Canon 60D w/ Alien Bees shots look great in camera, but very dark downloaded. Why?

[4lane]

The dingy grey is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I've tried a stop or two from f/11 without much help. What do you mean by WB being off on both background/subject? I've only set the WB to be in line with flash strobe @ 5000k.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

slide that "temp" slider to make the pic white, its got a blue tone to it. then try raising the exposure up a half stop or so

 

[2WheelPhoto]

LR4 shows temp at 4700 instead of 5000, tweak that slider

 

[4lane]

I bumped up the WB temp to 5400 which has improved it some, but it's still very 'eh'. Doesn't compare to the black shoe image above. Here it is:

 

[Derrel]

I opened up your screen cap. I lifted the tone curve up a bit in the upper region. PERFECT WHITE. You are not that far off. Your WHite Balance however is what we cal "Eff'd"... 4,700 Kelvin??? What???? NO wonder it all looks so whacked. Your image does not look "dark". I mean, if the Minus 0.35 stop negativ exposure comp is considered "dark", then yeah...

Again, these images are not dark--but they DO lack CONTRAST...Your Tone Curve is "eff'd up". Set the WB to 5100 to 5300, estimated. Grab the curve and lift it a teensy-tiny bit. Problem solved. Bkgd goes the right tonal value. AND looks pure white.

COPY settings. Select all other images. PASTE settings. Whole set, done in like 2 minutes.

 

[MLeeK]

It's a typical, flat raw image. It's exposure looks pretty damn close and all you need to do is apply the curve you wish to use. That's what raw looks like.