White balance with Alien bees d300

[meatwagon]

Hi guys, i have a problem, I did a shoot last night and it seems

everytime i do a shoot my photos always come out with a red tint, I

did set the w/b manually by takin a photo with my light setup on a

white peice of paper and selecting that as my custom w/b, I transfered

a few photos to my computer and they seemed fine, no tints, white was

white. I was using an EOS Digital Rebel and 4 Alienbees b800's. Here

is a sample of the raw photo, and also one that i color corrected, Now

im begining to think that its my computer screen, becuase i sometiem

watch movies on my computer and they have a red tint, SO my question

is, do you see a red tint in the 1st photo? and if so what have i done

wrong??? By the way my computer is a Laptop with LCD, OK and last

question, can you use a spider on a lcd? thanks SOOOO much Jamie!<div></div>

[meatwagon]

one more question, should i be shooting in adobe RGB on my rebel, and in CS what color space should i be using? abode RGB, sRGB ??? thanks again Jamie!

[._kaa]

I see a pronounced pink tint in the first photo and a pronounced green tint in the second one :-)

 

If you believe the second one is properly colored, you need to recalibrate your screen.

[roy_des_ruisseaux]

Jamie On my monitor the uncorrected looks pretty good skin tone perhaps a little off but her sweater appears gray. The corrected one is pretty green,so I'd say it's your monitor. I'm not yet fully into digital so others will give you the better information but from all I've read the CRT monitor is better than a laptop. As I said others will give much better info than me.

[roger_smith4]

Try this- my monitor is software calibrated (more or less right- I'm at work and don't edit photos at work).

 

I think your laptop monitor is out of whack. Try printing the "corrected file" as SRGB to a local Frontier or Noritsu printer and see if it matches your screen.

You might want to visit drycreekphoto.com for a review of calibrators.<div></div>

[meatwagon]

ok, do see the green in mine, it was just a quick Correction on my part, but the obvious is that there is a pink tint to the 1st one, and i dont see it onthe display on my camera, sooo can anyone tell me what im doing wrong not to get a pure white??

[jtk]

Where do you imagine getting a "pure white?" Just about the only potential is in the rope. Surely you don't mean the background?

 

Roger did a perfect correction.

 

To learn color you should only think in photographic color terms (R G B/ M C Y plus density, ie black)..."pink" is not a photographic color.

 

If you reduce contrast in your laptop's display you may see colors more accurately...high contrast hides goofy colors in highlights and makes bad things look OK.

[scott_mcloughlin]

I know what you mean. I shoot with a D70 and also get a red tint when shooting with two AB800's. I haven't coped with the issue to date, because I'm in learning/experimentation mode.

 

Maybe a custom white balance reading off a card would do the trick.

 

Scott

[roger_smith4]

Where did you hold the white card? Try holding it exactly where the model is and fill the frame with it. The lighting forum might give you better answers.

 

If you shoot in Adobe, be sure the file is tagged for Adobe. You can assign a profile when you open up photoshop. I don't know if your camera tags images or not as I don't use the Rebel. If it is already tagged as Adobe RGB keep that as your working space.

 

Finally convert to profile (convert from Adobe RGB to SRGB) before you upload to the web.

Good luck.

[ellis_vener_photography]

On my hardware calibrated & profiled monitor the onr on the left is reddish and the one on

the right is greenish.

 

Your "white" piece of paper might not be truely white.

 

Yes it could be your monitor that is off --which is why you need a hardware/software

solution from Monaco, Gretag-Macbeth or Colorvision to accurately calibrate and profile

your monitors behaviour. Doing it "by eye' even with the Adobe Gamma utility just doesn't

cut it.

 

What software are using to convert from the 'raw' file to TIFF or JPEG?

[whitworth photography]

I also have 4 Alien Bees 800s and haven't had any problems when my D60 was set to daylight white balance.

[watchin]

3 AB800's Fuji S2 set to Daylight WB or Custom WB (white paper full frame light with flash), exposure metered with Sekonic 358, display calibrated with Colorvision spyder - no color corrections needed.

 

If you do not have a flash meter to set for f-stop... underexposure and overexposure will cause color shift.

 

Calibrate your system displays with a real calibration tool (as mentioned) by eye is NG (no good), and turn off adobe gamma tools when

you calibrate and use other balance tools, do not use ICC for display either. Problem can be appling color balance to ICC to gamma correction.

[meatwagon]

i am using Photoshop CS to convert my raw images, thanks for the input, but guys using you AB"s set at daylight? wont that create a color change?? Also i use a sekonic 358, but whenever i get a reading, that reading comes out darker than i want on my d300.

[whitworth photography]

I haven't ever gotten a color shift when I use daylight for my white balance. I did get some major color shift when I used "flash" or "AWB" white balance settings.

 

A photographer I took a seminar with explained to me that daylight WB is typically the best setting because the whole point of a flash is to emulate the sun. So a good flash setup should be color balanced to daylight for use with daylight film.