Red Filtering

[okyou]

Hello,

I have a few photos taken inside of a restaurant that use red lighting lamps, is there any tools or method to filter the red out ? I've tried the Hue and Saturation tools but not very successful because it is difficult to adjust. If I change the hue to filter the red, then the lamps would become green. Any tips and tricks to wash out the excess red ? Thanks

[Jean-Luc]

Hello,

I have a few photos taken inside of a restaurant that use red lighting lamps, is there any tools or method to filter the red out ? I've tried the Hue and Saturation tools but not very successful because it is difficult to adjust. If I change the hue to filter the red, then the lamps would become green. Any tips and tricks to wash out the excess red ? Thanks

The attachment test.jpg is no longer available

The lamps will stay green is you correct the red cast :

balance blancs.jpg (72.75 KiB) Viewed 5618 times

[CHoffman]

Remember that if the major source of light is red, there won't be much green or blue to work with. Just to show that, split the image into R, G & B and compare the images. I tried fixing it with PerfectlyClear, but I'm not experienced with that and only did OK. Then I just used PSP by adding three adjustment layers, white balance, histogram and brightness/contrast (I think). By using layers, you can easily go back to them and tweak until it looks right. Remember that you can tweak highlights, midtones and shadows separately. I usually also do local tone mapping, usually at the minimum settings. If you wanted the lamps to look different, you might have to go in with brushes and do them manually, something I've got zero skills with. Anyway-

Using PerfectlyClear

Using PSP controls

[Kathy_9]

Nice work on the last one "using PSP controls".

[Jean-Luc]

Nice work on the last one "using PSP controls".

Yes, very good job !

[okyou]

Thank you very much..

[okyou]

Hello CHoffman,

I am just curious what is the PSP control adjustment number you use to achieve the red filter with your PSP controls ? I tried to archeive the same result but not successful.

Thanks for your idea and help.

[CHoffman]

I don't remember exactly, but this should get you close. Then just go back to the adjustment layers and play with the sliders until it looks the way you want. There are a couple things I do as a matter of course that don't directly address the color, but help the image.

Resize the image to 2600 x 1463
Unsharp mask 1.5 radius, 150 strength
Add adjustment layers:
1) white balance, mids = -80, 25 and 20, shadows = -20, 0 and 0, highlights = -20, 0 and 40
2) histogram, -3 for contrast and 1.20 gamma
3) local tone mapping 2, 8

So it's basically three adjustment layers, but most of what's needed is the white balance. The beauty of adjustment layers is you can select the layer, right click and select properties to change it until you're happy. Resize back down if desired. I usually like to work on images with some decent pixel density, even if they didn't start out that way because I think the processing is less visible when they're resized back down. Could be my imagination though.

[okyou]

Thank you very much for your help.

[okyou]

Hello CHoffman,

Your setting works out very good . Thanks for sharing. I encountered another problem maybe you can also shed some light on this subject too.
The photo below has too much glare, is there anyway to reduce the glare to improve the photo ?

Thanks

[CHoffman]

That's a tough one. You can't easily fix the direct lights, but you can improve the surrounding image a bit. Adjustment layers again- try fill light set to 30, 0 and 0. That will lighten up the shadows. Then a histogram adjustment with the contrast (compress/expand) at about -10 and the gamma to 0.94, or whatever you think is better, without becoming too harsh. I'm sure ten people would have ten opinions on what looks best, but sometimes that filling the shadows and then raising the contrast can work.

[okyou]

This will give me enough to play with. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Dijenga]

Hello CHoffman,

Your setting works out very good . Thanks for sharing. I encountered another problem maybe you can also shed some light on this subject too.
The photo below has too much glare, is there anyway to reduce the glare to improve the photo ?

The attachment temp2.jpg is no longer available

Thanks

Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but this is how I do it:

Add curves adjustment layer. On this image (using RGB channel), set anchor point dead center then move top right anchor down -25 and bottom left in 25. In the accompanying mask, large brush very soft paint out the glare. leaving it so that the glare is unchanged. The resulting image will be better if you do this.

Add new raster layer. Set blend mode to overlay. Make the foreground color black. Make brush about 3/4 the size of the offending area, and make the brush very soft (hardness 10 for me) and the opacity less than 50 percent and paint. Remember that if you "lift the brush" (stop painting) then any point you paint over will become darker.

If you paint too much, just grab the eraser (again large brush, very soft) and touch it up.

[Dijenga]

Simplest method I've used for removing the red cast involved a color correction method I've seen Blake Rudis use in one of his tutorials.

Created duplicate of original. Placed it in a group with the blend mode of the group set to "soft light" (this accomplishes the same goal as the "clipping mask" in the tutorial). Added an empty raster layer inside the group, above the copy of the original image.

Converted the copy of the original image to a negative image. Used the histogram palette (F7) and got the median color value for each color (red, green, blue) then filled the blank layer with that color.

Created a "Hue / Saturation / Lightness" adjustment layer above the raster layer I just filled.

Then I adjusted the Saturation and Lightness for the color level and brightness. Then I adjust the Hue layer until I get the color where I want it.

Of course, you were there and know what the original colors were, I wasn't but the method gets you where you want to go. From there you can make simple adjustments after flattening the image.

Tutorial by Blake Rudis follows.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKXFB56DgJw[/youtube]