I think this is a lighting issue - hair color off - other colors fine?

Julian,

He is five months old, and when he was born, his hair was a different color, but once that fell out, and his "real" hair grew in, I have not been able to match what I and others see in real life to a photo. It is not just me, but everyone that looks at his pics says, boy his hair looks so red, but then turn to him, and say it doesn't look like that "now". This is consistent with pretty much every picture that I have taken of him.

 

David, There are no tunsten lights in the mix up, only ambient natural sunlight and one bounced strobe.

Try using a reflector on your nephews hair, you don't have to use a hair-light. That might open things up enough so that the hair comes out looking blond.

 

Just make sure the reflection is off the hair, not the babys face.

 

Take a meter reading on the face of the baby, then take another meter reading off the ands and feet, I think there is some type of light fall-off there.

 

I once shot a subject with Black hair with red streaks running through it. It was almost impsible to get it right, so I used Photoshop.

How do you show the pictures to the other people? Onscreen or print?

 

If we eliminate the possibility of a color profile mismatch, I think it boils down to the nature of your nephew's hair.

 

Look at it this way--if you light him with a single, constant-temperature light, and his skin tones and clothing come out true, then I don't think the reddishness of his hair is due to some technology flaw.

 

Hair is funny that way. If you look at it different ways, it looks different colors. A lot of the change is simply due to the angle of light striking the hair. My son's hair is dark brown in most light conditions, but in bright sun, it's very orange! Even more funny is that his dark brown is *about* the same as his sisters' dark brown, but in bright sun, theirs is not orange.

 

Also, if you're going to compare the look of his hair between picture and print, then the lighting conditions have to be the same. Since strobes flash on for a fraction of a second, you really have no way of seeing in real life what his real hair looks like under that light. You have to rely on the picture to capture it. So, how do you know that his hair isn't supposed to look that way under strobe light?

 

Maybe you can try taking a picture under a constant, natural light and comparing him right away in the exact same lighting conditions?

Oops, I meant "Also, if you're going to compare the look of his hair between picture and <u>real life</u>, ..." above.

"Look at it this way--if you light him with a single, constant-temperature light, and his skin tones and clothing come out true, then I don't think the reddishness of his hair is due to some technology flaw. "

 

I'm not convinced that the skin is 100% right, either. It may be slightly red, too. But I don't know the child.

 

Erica - did you shoot RAW? If you did, I could run the image through Nikon Capture NX for you, if you like, and email it back to you.

Jeannie,

I've showed both on screen and print pics. You have hit on EXACTLY what I am asking. I don't think it is a technology flaw; like I said in original post, in some lights his hair does look reddish, but not in most lights. What I want to do though, is to be able to light him with a stobe and get what I see in most lighting conditions, ie, not such red hair. So I figure that since you can reproduce other colors fine under the strobe, it must have something to do with the nature of lighting hair, and the way it reflects light. I want to know how to make it as I see it under natural light. It is not as simple as just setting the white balance, as at first I would think it would be.

OK, so what is the stated color temperature of the strobes you use? Most strobes are about 5500K, and the color temperature of ambient natural daylight can vary quite a bit.

5500 K

Although I can't provide helpful information on how to correct the problem on camera, red hair IS different from other hair colors.

 

Black, brown, and non-red blonde hair is colored by a melanin called Eumelanin.

 

Red hair is colored by a melanin called Phaeomelanin.

 

The differences in the reaction to lighting and to the sensor picking up the light could be the reason the hair appears differently to our eyes than to the camera's lens.

 

Another anecdotal example of red hair being different: I've talked to a hair removal technician who explained that red hairs are the MOST difficult hairs to remove by laser therapy because they reflect the light away from the root instead of being burned.

 

This may be a case (like neon) where the camera can't quite describe the color that it sees, so it does its best to compensate.

I missed the part where you describe your post processing. So you are shooting jpegs? At what white balance? I don't know Nikon parameters, so what is Color Mode I? I would try shooting a RAW file, and a RAW file with a custom white balance done. Then fine tune the color balance within Lightroom. It could be that the processing the camera does to produce jpegs is having an effect.

 

As for the ambient as fill--I'm guessing it is shaded light coming through windows? That would have a lower (cooler) color temperature than direct sunlight, but I doubt if it is having a huge effect since the flash is obviously primary. Just to rule it out though, you can try cutting it out as much as possible by using a fast shutter speed and smaller f stop.

 

I also think there might be some truth to your theory regarding the wispy nature of the hair allowing scalp to semi show through.

> So I figure that since you can reproduce other colors fine under the strobe, it must have something to do with the nature of lighting hair, and the way it reflects light. I want to know how to make it as I see it under natural light. <

 

Um. . . Create a CONTROLLED studio condition: i.e. KNOWN colour temperatures; NO colour casts; NO mixed lighting. You can`t conduct the `experiment` without the all the ingredients having KNOWN values.

 

:)

 

WW

I'm with William. Any time you introduce mixed lighting, whether a strobe with outdoor light or indoor tungsten, you are asking for trouble. The idea with studio photography is to create a controlled environment where all the light is balanced and under control. <br/><br/>

 

Your flash is going to be warmer than ambient, this means a bounced flash is going to reflect warm on the hair relative to the cooler light on the skin. <br/><br/>

 

It would be very beneficial to either introduce more controlled light to blow out the ambient, or to make an effort to better control the bounced flash color temperature to match the ambient. <br/><br/>

 

Either way, shooting RAW will probably save you a lot of headache later on if you are not doing so already.<br/><br/>

 

<center>An extreme example of mixed lighting - sitting by a window in a restaurant<br/>

<img src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/2554745098_1c78afa710.jpg></center>

The shot on the right is a tad bit blue, but the right side of her face is correct, I shouldn't have cropped that part out. Sorry ^

It seems though that the blue is only in the highlights, whereas the red is more ubiquitous.

You're right.. I cropped the left side of her face, which is where you would see correct skin tones, and the skin is actually much closer to correct on the right hand side.

 

The point is... yes the 'blue' is only in the highlights, just like the warmer tones are showing up in the hair of your nephew.

> I'm with William. Any time you introduce mixed lighting etc . . . <

 

Thanks David.

 

I wasn`t looking (necessarily) for acknowledgement, and I was not shouting when I used capitals, and I was not demeaning any of the other issues, which could be affecting the outcome or directing my comment toward the great comments upon those `other` the aspects.

 

But this conversation, from where I sit is, frankly, going around in circles.

 

There no way the ceiling is white, there is mixed Colour Temperatures in the two lighting sources (window and flash), and SS was 1/40 at A F3.2 at ISO100, arguably plenty to let the ambient take effect.

 

IMO (putting on my analyst`s hat) it is kinda wasting time pondering the `other` variables without the lighting being pure, in the first inst.

 

WW

Just a comment on the assumption tha tthe ceiling white is pure white... White paint is not pure white (usually)... The ceiling white I have custom mixed in my homes contains red, some yellow, a trace of blue and black... When you walk into the room with the color on the walls, the floors, the furniture, and artwork, and mixed window and tungsten light, it looks pure white (in comparison)... If you hold a pure white card next to it with a halogen lamp you then see that it is a much warmer white...

 

denny

I agree with the assessment that hair photographs differently than it looks in real life. I have dark brown hair... with black, copper, bright red, gold, and brown showing up VERY strongly in different lighting situations. Having had my portrait made many times testing backgrounds, I'm frequently surprised at how different my hair can look with just a turn of my head.

 

I can't offer any lighting advice for you, but I agree that it doesn't seem like a camera problem or processing problem. I think the problem lies in that it is HAIR. Localized post processing is probably your best bet for an accurate color rendition.

Hair colour does change in bright light. Coming from an Irish background I have

auburn hair. Looks like regular brown hair but in a bright light shone through the hair

it will appear reddish. I was also very fair as a baby apparently.

 

I would try directly lighting the hair, diffused from the front rather than bounce, or try

a dark background to see what happens. Avoid any light shining through the hair,

especially light from the east window if it's late afternoon.

 

Perhaps open the aperture and lower the flash output too.

 

But Erica, you are fighting a losing battle as you have three different light sources.

You can try overpower them with your flash, but that's probably causing some of

problem too.

 

After mid-day you can get an extreme colour difference between North and East

windows, with north being very blue, east being more red&yellow. I have a study in

my portfolio on this. There is no WB setting that can make this correct. I suggest

you black out one or other window and use a reflector as necessary.

 

Your first image does look slightly warm.

Thanks all for your kind suggestions. I will give more controlled lighting a whirl. I really appreciate all the info.

I`d appreciate to know the results of your next attempt.

 

:)

 

WW

It may not be your lighting, but actually the lights. Strobes very rarely give accurate colors in digital. Red is the hardest for both film and digital. Ask any clothing or catalog shooter. If you have UV tubes on your strobes that may get you closer. Hair that contains water, mousse or gels will reflect light differently. Also reflectors, diffusers, and umbrellas can all effect the color balance, often in the red part of the spectrum. Fair hair is really tough, the scalp also can reflect through the hair too.

 

Good luck