needed to adjust WB in groups of performance sets because the above stage lighting varied a lot. But I could get the WB very close with the blocks and the eye dropper tool and warm it up a bit and change groups of images all at the same time.

The second image is “as shot” in camera without WB adjustment even though I set the WB in camera for the room lighting before the performance. You can see how warm it is “as shot”. All orig images shot RAW always.

We loose some of the detail converting it to 2MB and jpg.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 9 months ago by .

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[James Staddon]

Thanks so much; good to know!

@kawrider1978, do you know how to use a gray card as @timtam mentioned?

[Ernest Pratt]

I have PSE version 8.0, to answer buddingphotographer’s question.
As for the gray card, I only have introductory experience.

[Ezra Morley]

@kawrider1978, this link might be of some help. Unfortunately, I don’t have PSE, so I can’t help you much with that. 🙁

• https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/using/adjusting-color-saturation-hue-vibrance.html

[Ezra Morley]

You can do it with GIMP which is free. You can download it here: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Once installed, go to Colors > Hue-Saturation... and select the “Blue” Channel. Then plug in the numbers you see below.

That should give you the coloring you see here:

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[Ernest Pratt]

In the version I have of Elements, the menu looks a little different, but I did finally locate the place to adjust specific colors. Thanks. The Adobe link was quite helpful.
I haven’t tried GIMP yet. I may have a little more time later this week.

Thanks again.

[Ezra Morley]

You’re welcome! Hopefully you find a good solution!

And now you have some ideas for what to do next time when photographing to avoid strange color shifts!

[James Staddon]

As for using gray cards, @timtam would be the one to expound on this article if it’s missing anything: https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/how-to-use-a-gray-card-for-custom-white-balance-and-metering/

[Ezra Morley]

Just for future reference, for those who have Adobe Lightroom, I found another way to do it that might be a little more “professional” :).

Open the photo in question in the Develop Module, then select Camera Calibration, (it’s the last one at the bottom). This gives you a selection of color tools to correct for color problems just like this!

In the screenshot above, the +40 is the adjustment that seems to be what this specific photo needs. Here’s what we get with that adjustment.

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