How "not" to have blue tint

yelayza

Hey everyone! I am new to the forum, I am so hapy to discover its existance and would love to hear from you out there! I've got a Casio Exilim Z3 for some time, and I loved it for being so tiny yet having quite a bit of manual setting selections that I can experiment with. I am by no means a pro, my grandfather used to be an old-school professional photographer way back from 1940s, so I am just trying to figure out the artistic side in my genes, using a cute little camera though, yet I am getting into it more day by day!!!

My question is: Is there a magic ISO/white balance/EV shift combo setting that will minimize blue tint on the shots as much as possible? The Casio Z3 is notorious for the blue tint, I touch up the pictures to eliminate it, but I am getting tired of living with the fact that most of my outdoor/clear sky pictures will have a blue tint to it!!! I am trying to figure out if I have to give up my ultra-compact camera for something else from the competitors, like Canon series...

(By the way, I tried to attach 2 photos, not quite sure if I suceeded or not, we'll see, and I will try it again if it did not work...These are not the ones with dominant blue though, I just wanted to get your overall opinion of these 2 cause of all the photos I recently took, I like these 2 the best. I've got quite a bit fof NY city photos with the notorios blue tint that I can share with you later on to get your fedback!!! )

Thanks a lot in advance!!!

wxwax

Hi yelayza, welcome to dgrin.

Not sure why your piccies dodn't attach - maybe too big? Or maybe you didn't wait until the upload was complete? You can only attach one pic per post. Much better to link, if you have an account at a place like smugmug.com that can host the photos.

In case you missed it, details on posting pics are here.

To cure your blue cast, have you tried the different white balance settings, just to see if one is better than the other in the outdoors? Sometimes the wrong setting yields the right results.

Failing that, have your tried a manual white balance outdoors? Sometimes manual white balance is better, somtimes worse. But if you're having problems, it's worth a try.

yelayza

Hello Sid!!!

So nice to see such a fast response!!!

I guess I realy have to experiment in more detail with the manual white balance!, no magic formula of advanced combo-settings that is like a rule of thumb huh? The LCD screen shows the shot is perfect, and that is why I get fooled by that every time!!!

As for the upload, yes I guess I closed the window too quick...Let me give it another try...

yelayza

Here is the other photo I failed to upload in my first trialllThanks for the guielines!!! I had both the file size and the image size at the wrong set up for both!!!...I can't wait to read your comments!!! And any more wisdom for "rule of thumbs fo not having blue tint" is very very very welcome!!!!

lynnma

yelayza wrote:

Here is the other photo I failed to upload in my first trialllThanks for the guielines!!! I had both the file size and the image size at the wrong set up for both!!!...I can't wait to read your comments!!! And any more wisdom for "rule of thumbs fo not having blue tint" is very very very welcome!!!!

Hi Yelayza, welcome to the forum.. looking forward to seeing more of your shots. Can't help you very much as I'm still learning myself, maybe photoshop a little, but there are many pros and good photographers here who are great people and very helpful.
Lynn:D

Baldy

A lot of digital cameras have a setting for cloudy days and some even have shade settings. The cloudy setting warms the photos up so they don't look so blue and the shade setting even warms them further.

I hope this helps.

pathfinder

yelayza wrote:

Here is the other photo I failed to upload in my first trialllThanks for the guielines!!! I had both the file size and the image size at the wrong set up for both!!!...I can't wait to read your comments!!! And any more wisdom for "rule of thumbs fo not having blue tint" is very very very welcome!!!!

Welcome yelayza

Like Baldy said - setting the white balance to cloudy can help a lot - your first image of the bridge on a stormy day looks slightly blue, but things are kind of blue on days like that. Might ned slightl warming, but not a whole lot.

The shore line image looks fine on my monitor - is it too blue on your monitor or in a printed form?

yelayza

pathfinder wrote:

Welcome yelayza

Like Baldy said - setting the white balance to cloudy can help a lot - your first image of the bridge on a stormy day looks slightly blue, but things are kind of blue on days like that. Might ned slightl warming, but not a whole lot.

The shore line image looks fine on my monitor - is it too blue on your monitor or in a printed form?

The shoreline photo one looks fine to me as well, just wanted to check whether my eyes got used to the blue tint too much.....Here is one shot of Times Square from this weekend, this is the worst blue cast I ever had which made me very concerned about the camera. So, it was a bright suny day with blue skies, with mirrored tall buildings and lots of other objects around to distract the focus. What would you guys have used as your manual settings under those conditions?

yelayza

yelayza wrote:

The shoreline photo one looks fine to me as well, just wanted to check whether my eyes got used to the blue tint too much.....Here is one shot of Times Square from this weekend, this is the worst blue cast I ever had which made me very concerned about the camera. So, it was a bright suny day with blue skies, with mirrored tall buildings and lots of other objects around to distract the focus. What would you guys have used as your manual settings under those conditions?

One more note to the photo that I uploaded above, in case it helps those of you who are photography experts to comment on what is the basic setting that is causing my blue-tilt in this picture: The auto-setting of the camera that I had set up before taking this photo has used the following set-ups automatically: white balance adjusted for bright sunny day, no flash, ISO50 for ISO sensitivity, F2.6 aperture value, 1/125 shutter speed, neutral exposure compensation (EV shift=0)

pathfinder

yelayza wrote:

The shoreline photo one looks fine to me as well, just wanted to check whether my eyes got used to the blue tint too much.....Here is one shot of Times Square from this weekend, this is the worst blue cast I ever had which made me very concerned about the camera. So, it was a bright suny day with blue skies, with mirrored tall buildings and lots of other objects around to distract the focus. What would you guys have used as your manual settings under those conditions?

Many cameras have a setting for shade as well a sunny or cloudy - Your camera was set for sunny, yet much of your picture is in the shade down in the urban canyons. Your street scene in the closerr area seems to be mostly in the shade and the reflections from the blue building or blue glass windows and marquees may be partly to blame as well.

Do you have animage editing program like Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro?

rutt

pathfinder wrote:

Many cameras have a setting for shade as well a sunny or cloudy - Your camera was set for sunny, yet much of your picture is in the shade down in the urban canyons. Your street scene in the closerr area seems to be mostly in the shade and the reflections from the blue building or blue glass windows and marquees may be partly to blame as well.

Do you have animage editing program like Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro?

Getting the tint out of your shots is the tip of a rather large iceburg. The technical word for this kind of incorrect color is "cast". Your shots have a cyan cast. Setting your wite balance when shooting can often help prevent the problem, but it isn't foolproof (ask this fool.) Once you end up with shots that you like that have a cast, you can correct it with a program like photoshop if you know what you are doing. An alternative that I have used and like is called iCorrect. You don't have to know very much to use it and the results are usually good.

lynnesite

Dfine
An alternative that I have used and like is called iCorrect. You don't have to know very much to use it and the results are usually good.[/QUOTE]

My favorite plug-in is Nik Multimedia's DFine. When shooting with the Olympus 2100UZ, 700 and Nikon 5700, the blue cast was constant. Check out this product--on my old images I set the blue cast removal at between 25 and 30%. Even with the 10d sometimes I'll use it at 20%.

It works fine without the camera specific modules they talk about, although I do use them for noise reduction for both the 5700 and 10d. This product brought usability to my old image catalog, and for $99 I found it quite reasonable.

Lynne
Nik fan, I own their digital filter sets as well