I'm just starting out in RAW, and using a work flow. One of the things that appeals to me about RAW is being able to adjust exposure and white balance. I seem to be struggling with adjusting WB manually during pp. When I processed these photos I used a light temperature of 5750K. (It was a bright overcast day.)

I used the following work flow: (http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/workflow_basic/workflow_basic.htm)

Steps 1 and 2 were in my RAW converter, 3 thru 6 were in PSE4

1.) Exposure
2.) White Balance
3.) Save as JPEG
4.) Black and white points
5.) Curves
6.) Sharpening

I feel like #1 and #2 have a green cast. #3 and #4 have a magenta cast. Do you see this on your screen. All 4 pictures were shot in RAW. #1 and #2 my husband took in auto mode, #3 and #4 I took in manual mode. Is this just coincidence, or do you think there is some tie? All 4 were shot in the same lighting conditions, use the same temp for white balance, and all the rest of the pping was the same. The camera was set to AutoWB, but from what I understand, this doesn't affect anything when you are shooting in RAW, correct?

Do you see the color casts on your screen (I don't really see them a little on mine, but not as bad as the prints)? If you do see them, what am I doing to cause this? I'm just not sure where to go from here.

#1
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#2
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#3
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#4
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Hi Erin,

I do see a slight difference in the tint from 1/2 to 3/4. The tint is controlled with the slider below the Kelvin temp slider, so you might check to see if that is set the same for each image and/or adjust it a little.

What are you using to print these? an inkjet or a lab?

Welcome to OSP, Erin!

If you haven't already, the first thing I would recommend is calibrating your monitor. Even the el-cheapo Pantone Huey will do a much better job than the default monitor settings or trying to manually adjust with Adobe Gamma.

Color casts can come from two main areas, the light source (sun, open sky, clouds, tungsten) and casts caused by reflections (i.e. grass or brightly colored walls). The first two images were shot outdoors and would therefore have some green cast to them due to light reflecting off of foliage. The green cast is really not too pronounced, if it's there at all.

The green cast on the prints may have been introduced by the lab. I've seen that happen quite often on outdoor shots with consumer labs. The only way to really compare with your screen is to use a reputable lab and to make sure to specify NO color correction.

s

Thanks so much for responding! I saw the magenta/green slider below. I figured I could use this to neutralize these casts. But I'm trying to minimize my pp steps, so if I can avoid this when I'm doing the white balance, I'd like to do so. I'm still a little foggy on what might be causing the cast in the first place. All 4 photos were taken in the same lighting conditions. Why wouldn't applying the same WB settings to each of the 4 photos yield the same results?

I usually have my prints done at WHCC, but these were printed at Sam's. I was being impatient and wanted my prints NOW. So I'm sure a lot of the cast on the prints is a result of where I had them printed.

I had only shot in raw one other time, for my son's 5-month picture. But out of that grouping, I only had 1 shot I really liked. So I only pped that one picture. The it didn't have a color cast, and the prints that I got from WHCC matched my monitor. I've attached a copy of that below. But, white balancing on that one was easy with just a plain black background. For some reason with these others, the background and the white shirts, and magenta shirt was making me question my wb.

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I see what you're saying Steve, about the foilage creating the color cast. So what I'm gathering is that white balancing will get you a portion of the way there, but if you have a color cast from the reflection, you might have to use the green/magenta slider to neutralize that?

Even in the same light, different locations or angles will cause different qualities or colors of light due to reflections. See this thread by Carey for a good example.

When I think about it, I'll use a custom white balance shot using a spare sheet of matte photo paper. That saves a lot of guesswork in PP as I can use the eyedropper against the white balance shot image or just use the in-camera Custom WB.



I think some consumer labs must see foliage and kick up the green/blue saturation to make landscape images pop, not caring that it kills skin tones.



Exactly.

Thanks so much for the responses. I had read that thread on ambient light last week. It just didn't occur to me that my issue was an example of what that poster was discussing. Wow, nothing like applying a concept by direct experience to zing your brain and make something click!

I've really been putting effort into studying, and trying to understand what it takes to make a great photo. I've been shooting everything in manual, researching pp techniques, and just working on trying to get a good exposure. Just when you think you start to have a handle on how everything relate a new variable gets thrown in!

In my professional career I'm an engineer, so I like think I'm not a total dummy. But I'm continually amazed at how many different things need to be at the forefront of your brain when shooting. If you forget to consider any one of these things, you can easily ruin a picture!