More about White Balance X7

[Jean-Luc]

I photograph most of my projects on a piece of scrapbook paper that I found at a craft store.

I love your background paper! It is well suited for your jewels.

[brucet]

Jean-Luc it's the nature of the internet and forums. Unless we are very very careful about how we word our contributions we will always be taken out of context or miss interpreted. Contributing in a non native language only complicates the issue.
I guess to clarify what you may have meant! Rather than making a general statement I'm guessing you meant to say that white balance is very important to 'some' users. We all have to remember that programs such as PSP are used by a huge variety of folks for many many varying tasks. We have to be careful to remember that our tasks are not unique and others have other requirements.
For 30+ years I was responsible for producing a world renown catalogue that relied on it's colour accuracy. I'm aware of the importance of the correct white balance. We just need to remember that only a select group of PSP users are seeking the technically correct white balance.

regards

[CMurd]

Your comment reminded me of one of my "rules" when editing my beadwork photos in PSP. I try not to worry if the background color isn't right as long as my beadwork is as close to the correct color. Even that is difficult to achieve sometimes because getting the colored beads in a piece to look the correct color can throw off the color of the metallic seed beads next to them. I don't do it often but there have been times when I've manually edited the color of each individual main beads in a project just so that the rest of the beads come out the right color.

I've never had much luck taking my beadwork photos on a white background. I photograph most of my projects on a piece of scrapbook paper that I found at a craft store. For some reason my camera is able to interpret the colors pretty close to correct when I use that greenish blue paper for the background. I've tried other color background papers and they rarely work as well with the colors of my beads. Below is an example of some earrings on the greenish blue paper. To get the bead colors correct, the background paper looks a lot more gray than it really is but that's not important.

LindaSue, it appears from what you said that you know the features of PSP better than I do. I've never adjusted individual colors (I've tried, but didn't know what I was doing). When I am photographing beads, so many things can go wrong. As I said above, ruby red and cobalt blue never come out right. If the beads are more than one color, one color may come out right while the other doesn't. Often, opaque beads will look milky. The main problems, in my opinion, are technical. Bayer technology in cameras doesn't (in my opinion) produce accurate colors, nor do LCD monitors. There's really not much that I can do about it.

[CMurd]

Yes, of course. It is the reason why it is important to know if the balance is "really" correct. If the gray values are almost equal (R=G=B), the color is really neutral. If this neutral gray looks yellowish or blue, etc., the screen must be corrected (settings, etc.).

I just want to say that getting the whites correct in a photo doesn't mean that the other colors are correct. Most cameras don't produce accurate colors, so even when white is correct, the other colors may be off. However, correct colors only matter when products are being photographed (or some other use when color accuracy counts). If the colors of, say, a landscape scene are not quite correct, it really doesn't matter if the photo is attractive.

[Jean-Luc]

Jean-Luc it's the nature of the internet and forums. Unless we are very very careful about how we word our contributions we will always be taken out of context or miss interpreted.

[Jean-Luc]

I just want to say that getting the whites correct in a photo doesn't mean that the other colors are correct. Most cameras don't produce accurate colors, so even when white is correct,...

Yes, I know that. What you say reflects another problem : color gamut. For example, it is difficult to obtain "correct" colors with some flowers with a blue or violet hue, like the New England or some blue aster. By "correct", I mean "what our eyes see". Those colors are "out of gamut".

[LindaSue]

Your comment reminded me of one of my "rules" when editing my beadwork photos in PSP. I try not to worry if the background color isn't right as long as my beadwork is as close to the correct color. Even that is difficult to achieve sometimes because getting the colored beads in a piece to look the correct color can throw off the color of the metallic seed beads next to them. I don't do it often but there have been times when I've manually edited the color of each individual main beads in a project just so that the rest of the beads come out the right color.

I've never had much luck taking my beadwork photos on a white background. I photograph most of my projects on a piece of scrapbook paper that I found at a craft store. For some reason my camera is able to interpret the colors pretty close to correct when I use that greenish blue paper for the background. I've tried other color background papers and they rarely work as well with the colors of my beads. Below is an example of some earrings on the greenish blue paper. To get the bead colors correct, the background paper looks a lot more gray than it really is but that's not important.

LindaSue, it appears from what you said that you know the features of PSP better than I do. I've never adjusted individual colors (I've tried, but didn't know what I was doing). When I am photographing beads, so many things can go wrong. As I said above, ruby red and cobalt blue never come out right. If the beads are more than one color, one color may come out right while the other doesn't. Often, opaque beads will look milky. The main problems, in my opinion, are technical. Bayer technology in cameras doesn't (in my opinion) produce accurate colors, nor do LCD monitors. There's really not much that I can do about it.

Well, it's one thing to manually edit a few beads in a bracelet. I think it would be more difficult and time-consuming to manually edit the color of a whole pile or strand of beads. What I sometimes do is make a freehand selection of all of the off-color beads. I then create a new layer above the photo and fill the selection with whatever color I think it will take to get the underlying color correct. Then I play with the blend modes and layer opacity until the beads appear to be the right color. I also tweak the color layer using "Color Balance" It's not so much that I know the photo editing features of PSP so well. I just play around with settings until I get what I like is all.

Although I have some more recent versions of PSP, I mostly use PSP8. It has some older tools that you may not see in the later versions. They are in there but you have to add them from the Customize dialog. I probably use "Color Balance" the most for tweaking colors. That's one of the tools that Corel has renamed "White Balance" in recent versions. The icon looks like a balance scale. In X6 it's called "Adjust White Balance". The dialog box looks just like the adjustment layer tool that MarkZ post a screenshot of. The other "white balance" tool is called "Automatic White Balance" and I rarely use that one. In PSP8 it's called "Automatic Color Balance" and it seldom gives me results that are useful. I also use "Automatic Saturation Enhancement" all the time. That tool is still called the same thing in later versions but I'm pretty sure that you have to add it through the customize dialog from "All commands". Gamma Correction is another tool that Corel has hidden and I use that quite often as well.

[CMurd]

You see, I haven't done any work with layers. If you have a complex design, and one kind of bead isn't the right color, how do you select those beads and make them a layer? If you would give me a short tutorial, that would be very helpful. When I work in PSP, I just work on the image as a flat background.

I suppose I could find out how to work with layers just by reading the help files. Give me a couple days to experiment, and if I don't figure it out, then you can help me.

[LindaSue]

I don't put the beads on a new layer. I make a freehand selection around the bead. When I switch to the new empty layer that I created above the bead, I can fill the selection with a color but it doesn't actually change the bead on the layer below it. When I adjust the opacity of the colored selection layer so that it's translucent, I can see the bead underneath it. It's a bit like painting with very diluted paint on a sheet of glass that's on top of the beadwork photo. The color layer affects the appearance of the bead below it but I haven't actually changed the original photo layer.

[LindaSue]

Here is an example of what I mean. In the first screenshot, I've made a selection around the large bead in the center of the earring. I have already created a new empty layer above the photo layer.



In the next screenshot, you can see that I've flood filled the selection with opaque green. The green dot is on the layer above the earring photo layer and anything I do on that layer doesn't really affect the photo below it.



In the Layers palette, there are blend modes that affect how the layers interact with each other. There is also an opacity slider which makes the green dot translucent so that the bead below is visible but it now appears to be green.



In the last screenshot below, I've tweaked the same green dot using one of the color adjustment tools in PSP. I used Colorize to change the green dot to magenta.

[CMurd]

I understand what you are doing now, and that's not something I can do. In the case of beads like this --

www.purebeads.com/catalogue/G2251

-- one color of beads (such as the green beads or purple beads) may not come out right, but there is no way for me to select all the beads of one color by hand. If there was a way to do that automatically, then I might try making layers, etc. What I end up doing is explaining to the customer how the picture isn't perfect.

[hartpaul]

Another way of correcting is:
1. Duplicate layer
2. hide the top layer
3. Make bottom layer active and then add corrections to make the wrong color beads right.
4. Switch the visibility of the top layer on again.
5. Use an eraser brush to erase the bad beads on the top layer so the correct color beads show through. You can right click to unerase if you go too far.

Repeat for any other colored beads that need adjusting.
I have used this procedure where I have done a couple of group shots and one person has their eyes closed in one shot but others are bad in the second shot. So I align that persons face with eyes open on a layer beneath the closed eyes face, and then erase the closed eyes to allow the open eyes to show through.

[CMurd]

Thanks, Hartpaul, but I'm photographing products and can't spend that much time on any photo.

[CMurd]

By the way, LindaSue, I don't think I thanked you properly for all the trouble you went to, to create those sample images. It must have taken you a while. Thank you.

[LindaSue]

No problem. They only took a few minutes to create.