Learning to fish, Part II

Andy · December 3, 2005

Learning To Fish, Part I is here in SmugBlogs

Got this from an upset customer of one of our pros, and fellow SmugMug Pro and Dgrinner, Karen Winger. Thanks in advance to you, Karen, for allowing us to use these pics as examples for all of us to learn from :thumb

Upset Customer wrote:

Yes I did receive my order today, But I am very disappointed in the quality of the pictures. On the Internet the pictures are bright, and these photos are yellowed! I really feel that I wasted $40.00 on crap photos. Viewing on the Internet is much better.

So, we get these from time to time. Why? Becuase people are sensitive to color. Some to yellow, some to blue, red, etc. Everyone's tastes vary, and everyone's monitor is off-kilter. SmugMug's policy is very simple: we guarantee satisfaction. This goes for our pro, and and also our pro's customer.

In this example, the shots were of Winger's excellent ice hockey work. But - Ice Hockey rinks are really difficult shooting venues! Yellow overhead lighting makes the ice, and the overall white balance really tough to manage.

So here's one of the shots, Winger's edit. This is what the customer bought from. Pretty darn good (look at the white on the shirt!). But we can do better.

So here are my very-simple-steps for removing that yellow:

The difficulty is that you want to really only remove the yellow from the ice, for the most part. So in this case, all I had to do was a simple hue/saturation layer, select yellow, and dial down the yellow (it varied from shot to shot in this 21-shot fixup, but you'll know when it's right).

Then, using the layer mask - dump the black paint bucket on - this "undoes" the entire previous adjustment. Now, use either the eraser tool or a white soft brush tool, and paint over the areas you want the yellow gone from. Use 100% opacity on the brush for the ice, and then lower the opacity for the walls and cinderblocks. Play around you'll get the hang of it:

Here are some before/afters:

Are there other ways to do it? Sure there are. And it doesn't matter how you get it done, just "do it!" Is this a pain? Yep, but we're pros so we know from pain.

For the curious, Part I was posted in SmugBlogs and part II posted here, becuase I want folks to get used to looking at all of our resources!

Hopefully a happy pro, and a happy customer. Our policy? We’ll color correct for you - and for your customer - in the interest of speed and service for you and your customer. And we don’t charge for it, happily providing reprints. BUT we’ll only do it once. And so it ends. What's fish got to do with it? "Give a woman a fish, she eats for a day. Teach a woman to fish, and she eats for a lifetime!"

Enjoy (white ice) photography,

Sam · December 3, 2005

Thanks Andy!

I have absolutely NO idea how anyone figures out how to do this stuff! I can do it once I read about it, but who figures out how to do it in the first place? (Rhetorical question)

Sam

DavidTO · December 3, 2005

Sam wrote:

Thanks Andy!

I have absolutely NO idea how anyone figures out how to do this stuff! I can do it once I read about it, but who figures out how to do it in the first place? (Rhetorical question)

Sam

And who decided eating lobster was a good idea? I mean I like it and all, but who'da thunk that it would be good by looking at it?

marlinspike · December 3, 2005

If the white's are yellow, doesn't that mean that to really do it right you should adjust the curves since the blues and all colors will also be slightly too yellow. Granted nobody would ever notice the tint in a color other than white, but I mean can't the same affect be achieved with a careful use of the curves tool?

Andy · December 3, 2005

marlinspike wrote:

If the white's are yellow, doesn't that mean that to really do it right you should adjust the curves since the blues and all colors will also be slightly too yellow. Granted nobody would ever notice the tint in a color other than white, but I mean can't the same affect be achieved with a careful use of the curves tool?

As I said, there are loads of ways to do this.

Michiel de Brieder · December 5, 2005

interesting post Andy! Thanks!

Andy · January 21, 2006

Winger's due back here...

Steve Cavigliano · January 21, 2006

Another method
That's what I really like about post processing. There is almost always more than one way to skin a cat. Or, in this case, more than one way to take the yellow out.

I have some of the same problems Andy cites with Karen's hockey example. Many of my Bball shots suffer from slightly yellow jerseys, instead of white. It is weird but sometimes part of the uniform is white and another part has a dingy yellow cast to it

Anyhow, my method to fix this issue is fairly simple too. Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Selective Color>OK>White and on this shot I reduced the yellow -60 using the yellow slider and hit OK. Everything else looked OK (at this small size) so I didn't need to do any masking/erasing. I then flattened the layer.

Same method used here

Another recipe from your friendly chefs here at Digital Grin

Steve

Learning to fish, Part II

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