Color Shift

pdxrjt · Post by **pdxrjt** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 1:22 pm

Recently I was at a Mardi Gras Museum in New Orleans with lots of fantastic colors. About half of my shots are with flash and about half are without. The ones with flash seem to have truer colors...like whites that were white...but are marred with the "flash highlights" glinting off of certain areas (and of course fall off in the background where the flash didn't get to.) The non-flash look smoother--no burned out highlights etc, but have kind of a yellowish tint. I shot the photos in Raw.

I have tried using white balance (using various types of lighting presets) on the raw shots but they change very little in tint..... What tool might I use in XII to remove some yellows? I've tried a few of the hue/saturation tools like hue map, but when I decrease yellow/gold, still doesn't look natural... just different. Can anyone 1) suggest a tool and 2) kind of point me in the right direction (do I decrease yellows, increase blue....what the heck do I do?) I certainly don't mind experimenting, but after another unproductive session today, I would really appreciate some guidance.

You time in reading this and/or any suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. TIA

pdxrjt · Post by **pdxrjt** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 4:04 am

Okay, I think I got it, but if someone wants to chime in...

I was using Color Balance and when I went to advanced features and clicked on Smart Select, I then went to the pic and clicked on something I knew was very white and there was a minor color shift.... Well, I did better clicking on something that was a little more "off" (read a light yellow) and voila, the natural light pic looked a lot more "normal."

SnedekerDesignz · Post by **SnedekerDesignz** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:33 pm

Great you got it

allicorn · Post by **allicorn** » Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:07 am

Useful tips, thanks pdxrjt.

I'm colorblind and was unlikely to be of any help in figuring that issue out

Alli

Tim Morrison · Post by **Tim Morrison** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:11 am

This is quite a good example of how poorly PSP handles digital camera raw files.
A raw file just holds the output of the image sensor, plus a file header that contains entries for the EXIF data (date, camera model, exposure and so on), and the camera settings at the time the shot was taken.
In a JPEG file for instance, the pixels in the photos taken without flash would have been given an amber hue when the JPG was created in the camera. In a raw file the "pixels" are exactly the same for both photos, and the colour temperature setting is just one of those tiny little entries in the file header. It is set to something like "Daylight" or "5600 degrees Kelvin"... the colour of daylight and your camera's flash.
A good raw converter would've let you pick another colour temperature before it converted the raw sensor data... either by selecting "Tungsten", "3200K" or by clicking on a neutral tone like you did in PSP. The conversion would've been done in a single step, which would give the best quality.
PSP doesn't give you that option. It makes a conversion according to the daylight setting that it sees in the file header, then you have to change it in a second step, but now you're not working with the original raw sensor data, but with the pixels that PSP has created. This two stage process won't give as good quality as the one step method on a real raw converter. The problem is further compounded by the mediocre, old fashioned method that PSP uses to convert raw sensor data into coloured pixels, which gives soft results with chromatic aberrations.

pdxrjt · Post by **pdxrjt** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:59 am

Very interesting information. I had/have another program which I used before PSP handled by system's RAW format. Perhaps I will use that one instead of PSP next time I have taken RAW shots.

Tim Morrison · Post by **Tim Morrison** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:50 pm

I would... and I do.
You will almost certainly find that the other program gives better results from a raw file. You might also find that it allows you to save your edits as a tiny "sidecar" file of a few kilobytes, instead of having to convert to a TIF or PSPIMAGE of some tens of megabytes.
(You might also like to let Corel know why you find PSP's raw handling to be mediocre, by using the 'E-mail Corel' tab at http://support.corel.com/).

pdxrjt · Post by **pdxrjt** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 3:34 am

The program I use for RAW does in fact leave the RAW data alone and save edits as a small file. Will shoot Corel an e-mail..... and hope they continue to develop PSP (see other thread!!)

JimL · Post by **JimL** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:30 pm

It is better to set the white balance in your camera. There are many white plastic "snap on" lens caps (I paid 15 dollars US for mine) which allow you to get a proper white balance inside your camera. The usual procedure is to cover your lens with the plastic and take a photo. You then go to the custom white balance in your camera and use that photo as the source for white balance information. Inside a building it usually is sufficient to only take one shot of this type but if you notice the light changing additional shots may be required. Home made devices can be made using white milk cartons and instructions can be found with a basic Google search. Some carry a small disk which can be placed in the scene and removed with a one click clone out. In this case the eye dropper can be used to set the proper white balance.
JimL