john_holland3 Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 <p>Shooting low light music concerts with a Nikon D-60 with either a 50/1.8 or 105/2.8 Nikon lense with good results except for 1 venue which uses colored spotlights that produce a red tint on the performers. I've tried adjusting the white balance to no avail. Any suggestions on how to get rid of the red cast on my pics would be appreciated.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbalko Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 <p>What software are you using? I'm using Lightroom and I believe that Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements have similar, if not identical, controls. I pulled the Temp slider way down into the blues and the Tint slider way down into the greens. Then I adjusted the red, orange and yellow Hue, Saturation and Luminance sliders until I got the attached result.</p> <p>There are many others here who are far more skilled than I who might stop by with better or more detailed advice.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James G. Dainis Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 It also looks like you photo was underexposed, Correcting only the color would result in a too dark photo. James G. Dainis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjoseph7 Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 <p>Trying to balance the lighting under multi-colored lights is nearly impossiblebut can be done. Not sure about Nikon cameras, but my Canon has something called <em>WB SHIFT</em>/<em>BKT </em> which lets you color correct a scene right inside the camera. It's like having a set of Color Correction filters. For example if the scene is too red then you would increase it's complementary color which is green right inside the camera. If your camera does not have that function, you can do the same in Post Processing. Photshop, Photoshop Elements and others, have various colored filters you can add to your image to correct white balance. Sometimes though it's better to leave well enough alone. The outrageous colors makes the scene look more natural. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike dixon Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 It's impossible to get a -white- balance if your source of light has a spectrum that's too narrow, such as gelled spots. You can't make a relatively-pure red (or green, or yellow, or blue) behave like white light. After adjustments, you can change the hue and saturation of the dominant color of light, but you can't make it look white. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott_ferris Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>All you need to do is add the missing colour, in this case green.</p> <p>The best way to do that is to open the image, make a new layer, fill it with green, then set blend mode to color, then adjust opacity down, I used a dark green and 20% opacity but take some time with both colour and opacity for each light source. I then white balanced off the writing on his pass strap. Obviously you can adjust his complexion to be accurate, I just guessed. Then simple noise and sharpen and here you are. This version might not be accurate, but the technique can get you there.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Fixed in ACR 4.6 using severe adjusts to Color Temp/Tint, Saturation, HSL, Split Tone, Contrast, Brightness, Clarity sliders and a tweaked custom S-curve and sharpening.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lachaine Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Here's a thought... it's a concert where they use multi-coloured lights on purpose. Trying to turn it into a studio portrait with perfect skin tones is not only a lost cause, but something you might not want to do anyway.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_holland3 Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Thanks to all for the advice</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_mann1 Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Ditto the comments about not trying to cc these sorts of images. As you can see, it's very difficult to get the color corrected version to look even half-way decent, and even getting that far takes a lot of time and effort.</p> <p>Tom M</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Yeah, it's not easy alright, but the main thing getting in the way has nothing to do with subjectivity in taste for color. It can be done as others including myself demonstrated we got closer and closer to correcting for this.</p> <p>The problem is the severity of the adaptive affect on the eyes trying to edit this out which is caused by the over saturated dominant primary red color. Not easy especially for getting correct looking skin tones that are lit by some type of colored light.</p> <p>You can get a reasonable correct looking version. It just takes a bit of trial and error.</p> <p>It's just colored tiny little squares called pixels folks. It's not some organic entity that can't be violated with software algorithms as if it was locked in essence within the image.</p> <p>You should've seen the green climbing wall from a guy posting out of Australia looking for a similar correction posted in this forum. According to the OP...NAILED IT!</p> <p>http://www.photo.net/beginner-photography-questions-forum/00YmG4</p> <p>This is why IMO ACR is the swiss army knife of color editing tools.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch_tbhotmail.com Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Ran it through the Cross Balance filter in Nik ColorEfex 3. I'm not sure if the blotchy skin is true to life but also easily fixed.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>Nice one Ryan. Guess I got to get Nik ColorEfex. Was there a lot of twiddling with the tools or is that some kind of default correction in the program?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_mann1 Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 <p>You obviously used more than NIK CEP Cross balance on the original image because when I tried it (various strengths, various color conversion options), the result looked like the attached image.</p> <p>Tom M</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>OK...maybe I don't need Nik ColorEfex.</p> <p>Thanks, Tom, for your thoroughness.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>Worked on the skin, lightened it up a bit and cloned out the liver spots on the forehead.</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike dixon Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 As a point of reference, here's a photo that was also shot in low lighting (f2, 1/20s) at ISO 3200, but with a wider spectrum white light source (tungsten lights; color temp. is set to 3100). It's a bit warm, and they're rather drunk, but notice that the skin tones look normal.<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim_Lookingbill Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>So Mike, are you saying that's what skin should look like under that kind of light or are you saying the OP's image shouldn't or can't be fixed due to it not being able to match up to the way skin should appear in your posted sample?</p> <p>I'm not sure what the OP wants, exposure/WB tips at the time of the shoot to prevent over cranked red from artificial lights to begin with or post processing tips to fix it as it is now.</p> <p>Maybe I should make the skin in my last PP attempt more reddish orange to give the impression the subject is lit by some type of colored light and not try to make it look totally neutralized. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch_tbhotmail.com Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>Did you set the filter to "Tungsten to Daylight (3)"? I set it at around 90ish%... ColorEfex 3 Cross Balance Filter... try it again. I should also mention that I used curves to increase the contrast, it was pretty washed out after running through the filter. For the sake of the explanation, I'll post the photo after the filter, then after the contrast boost...</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch_tbhotmail.com Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>Contrast adjusted...</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch_tbhotmail.com Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 <p>A little more contrast than in my first attempt but I reran the filter and adjustment layer again to make sure that's what I had done... literally took less than a minute.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike dixon Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 "So Mike, are you saying that's what skin should look like under that kind of light or are you saying the OP's image shouldn't or can't be fixed due to it not being able to match up to the way skin should appear in your posted sample?" I'm saying that color corrections in Photoshop are not going to yield natural-looking skin when the image was shot with such a narrow spectrum of light because the color information needed to get a natural-looking result is simply not there. None of the edited images has natural-looking skin (well, maybe they look natural if you live in Zombieland). I'm not arguing that all photos of people should have natural-looking skin. I shoot a lot of live music and a lot of people in bars/clubs with colored lights--I have thousands of images of people with unnatural skin colors. It's fine to use colors however you want. However, when you "correct" an image so that people have skin that's sort of close to the right color, but the tones and gradations are noticeably off, you end up with photos of zombies. It generally looks better (and requires less work) to have images of people who are obviously lit by colored lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAPster Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 <p>Use of flash is prohibited?</p> <p>Flash light would over-wash less strong reddish light, thus eliminating reddish cast.</p> <p>If flash used, make double-dog sure the WB on camera is set to FLASH.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_mann1 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 <p>Ryan ... Whoops... My error. I was about to ask if you started with the original image given in the 1st post in this thread, and then I discovered that *I* did not start with that image because I had some other adjustment layers active. My sincere apologies.</p> <p>Tom M</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom_mann1 Posted December 7, 2011 Share Posted December 7, 2011 <p>@Ryan and Tim - Yes, the CEP technique indeed worked quite well, at least for that particular type of gel/light source. Thanks for pointing it out. I will have to see how well it (and the other filters in that group) work with other gels.</p> <p>FWIW, here is the result of two passes with that CEP (Color Effects Pro) filter and a bit of touch-up work on the skin. It's interesting to see how the quality of the color fix has improved throughout this thread.</p> <p>Cheers,</p> <p>Tom M</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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