RAW conversion of concert pictures with red LED lights

<p>Dear fellow photographers,</p>

<p>Recently I run into more and more concerts where mainly red LED-lights are used. This gives terrible color separations and artefacts in the images. I shoot RAW all the time. So there should be some freedom to "fix it" somehow. Up to now, I mainly reduce "vibrance" a lot ... just as much to turn the image totally into a black&white one. Still, I am not happy especially, if the client would prefer to have "real" color shots.</p>

<p>Are there any recommendations out there, how to get the maximum image quality out of RAW-files like this ??</p>

<p>Thanks for your input !</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p> Peter</p><div></div>

<p>I dont think you're going to 'save' this as-is since it's so off-kilter. My first thought was to use a CC filter on the lens, probably green-ish to counter the red/purple. You also might be able to play some games w/ PS channels by replacing/duplicating 'defective' channels w/ a copy of a good channel. The fundamental problem is you can't make something from nothing.</p>

<p>If the light source is mostly from a source like that - which is missing most of the spectrum - then you're not going to be able to create the missing frequencies in post production no matter what format or software you're using. If you're shooting a concert <em>for a client</em>, and have the access/control of the situation that would presumably go hand in hand with that: use some off-camera strobes to provide a touch of full-spectrum fill. Gel them, perhaps, to warm them up or cool them down a bit. But by having remote strobes, you can retain the somewhat theatrical lighting <em>angles</em> that preserve the stage lighting look, and an use cust enough to even out the skin tones without overwhelming the actual stage lighting.</p>

Are you sure light generated was by LED lamps not halogen or incandescent ones? If not, then could you provide a publicly accessible URL to the raw file?

Better yet, could you post the RGB histogram of one of the untouched raw files?

<p>Thank you everybody for your input and fast response. The case is pretty hopeless (I knew it). As in most cases flash was not allowed. Where ever flash is allowed it makes life a lot easier in PostProduction. I will try what Howard proposed (replacing/ duplicating channels). For this one I can unfortunately not upload the CR2-file but I will try to find another sample from another shooting. It would be very interesting - and not only for me I assume - to see who comes up with which solution for the final image.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p> Peter</p>

<p>PS.: Here would be another example of red LED light concert nightmares :</p>

<p>http://works.fauland-photography.com/images/cl/11/_MG_3815.CR2</p>

Peter, there was server lack of green channel. I set the white balance (temperature 5245, green 2.5 (maximum)) by considering the earbud to be black . That gave "reasonable enough" skin color & white shirt (under red-blue lights?). There is an <a href="http://www103.pair.com/parv/tmp/_MG_3815.png">annotated screenshot of ufraw</a> (PNG, 1.5 MB, 1396 x 1013 px) available for limited time period if interested in changed color histograms & curves.<div></div>

<p>If you can't bring your own full-spectrum fill, as Matt suggested, in venues where not all lamps have been replaced by LEDs (yet) it pays off to wait for those lamps to come on - even if it's only a blinder or a strobe light it may add enough fill to get a workable RAW file.</p>

<p>Other than that, I found that drastic adjustments in ACR can often turn typical LED shots into publishable images; though exposure and focus need to be spot on.</p>

<p>Peter,</p>

<p>The first images real problem is is is way overexposed, over one stop for sure. That has lost too much detail on her face camera left. It is not the light that is the main problem.</p>

<p>Your second image is not too difficult to work, it really depends on what you are after, the simplest is a B&W, but desaturating the magenta a little and large temp and tint shifts put some cleaner light on his face.</p>

<p>Concert lights are colourful, image buyers expect this, but there are always occasions where there are white lights on the performer, particularly from the front. Get those moments, nail exposure (I use manual mode almost exclusively for concerts) and concentrate on accurate focus, for images like this sharpness can be used to draw the eye into the image, it is not a prerequisite for a good concert image, like sports or portrait images generally are, but focus is a very important tool.</p><div></div>

<p>A lot of the smaller stage lights now have red, green and blue LEDs as the light source. With these you will not get a full spectrum of light, even when they appear to be white.</p>

<p>A big THANK you to all of you. @Scott Ferris: I have to agree with you. It's 1,25 f-stops overexposed compared to some other shots. This makes it even more difficult to work on. @parv: I like your version. I would reduce the "red-brown" a bit more overall and it's quite ok. <br>

All in all, I would say this is why concert photography is so interesting and challenging. Light is not too easy to control and one has to catch the PERFECT moment.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p> Peter</p>

<p>Besides the overexposure, I think there's quite a bit of flare as well. Here's a quick edit with just a RAW converter (LR3). Don't know if you think it's an improvement or not, but here it is. I shifted the purple and magenta hue controls, dropped out a lot of magenta saturation, and worked on the tone curve a little. As per the other posters, I think the best cure is better light and/or more extensive processing of channels, etc. in PS.</p><div></div>

<p>I have two articles here on photo.net on the subject of shooting in these kinds of environments:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/overview/event-photography/</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/learn/club-photography/photographing-bands-musicians/</p>

<p>There is no way to use white balance to deal with a situation where all the lights are gels. Most shooters I know convert them to black and white. If flash is allowed, it will always give better results than stage lights with gels, especially for skin tones and sometimes allows for really dramatic effects with shutter dragging as in the photo below. Some people complain that flash destroys the lighting, but that's because they don't understand dragging the shutter. This method also reduces a lot of the post work.</p>

<p><Center><img src="http://spirer.com/saintsmar2010/content/bin/images/large/IMG_9808.jpg" alt="" width="693" height="520" /><br>

<em>Saints of Ruin</em></center></p>

<p>The trick i used was, in photoshop, duplicate your layer, select the green channel, apply image, so your applying the blue onto the green channel, in lighten mode. Then i adjusted the opacity of the top layer until i liked the color, turned out to be 70%, higher would have been more neutral. I applied a curve layer with a gradient mask to even out some of the background black. </p>

<p>If you un familiar with apply image, you can use channel mixer also, just set the whole layer to lighten mode.</p><div></div>

<p>This is where it gets tricky as it entirely depends what you saw, what they dreamnt and lit for, and what they want in the end as a deliverable.<br>

In ACR, I go into Hue/Saturation/Luminance and fiddle there first, then come back into the basics and adjust blacks and contrast.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>hi people. just found your site and think it's great.<br>

one solution i have found to red leds which do seem to contain a little bit of the full spectrum is to open image in ps. copy layer and use color curves to completly eliminate the red in one layer. then adjust transparancy of that layer until the red just comes through from the layer below.<br>

you can fake some of the other colors by bumping the green, blue on another layer under your new mixed layer and erasing some areas like clothing, etc. so you get some alternate colors in there.<br /><br /><a href="http://loosecanonart.com/images/lc_snds694a.jpg">http://loosecanonart.com/images/lc_snds694a.jpg</a><br>

i had a little bit of fill flash in this photo but only affected the foreground.</p>