Can this be done in Photoshop?

[alecu]

I have a bunch of photos of the same thing but because the lighting was different the photos came all with different exposures/white balance.

Is there a way to modify the photos so they all look the same as the first photo?


Thanks,
Alecu

 

[Dubious Drewski]

First of all, before even reading your question, I will answer it: Yes, Photoshop can do ANYTHING. Anything.

Now, after reading your question, a more specific answer would be: Try Going into the menu. Layer/Adjustment Layer/Color Balance. That can be a pretty helpful tool. Next, use Layer/Adjustment Layer/Exposure to adjust the brightness of your image. DO NOT ever use the "Brightness/contrast" tool, it will destroy your image quality. Use the exposure tool instead.

I don't know of a reliable way to batch this work, and I never trust the auto levels, auto curves, auto anything. So you'll have to do these adjustments by hand, but that will give you the best results.

So this is going to take a long time? This work is kind of a pain in the neck? I agree, that's why I am always telling people: NEVER shoot in "Auto White Balance" mode for exactly this reason. You screw yourself over. Look at the lights in the room, set your white balance to that and shoot. Auto White balance is a terrible thing to use.

And one last thing, if your camera can shoot in Raw, then do it. If you shoot in Raw, then you don't have to worry about white balance at all. You don't even have to think about it; it's irrelevant when shooting in Raw. You only have to mess with the white balance after you get home and can see your images on your big monitor and you have access to better tools, like the Photoshop Raw importer.

 

[cosmoepic]

i was gonna say the same thing drewski said "yes" even before i read your post

 

[alecu]

First of all, before even reading your question, I will answer it: Yes, Photoshop can do ANYTHING. Anything.

Now, after reading your question, a more specific answer would be: Try Going into the menu. Layer/Adjustment Layer/Color Balance. That can be a pretty helpful tool. Next, use Layer/Adjustment Layer/Exposure to adjust the brightness of your image. DO NOT ever use the "Brightness/contrast" tool, it will destroy your image quality. Use the exposure tool instead.

I don't know of a reliable way to batch this work, and I never trust the auto levels, auto curves, auto anything. So you'll have to do these adjustments by hand, but that will give you the best results.

So this is going to take a long time? This work is kind of a pain in the neck? I agree, that's why I am always telling people: NEVER shoot in "Auto White Balance" mode for exactly this reason. You screw yourself over. Look at the lights in the room, set your white balance to that and shoot. Auto White balance is a terrible thing to use.

And one last thing, if your camera can shoot in Raw, then do it. If you shoot in Raw, then you don't have to worry about white balance at all. You don't even have to think about it; it's irrelevant when shooting in Raw. You only have to mess with the white balance after you get home and can see your images on your big monitor and you have access to better tools, like the Photoshop Raw importer.

All the shots are in Auto Balance unfortunately.
I have used Brightness/contrast tool and it's bad, really bad.
I have over 2000 shots that I need to change. A batch will be very, very helpful.
I’m going to try your suggestions: color balance and exposure.

Thanks,
Alecu

 

[Dubious Drewski]

If you don't want to mess with details and you just want to shoot, and you are ok with losing some quality and consistency, then Auto white balance is just fine. Heck, then Green mode is fine.

But if you want your images to look good, learn to pay attention to the lighting around you. For instance just two hours ago, I was out shooting some seniors curling. I walked into the rink and the first thing I did was look at the lights. They were all florescent, so I set my white balance to that. I took a test shot of the white ice and checked it out on the lcd. It was good, so I moved on to shooting.

This plus metering can all be done in under 10-20 seconds once you get good.

Though white balance doesn't really matter that much, because I shoot in RAW, but I like to have a good starting point that is consistent when I move on to editing.

 

[TheUndisputed]

God I love CS4, I forgot what it felt like to actually have to sort through the menus to get to adjustment layers. Now it is on the default tool palette

 

[bdavis]

Match Color maybe?

 

[alecu]

Match Color maybe?

Basically what I’m trying to do is this: Say I want to take 2 pictures of the same subject. First picture with all the available lighting in the room. Second picture with only half of the lights. I want both pictures to look the same in term of color and lighting. How can I achieve this?


Thanks,
Alecu