Playing loosely with the concept of gray?

[john_murphy1]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum...</p>

I'm trying to figure out all of the backgrounds that I've purchased from <a href="http://

www.wonbackground.com/">Won Backgrounds</a> which appear gray in their catalog end up looking

green in real life. In fact, this canvas is called "Gray Silhouette".</p>

I'm wondering if this intentional, since my camera tends to add some magenta when used in the JPG

mode with the white balance set to 'flash'. The green offsets the magneta cast somewhat, yield a gray

background.</p>

Or maybe the artists at Won feel compelled to 'interpret' the concept of gray?

Any thoughts?<div></div>

[Gary Naka]

Interesting effect. Wonder what happened to the gray?

 

I paste your pix into PS Elements and did a remove color cast with the reference gray card your girl is holding. Your RAW seems close, but you're right the JPG is defninitely warmer. Did you try to do a custom white balance for the flash in JPG?

[john_murphy1]

I only shoot in RAW, so it doesn't matter. I just included the JPG shot here because I thought maybe the manufacturer of the background is trying to compensate for the magenta shift somehow.</p>

By the way, I once asked the manufacturer about this, but the answer was incomprehensible. I think something got lost in the translation.

[igord]

It could be just the name of colour, it is the same with white backdrops not being white, with other products it is the same, olympic white colour is yellowish, aged etc.

[timsumma]

As odd as this will appear I think you should look to the problem being uncontrolled Ultra Violet Light from your flash units. If you have unshielded flash heads you will need to cover them with a UV filter. The UV emission from the flash MUST be stopped at the head, not the camera lens. UV emitted from the flash can strike the painted surface and cause the color of the pigments to be come EXCITED (tech term), and to shift color as well as amount of light reflected back.

If you have a hand flash over which you can place a good quality UV filter from a camera lens you can shoot a test picture digitally through the filter and with out to see if the effect is reduced or illuminated. The UV filter you will want will be the equivalent of a Wratten (Kodak code) 2B. The Sky Line filter and Haze designated UV Filters are in the category of a Wratten 1A and will not adequately reduce UV from a flash source.