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07-19-2018, 05:03 PM   #1
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Colour Balance - Help
Lens: SMC 18-55mm AL WR Camera: K5 

I need some help in fixing some images taken at a friend's birthday party. A last miinute request, "Can you bring your camera along" filled me with dread as I really dislike photographing people. Anyway bolting on my trust Sigma EF-530 DG ST Flash I set off. I tried it out at home in its TTL mode on a few static subjects and all seemed ok. At the venue my worst fears were confirmed, mixed lights, strobes, LED Incandescent, Reflective curtains, hard shiny surfaces abound. 100% out of my comfort zone. To hell with the torpedoes, full speed ahead.


The image below shows one of the results and one attempt to fix it.I had decoded in advance to shot jpeg, medium quality in order to be able to do a quick transfer of the images to the host next morning. - Mistake.

The girls were mostly sporting fake tans (mid winter here) and I am afraid this did not react well to the flash. Attempts to tone done the tans in PP left the girls with blue faces. The second shot is a quick processed version. Cropped and saturation decreased on the shoulders and increased on the face.

At the moment I am highly embarrassed. Any suggestions to achieve a moderately acceptable image will be welcome.

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07-19-2018, 07:54 PM   #2
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Try reducing just the saturation of the orange color channel in photoshop, i have found this to be very effective with certain skin tones.
07-19-2018, 08:00 PM   #3
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Quick adjustment of the orange saturation. You can play with the colors until you are satisfied with the result.
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07-19-2018, 11:52 PM   #4
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Hi Bruce, another option would be B&W. Good luck either way mate.

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07-20-2018, 02:51 AM   #5
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Hi Bruce
I may be able to help. Unfortunately you do not mention the type of software you have available or have used.
This means I can only tell you what I use and the result they are able to achieve with minimum work.

The first cropped image I have manipulated in PS where I have used a plugin “ColorWasher” I personally find to be (in my opinion) the best colour cast removable app I have come across, and it is not expensive. It is also available as a stand-alone number. This program was created by a very gifted German software engineer (Harald Heim) and is part of site called (“The Plugin Site”) with a whole host of other plugins. “ColorWasher" is pretty well automated but a number of manual adjustments are provided.

Once I had applied the ColorWasher filter I have done nothing more than apply a bit more texture to the lace dress and the boys shirt with Nik Viveza as well as toning down the boy's overly bright sneakers for which the flash may be to blame.

For the uncropped pic, just to compare with the first, I have used “Oloneo PhotoEngine”. Here I have reduced hue and saturation in the yellow/orange channel and increased by the smallest margin detail strength. I took the image back into PS and applied the same amount of Nik corrections as in the first pic. The result I feel is pretty well identical in both pictures. However the parquetry floor is different in the two takes but I was not bothered by it as I do not know what the original looks like and your customers probably do not know either. If required this can be corrected as well though. All this does not take a lot of time.


Lastly, did I hear you say you shot everything in JPG format ? If so I find this a bit counter productive. ( I know a lot of people will not agree) The reason simply is, these sort of shots almost always need PP and since RAW will give you better correction results you might as well use this safer option particularly for these sort of events. In the end the time spent on PP is likely not very much different between the two formats.

P.S.
Just in case some observers here will say my corrections are still not good enough for this or that reason, pleas bear in mind the provided pictures are not optimally suited for perfect corrections.


Hope I have been of service.
Cheers

Last edited by Schraubstock; 10-27-2018 at 10:49 PM.
07-21-2018, 01:28 AM   #6
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Here's my very quick simple fix done in Lightroom, working with these low res jpegs as introduced some muck when sent back to the forum.

But all I did was in hsl/colour, click on saturation and drag the up down slider on a orange limb, reduce the red a bit more and then increase in the hue section the red slider all the way up.

The Kerrowdown three slider, ten second fix.

More could be done, to further enhance the images, but I was just heading oot the door.

P.S. Oh aye, I think I did open up the shadows up a wee bit too on these.
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Last edited by Kerrowdown; 07-21-2018 at 03:25 AM.
07-22-2018, 03:43 PM   #7
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Thanks everyone for the really helpful suggestions. I have forwarded a couple of repaired images to my friend and she expressed her thanks.


Next time (if there is one) I will take no shortcuts and shoot in raw. For the record I use Photoshop and Photoshop but I do prefer working in Lightroom with Topaz Plugins. I will explore some of the other recommended plugins


Thanks again one more

07-22-2018, 05:26 PM   #8
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It can be difficult to get a good white balance at times using a flash with artificial lighting, maybe look into some flash gels to alter the flash output to match the lighting? It is always good practice to get it right in camera.
07-22-2018, 08:45 PM   #9
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I'm glad you posted this. I learned a lot by the responses, especially with the examples provided.
07-28-2018, 09:46 PM   #10
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like the candid way you captured the dancers, flash helped even if it shined through.
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