Outdoor shoot with white shirts- HELP

My3Sons

I don't want my camera to pick up the ultraviolet, blue hues on my clients white shirts. The family insists on wearing white shirts and jeans for our outdoor shoot tomorrow. We will be using evening light, and my white balance setting will likely be set at 56k or a little higher. Last time I photographed a family wearing this, I had a terrible time is post editing, removing the blue from the shirts. Do you have any suggestions to make this easier?

Thanks, Melissa

angevin1

My3Sons wrote:

I don't want my camera to pick up the ultraviolet, blue hues on my clients white shirts. The family insists on wearing white shirts and jeans for our outdoor shoot tomorrow. We will be using evening light, and my white balance setting will likely be set at 56k or a little higher. Last time I photographed a family wearing this, I had a terrible time is post editing, removing the blue from the shirts. Do you have any suggestions to make this easier?

Thanks, Melissa

I would think shooting RAW to begin with is a must, just for that WB reason you mentioned. I have had good luck shooting in AWB for going on 6 months now with very little WB issues. For instance I shot this photo in the setting you describe, late in the day, sun at their backs, and AWB on my Nikon. Of course there is the potential for picking up blue reflective hues just from the jeans, and in that case, you may have to bring the blue down a bit in post. Good Luck~

My3Sons

angevin1 wrote:

I would think shooting RAW to begin with is a must, just for that WB reason you mentioned. I have had good luck shooting in AWB for going on 6 months now with very little WB issues. For instance I shot this photo in the setting you describe, late in the day, sun at their backs, and AWB on my Nikon. Of course there is the potential for picking up blue reflective hues just from the jeans, and in that case, you may have to bring the blue down a bit in post. Good Luck~

Beautiful image! I'm afraid to try RAW. Don't know much about it. Do I need a certain program to be able to view and edit RAW images on my computer? I have Photoshop, and software (which I've never used) that came with my camera (Nikon).

angevin1

My3Sons wrote:

Beautiful image! I'm afraid to try RAW. Don't know much about it. Do I need a certain program to be able to view and edit RAW images on my computer? I have Photoshop, and software (which I've never used) that came with my camera (Nikon).

Yes. You do need certain programs to view and edit RAW, and your Photoshop as well as the Nikon software should work just fine. There are a number of free programs on the Internet that edit RAW as well. I still shoot both jpeg and RAW, but many others shoot RAW only. And theres nothing I can think of to fear. RAW files are typically larger because they contain ALL of the information captured at the time of exposure. And along with that RAW files allow you to then adjust WB or exposure or HUE or any and all number of factors and make your own JPEG or TIFF or whatever kind of file you want from them. With the concerns you mentioned regarding the family's clothing for your shoot why not try RAW and JPEG today to ensure you have the widest latittude for editing.

zoomer

When you are processing them in Photoshop go into the enhance menu and choose the color cast eyedropper just click on the white shirt. Presto white again.
You can also use the white eyedropper on the levels adjustment but that is normally a bit much.
or
Enhance menu again, color saturation, choose blue and use the slider to decrease.
or increase the white balance more to the warm side (right) will decrease the blue
there are more ways but one of those should work.

No reason to have to shoot raw to get your colors right.

Dripfaucet

My3Sons wrote:

I don't want my camera to pick up the ultraviolet, blue hues on my clients white shirts. The family insists on wearing white shirts and jeans for our outdoor shoot tomorrow. We will be using evening light, and my white balance setting will likely be set at 56k or a little higher. Last time I photographed a family wearing this, I had a terrible time is post editing, removing the blue from the shirts. Do you have any suggestions to make this easier?

Thanks, Melissa

Get an expodisc for your lens. take one picture through the expodisc and set that shot as your custom white balance. remove the expodisc and fire away. perfect white balance everytime.

brad

pathfinder

Shooting folks in white shirts, sitting in the big green reflector of the lawn, is a great reason for always setting a custom white balance with an Expodisc, or a Spectrasnap filter, or shoot a white balance card with a WhiBal or a Balance Smarter reflector.

I wrote a bit about custom color balancing here

Good color balance when shooting jpgs requires critical accuracy of exposure - in my opinion, within 1/3 of a stop of exposure.

Every one I have ever shot sitting in the grass is green unless I attend to the white balance in some manner, either in RAW processing, or with a custom white balance at the time of shooting.

action-pics

zoomer wrote:

When you are processing them in Photoshop go into the enhance menu and choose the color cast eyedropper just click on the white shirt. Presto white again.
You can also use the white eyedropper on the levels adjustment but that is normally a bit much.
or
Enhance menu again, color saturation, choose blue and use the slider to decrease.
or increase the white balance more to the warm side (right) will decrease the blue
there are more ways but one of those should work.

No reason to have to shoot raw to get your colors right.

Where exactly is the "enhance" menu in Photoshop? I'm using CS4 and don't believe I've ever seen an enhance menu.

Mr. 2H2O

Whether or not you plan to shoot jpg or RAW, please have one of the subjects hold a white card for a test shot. At least in this way you can have a reference white point for post processing.

If you want something really simple for a white card, buy a stack of high whiteness printer paper and fold it over - this will get very close to a "slighhtly warmer" hue which may be of benefit depending on where your showdows lie in the composition (shadows are blue, the late day sun is orange).

When I shoot late day portraits, I place the folks in a shadow and use a reflector to get the late day sunlight onto the folks.

- Mike

eL eSs Vee

My3Sons wrote:

Beautiful image! I'm afraid to try RAW. Don't know much about it. Do I need a certain program to be able to view and edit RAW images on my computer? I have Photoshop, and software (which I've never used) that came with my camera (Nikon).

The most difficult thing about RAW is getting over your fear of it. Nikon's Picture Project is simple to use, but I only use it to view the RAW files and decide which ones to open in Photoshop for processing. The first time I processed a RAW file, I was amazed at how much more control I had over processing a jpeg: It actually made processing both easier and more precise at the same time!

To paraphrase pretty much everyone else; "Once you go RAW, you'll never go back."

Scott_Quier

I'll go Lee on step further - the ONLY thing difficult about RAW (over JPG) is getting over the fear of it. Oh, there is the small issue of an increased need for storage, but storage is cheap and getting better every day.

RAW offers so many benefits over JPG:

• Increased exposure lattitude
• Increased WB lattitude
• More creative freedom - when you process a RAW file, you are starting fresh. With a JPG, you're starting with something that's already been cooked once. Cooking with "leftovers" usually doesn't lead to as good an experience as does starting with fresh ingredients. (disclaimer: not my analogy - I read it somewhere - here I think - and I really liked it).

Unless you have a delivery deadline, may I suggest you shoot your session in RAW, even if you haven't had an opportunity to work with it before hand. At the very worst, the software that came with your camera will deliver very compentant JPGs (assuming you made good images to start with). And, once you get the hang of it, you can create much better images than can that stupid computer in your camera. You have nothing to loose but a little time.

Trevlan

If you have Photoshop, it comes with Bridge and Adobe Camera RAW. I veiw my files in Bridge, have my settings to open all files in ACR first before they are ported into photoshop. RAW, is just what it soungs like, uncooked. Best part about it, you get to add your spice and cook time to it.

I have an 8 gig SD card that I purchased for my camera. I can take well over a thousand frames in RAW before having to upload them to my computer. It wasn't even 30 bucks on Tigerdirect. I'm sure it's cheaper now.

As was mentioned before, RAW gives you more flexibility in post, thus letting you turn a good shot, into a great one. Once you are fully comfortable with shooting in RAW, you'll never go back to JPEG.