Ok, coming back to this image, I thought I'd take a look at some ways to remove color casts in general, and how they affect this image in particular.

First, of course, is a strict raw-based workflow, which I prefer. Unfortunately I was never quite able to get there in LR3/ACR. I suspect that if I was using a tool like Bibble or Aperture, which have more tools available for local correction, things might have gone smoother. Waiting for Lightroom 4 ...

In the meantime, it certainly doesn't hurt to do the heavy lifting (white balance) in raw, and then move into Photoshop, which has a dizzying array of tools for dealing with this kind of issue.

My new favorite tool (because I recently found out about it and it's surprisingly effective,) is the "neutralize" option in the Match Color adjustment. I like it because 1) it often works very well, 2) doesn't seem to adjust contrast the way one of the Auto tools does, 3) and it is incredibly easy to use. When I ran it on this image it moved a little to far into blue/purple territory. Luckily it comes with a very nice fade slider-- sliding it to about 50% gave me this:



Not bad for less than 10 seconds worth of work!

Another method that is often effective is the curves tool-- but in RGB mode I quickly became frustrated. .

Moving into L*a*b* mode gave me a little more flexibility-- by flattening the middle of the a* and b* curves I was able to kill the cast completely-- at the expense of the more saturated colors. I was able to mask the paintings and more saturated items back in, and the end result is fairly satisfactory, I think:



My last try was with a commercial plugin: Colorwasher from thepluginsite.com. Ideally, this is a run and go plugin, but with this kind of image does require a little bit of fussing over the sliders. I ended up fiddling with just four: the three main color cast sliders (cast, shadows, and highlights), and the fix saturation button. The end result is pretty decent, and slightly faster than the L*a*b* method, but not by much. It does also keep a slightly yellow cast at the end of the hallway which I haven't made up my mind about.



(Note, I did not attempt to match brightness/exposure across all three images.)

Trying to bring some closure to this:

1. Get it right in camera, so you don't have to fool around in Photoshop. Words to live by.

2. It is critically important to understand and be able to communicate what the desired outcome of your "fooling around in Photoshop." If you don't know where you're going, you can't tell when you're there. Furthermore, "obvious" corrections aren't always the desired ones.

3. I hope we can get more dgrinners to participate in these kinds of threads! Lots of smart people with smart ideas around here.

Originally Posted by MarkR Moving into L*a*b* mode gave me a little more flexibility-- by flattening the middle of the a* and b* curves I was able to kill the cast completely-- at the expense of the more saturated colors. I was able to mask the paintings and more saturated items back in, and the end result is fairly satisfactory, I think:

I also found LAB very useful in the exercise. When you mention masks, I'm not sure whether you mean constructing a mask of the object or masking based on color (A and B channels). Either works, and I think generally masking by color looks less "photoshopped". But however you did it, your result looks natural. The other mask-like option here is blend-if. This image is pretty ripe for that, as the colors you want to enhance are generally not those you want to get rid of (casts)

1. Get it right in camera, so you don't have to fool around in Photoshop. Words to live by.

Right on. Over time, I've noted the mistakes I've made taking the shot that I had to correct in post. In this case, I'm not sure how you could do it (other than improve the exposure). The color is caused by factors you can't correct in the shot, lighting mainly.

2. It is critically important to understand and be able to communicate what the desired outcome of your "fooling around in Photoshop." If you don't know where you're going, you can't tell when you're there. Furthermore, "obvious" corrections aren't always the desired ones.

I thought you did a commendable job of stating what you saw and what you wanted to bring out. This also applies in composition. Clearly, you can't specify it 100%, the yellow in the hallway background being a good example of this. Do you want them or not?

3. I hope we can get more dgrinners to participate in these kinds of threads! Lots of smart people with smart ideas around here.

Right on.

Originally Posted by jjbong I also found LAB very useful in the exercise. When you mention masks, I'm not sure whether you mean constructing a mask of the object or masking based on color (A and B channels). Either works, and I think generally masking by color looks less "photoshopped". But however you did it, your result looks natural. The other mask-like option here is blend-if. This image is pretty ripe for that, as the colors you want to enhance are generally not those you want to get rid of (casts)

Actually, I just created layer mask and used a soft black brush to paint back in the areas where I wanted to increase the color.

Right on. Over time, I've noted the mistakes I've made taking the shot that I had to correct in post. In this case, I'm not sure how you could do it (other than improve the exposure). The color is caused by factors you can't correct in the shot, lighting mainly.

I think if I had slowed down I could have controlled exposure better. I also now own a Colorchecker passport. Remembering to use it is another matter ...

I thought you did a commendable job of stating what you saw and what you wanted to bring out. This also applies in composition. Clearly, you can't specify it 100%, the yellow in the hallway background being a good example of this. Do you want them or not? Right on.

So I'd like to see how others approach this, given the parameters and the vision I've provided.


Hi, Mark... you did well - definitely not easy! I used your JPEG image. I found out that this task was not a straightforward color-cast job. Trial and error - If I hadn't taken descriptive notes in the layers I would have been totally lost....

Thanks for letting me have a go - I just post the end result for now and if necessary I will go back and piece it all together...

(Please bear in mind that English is not my native language - I am American but came originally from Germany so if something reads funny pls tell me...)

[ Oh, dear... I just realized that this is a thread from March 2011 - well, never mind, I did enjoy this and will follow the tutorials - need to get to know more about LAB and "Blend If" and, of course there will be always something to learn

Beebibi,

Don't worry about the age of the post-- especially in Grad School. Consider instead the techniques that are discussed. Are they still timely and relevant? Do you have a better way of doing them?

It would be great if you could show your work.

Originally Posted by MarkR Beebibi, Don't worry about the age of the post-- especially in Grad School. Consider instead the techniques that are discussed. Are they still timely and relevant? Do you have a better way of doing them? It would be great if you could show your work.

Well, I did post my interpretation of your idea - look above and yes, the techniques are still relevant, of course....there are so many ways to get to great results, aren't there?

Originally Posted by beebibi Well, I did post my interpretation of your idea - look above and yes, the techniques are still relevant, of course....there are so many ways to get to great results, aren't there?

There are a million ways to achieve a given result in Photoshop. However, this is grad school which deals, among other things, with techniques and ideas.

Originally Posted by MarkR There are a million ways to achieve a given result in Photoshop. However, this is grad school which deals, among other things, with techniques and ideas.

I am not quite sure that I understand ... I worked thru from your original JPEG image (untouched I thought) to the pic I posted in my previous message and hoped to get feedback on whether I got close to your ideas of what you wanted to achieve with this shot. If you thought it was worth it and of any interest to anybody to get further info on my technique - how I got from 'here' to 'there' , then I would be happy to go thru the steps I took...

Here is the image I submitted before:

Originally Posted by MarkR Ok, coming back to this image, I thought I'd take a look at some ways to remove color casts in general, and how they affect this image in particular. First, of course, is a strict raw-based workflow, which I prefer. Unfortunately I was never quite able to get there in LR3/ACR. I suspect that if I was using a tool like Bibble or Aperture, which have more tools available for local correction, things might have gone smoother. Waiting for Lightroom 4 ... In the meantime, it certainly doesn't hurt to do the heavy lifting (white balance) in raw, and then move into Photoshop, which has a dizzying array of tools for dealing with this kind of issue. My new favorite tool (because I recently found out about it and it's surprisingly effective,) is the "neutralize" option in the Match Color adjustment. I like it because 1) it often works very well, 2) doesn't seem to adjust contrast the way one of the Auto tools does, 3) and it is incredibly easy to use. When I ran it on this image it moved a little to far into blue/purple territory. Luckily it comes with a very nice fade slider-- sliding it to about 50% gave me this: Not bad for less than 10 seconds worth of work! Another method that is often effective is the curves tool-- but in RGB mode I quickly became frustrated. . Moving into L*a*b* mode gave me a little more flexibility-- by flattening the middle of the a* and b* curves I was able to kill the cast completely-- at the expense of the more saturated colors. I was able to mask the paintings and more saturated items back in, and the end result is fairly satisfactory, I think: My last try was with a commercial plugin: Colorwasher from thepluginsite.com. Ideally, this is a run and go plugin, but with this kind of image does require a little bit of fussing over the sliders. I ended up fiddling with just four: the three main color cast sliders (cast, shadows, and highlights), and the fix saturation button. The end result is pretty decent, and slightly faster than the L*a*b* method, but not by much. It does also keep a slightly yellow cast at the end of the hallway which I haven't made up my mind about. (Note, I did not attempt to match brightness/exposure across all three images.) Trying to bring some closure to this: 1. Get it right in camera, so you don't have to fool around in Photoshop. Words to live by. 2. It is critically important to understand and be able to communicate what the desired outcome of your "fooling around in Photoshop." If you don't know where you're going, you can't tell when you're there. Furthermore, "obvious" corrections aren't always the desired ones. 3. I hope we can get more dgrinners to participate in these kinds of threads! Lots of smart people with smart ideas around here.

Mark, I am glad I did find this forum - very informative. I like your LAB mode try the best. Just recently I got into it a bit more and think it's extremely helpful.

Thanks for spelling it out and trying different approaches !

Originally Posted by beebibi I am not quite sure that I understand ... I worked thru from your original JPEG image (untouched I thought) to the pic I posted in my previous message and hoped to get feedback on whether I got close to your ideas of what you wanted to achieve with this shot. If you thought it was worth it and of any interest to anybody to get further info on my technique - how I got from 'here' to 'there' , then I would be happy to go thru the steps I took... Here is the image I submitted before:

I think you did great. How did you achieve your final image. Show your work!

Originally Posted by MarkR I think you did great. How did you achieve your final image. Show your work!

Haha.... my husband was right when he told me some time ago - "Be careful, you might get what you asked for" :-) I feel like a little fool for assuming what Grad School meant and a bit intimidated after reading the guide lines! Which I should have read before jumping into here. Well, never mind I'll try my best.....

This exercise taught me a lot:

* always faithfully record the changes you make in the layers

* be correct in labelling the different versions of your work

* be discriptive and save in one place

* be tidy!!!!!

So here goes....

As always I started out in ACR to do all the basics , global work (white balance, black point etc. tone curve, HSL etc.)

Then I moved into PS for the finer points - I like to work with rough selections, masks - I feel it gives me great control over the colors especially with a problem like your pic poses ...

1... I did do Noise Reduction with "Noise Ninja" which normally does do a good job but when comparing it with the latest ACR Noise Reduction it falls short in my opinion - (would be interested in some opinions on this topic)

2... used Adjustment layer Hue/Sat and desaturated yellow/green/blue in the background - painted back the colors in the objects (pics,, stained glass, green t-shirt, red chairs etc.)

3... new Adjustment layer Photo Filter 'Blue' to put some color back into the backround to achieve that pristine look.

4... then I used the blending mode Screen to taste - that finished the background nicely off, I thought.

5...used Adjustment Selective Colors to saturate the blues/reds and cyans in the color objects to taste.

6... I didn't quite like the effect of the stained glass und reflections on the floor up till now, so I dragged a copy of the original dark JPEG pic underneath my working layer and carefully painted the colors back but with less opacity - at the same time I took care of the eagle and the shepherd's crook.

BTW. I am very much aware of color bleeding when doing these adjustments, so I tidy up a lot when necessary.

7... As a last step I went into LAB mode with the clean pic for contrast and a bit of color boost.

Thanks again, Mark - I know your image very intimately now and my thirst for learning has increased.