arrrgh. 'tungsten' in daylight

pierce

I haven't even looked at them yet on my computer, but with my EOS Rebel XT, I managed to shoot the first half day of our Lassen vacation with 'tungsten' whitebalance setting left over from some indoor stuff I'd done previously....

anyone wanna suggest a reasonable way of fixing these? Every time I try and color correct something by manually tweaking, it just ends looking worse and worse until I'm screaming. oh, I only have JPG "L fine" quality, I don't have big enough flash chips to shoot raw while I'm traveling.

ok, here's one shot with the 'tungsten' setting...


and here's one of almost the same spot my kid shot on 'full auto' which doesn't pay attention to my stupid settings...

(and, right after that, I realized I'd set it wrong, so the rest of my pix have auto WB)

DJ-S1

Have you tried "auto levels"? It should do a reasonable job with this and would be quick to do on lots of images.

There's lots of other ways to do it, but I'll leave that to the pros.

Anthony

pierce wrote:

I haven't even looked at them yet on my computer, but with my EOS Rebel XT, I managed to shoot the first half day of our Lassen vacation with 'tungsten' whitebalance setting left over from some indoor stuff I'd done previously....

anyone wanna suggest a reasonable way of fixing these? Every time I try and color correct something by manually tweaking, it just ends looking worse and worse until I'm screaming. oh, I only have JPG "L fine" quality, I don't have big enough flash chips to shoot raw while I'm traveling.

ok, here's one shot with the 'tungsten' setting...


and here's one of almost the same spot my kid shot on 'full auto' which doesn't pay attention to my stupid settings...

(and, right after that, I realized I'd set it wrong, so the rest of my pix have auto WB)

You could try using 'match colour' (assuming you have Photoshop) with your youngster's picture as the source....

Anthony.

Brett Mickelson

The easiest way is to open Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels), then click on the middle eyedropper tool on the bottom right of the popup window. Then click on any part of the image that should be a neutral gray color. Whatever you clicked on will be regarded as a neutral color and the rest of the image will adjust accordingly.

I also reccomend buying an 18% gray card and using custom white balance from now on if you are going to be shooting JPEGs.

BinaryFx

pierce wrote:

Anyone wanna suggest a reasonable way of fixing these? Every time I try and color correct something by manually tweaking, it just ends looking worse and worse until I'm screaming.

Pierce, do you have a "gameplan" when you manually tweak? There is a methodical approach that is almost a science...that is fairly easy to apply! Results are often impressive. Are you interested in reading more on this? I can expand upon and introduce more information on the great points noted so far in this thread. I warn you though, this thread could get quite long!

There are many approaches to this issue in Photoshop or similar image editors. Knowing many ways is good, as images vary and your "favourite method" may often fail on a problem image. Some ways are "better" than others, with better being a variably subjective thing (perception, personal taste, technical issues - client prefernce rates higher than tehnically better etc).

Also to be taken into account is the volume of images to be corrected. Is there time/budget for individual correction? Will a "one size suits all best compromise" method be used for batch application to many images? Will a combination of both workflows be used?

Regards,

Stephen Marsh.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

colourbox

If you have Photoshop CS2, the fastest way to start is probably to add a Photo Filter adjustment layer since it emulates some traditional filters that were made for just such a situation, of light color temperature not matching the film you had on you. Try adding one of the warming filters. I wasn't a big user of those filters in the film days, so maybe someone with that experience can suggest a specific filter number to apply to tungsten film shot in daylight.

As for having enough cards, now that 2GB cards are down to $60 after rebate at B&H (I paid $90 for 1GB cards just last year), they're much easier to stock up on. 1GB cards are $33 after rebate.

I use an XT too...permanently set to Raw.

pathfinder

Tungsten film shot in daylight, will look waaay tooo blue.

Try using a yellow filter in the Photoshop Image > Adjust > Phot Filter command and adjust to taste. Once you find the setting for the yellow filter that looks correct, you can apply the same filter to all the frames shot in "Tungsten", as the filter setting should not change.

If shooting in RAW, this is easily fixed of course, in the RAW conversion process.

mrcoons

BinaryFx wrote:

Pierce, do you have a "gameplan" when you manually tweak? There is a methodical approach that is almost a science...that is fairly easy to apply! Results are often impressive. Are you interested in reading more on this? I can expand upon and introduce more information on the great points noted so far in this thread. I warn you though, this thread could get quite long!

There are many approaches to this issue in Photoshop or similar image editors. Knowing many ways is good, as images vary and your "favourite method" may often fail on a problem image. Some ways are "better" than others, with better being a variably subjective thing (perception, personal taste, technical issues - client prefernce rates higher than tehnically better etc).

Also to be taken into account is the volume of images to be corrected. Is there time/budget for individual correction? Will a "one size suits all best compromise" method be used for batch application to many images? Will a combination of both workflows be used?

Regards,

Stephen Marsh.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/

Stephen,

I don't know about Pierce but I'd certainly like to hear your approach. I shoot primarily school events. Indoor events I shoot in Raw and outdoors in Jpeg. When I shoot outside I may have from 150 to 300 photos which is way too many to handle in Raw, for me anyway. But shooting in Jpeg I will still have the occasional image that I feel needs to be edited. I primarily use Photoshop Elements 4 and ACDSee Photo Editor to do my edits but I certainly do not have a methodical approach to do it but I am always looking to learn new things. Thanks.

pathfinder

Here is a great link about using filters to correct for Tungtsen film shot in daylight and vice versa

http://www.geocities.com/cokinfiltersystem/color_corection.htm

A Wratten 85B should be pretty close. Photoshop offers an 85B in its Photo Filters command.

Another link about Wratten color balancing filters

http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/wratt_nr.htm