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Re: [OM] IMG: Color Balance Nightmare

Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: Color Balance Nightmare
From: Jim Nichols <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 17:56:12 -0500
Glad you could make it work for you. There is very little hint as to how the proper choices should be made. :-(

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA

On 7/16/2016 5:09 PM, Tina Manley wrote:
Jim discovered a setting in Color Efex Pro called Remove Color Cast that
does a fantastic job!  Thanks, Jim!!

Tina

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 11:16 AM, Tina Manley <tmanley@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Yes, that looks better.

Thanks,

Tina

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Chuck Norcutt <
chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I agree with Tina, I don't like Moose's corrections (maybe a first?).

I have a much different view of the image.  I don't think there's much of
a color correction problem... it is, after all, taken inside a darkened red
tent. But the camera captures more of the real color that our eyes/brain
manage to soften.

I think the real problem is the young man seated in front of the open
doorway which is about 4 stops brighter than the interior.  I can't do
Moose's overlays but I have included a link that shows Tina's original
photo and one with my corrections that include: Slightly reduced red
saturation to the whole image, slightly brightening the young man above his
knee, dehazing that part of him, a slight sharpening of his face and then
more dehazing on his hair.

original <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20430>
my fixes <http://zone-10.com/tope2/main.php?g2_itemId=20432>

Chuck Norcutt



On 7/15/2016 7:45 PM, Tina Manley wrote:

Thanks, Moose.  I get what you are saying.  Color does not move me the
way
B&W does and I'm sure that's obvious in my photos.  I started out with
B&W
film and Kodachrome.  I actually have a WhiBal which I use when I
remember
it.  Otherwise, I try to find something in the frame that is supposed to
be
black or grey.  That works a lot of the time.  Circumstances like the red
tent which casts a red light onto the black that I'm trying to use to
balance are not always an easy fix.  I don't want to neutralize the light
that is influencing their lives.  Sometimes I think I should just leave
it
as is.  I usually like your corrections much better than anything I can
do,
but this time I don't.  The faces are too orange - almost neon-like.
Thanks for trying, though.

Tina

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 7:37 PM, Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 7/15/2016 10:00 AM, Tina Manley wrote:
PESO:
We were invited to lunch with a Qashqai family in the desert near
Shiraz.
This is the inside of their tent:

http://www.pbase.com/image/163678790

I took lots of photos in this terrible, awful light.  The people are
beautiful but you'd never know it in this light!  I'll be working on
these
today and tomorrow.


It's not difficult to correct, but probably requires PS skills you don't
have and don't particularly want to learn. <
http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Manley/Marshla_and_Ehsan.htm>

Separate layers for her face and skin, his face, their clothing and the
rest. All adjusted separately. Background by trying the color sampler on
various neutralish looking things. Skin tones cribbed from the image of
Azar, then adjusted differently for each. Clothing using PS Auto Color
and
adjusting Opacity.

Probably not "right"; I wasn't there, but plausible.

Any suggestions would be gratefully attempted!


Or maybe not. I've suggested before the use of a neutral reference in
any
unusual light. You haven't attempted it.

A shot or two of one in this light, perhaps while waiting for the girls
to
get gussied up, and this would all be a doodle, correct the whole
series at
once, with more accurate color than anything done in post without a
reference.

Consider Steve McCurry. I was gifted with his book Portraits. There's
some
good stuff in there, but not a patch on what you do. His are stiff,
cool,
and often staged looking- repetitive, too, after too many of them. Yours
are natural, warm and engaging, human, where his are mostly not.

But look at his colors! I don't know what he is using; there are endless
tools, from simple to complex, but he's making the colors work for him
and
his subjects, not against them. He's probably thinking about light and
color long before he takes a single shot. I don't know if it's because
you
started out as a B&W photographer, and still sort of think of color as a
not so nice accessory, but you don't appear to really think about it
when
shooting.

You are happy to spend many thousands of $ on gear, much more on travel
to
find subjects, and schlep around a lot of gear. Then you skip a simple
step
and end up with color problems. You can buy a neutral reference the
size of
a credit card for a couple of $ and carry it with you with no effort at
all. Is that as fancy, as effective as the more powerful, multicolor
references? Nah, but it would work miracles for your work. The 90%
solution
is a lot better than 0%.

Not all of us see the same way, both physiologically and mentally. If
you
just don't notice color in the excitement of shooting, you could just
force
yourself to shoot a reference in each different place you go into with
camera. Soon, it would become a habit, and no effort at all.

I happen to use a WhiBal, which is always in my wallet. If you don't
like
that, there are plenty of other sorts of reference cards, opal glass
like
"filters" that go over a lens for WB reference, light meters that read
color, and so on.

Where it's allowed, I shoot lots of pics in museums. It is for me a
wonderful way to supplement my memory. But museum lighting is far from
neutral, usually quite warm. So I shoot the WhiBal in each area with
different light, and my pics show the true colors of the art.

Try it!

Colorfully Balanced Moose

--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?

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--
Tina Manley
www.tinamanley.com
tina-manley.artistwebsites.com

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/3B49552F-90A0-4D0A-A11D-2175C937AA91/Tina+Manley.html





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