Color Correction/Balancing

[B Kennedy]

Hey all, have been inactive for a little while now, but I recently have come up with a very time consuming edit process that I'm looking for advise on. I just shot a large christening this past weekend and here's my dilemma. During the reception, I was firing my flashes off the ceiling (The flashes were not gelled) and of course I got the color cast from the "beigish" ceiling (if I may create that word). So I got this yellowish color cast on my pictures...it's a slight cast, but one that I wanted to correct. So I ran em through photoshop, set my white and black tones, and then adjusted through an adjustment layer for color balance and it came out looking much better. Check out the pictures attached.

There has got to be a better way to edit these photos rather than having to open each file and apply the 2 adjustments as above. I know I can write an action in photoshop for the color balancing, but I'm not sure about the B&W tones. Btw also worthwhile to mention that I shot on automatic white balance. Would purchasing like an 18% grey card help in shooting receptions and events like this and to set a custom WB temp? I mean will that help with my white and black tones? So I would show up for the reception, shoot the cardI wouldn't think that would help with the color cast, but what are your opinions...Thanks.

 

[B Kennedy]

bump....Heeellllpppp meeee lol

 

[RONDAL]

so basically your flashes have thrown your white balance off correct?

Couldn't you figure out for one photo what the correct custom WB needs to be, and then batch process them in ACR or lightroom?

 

[manaheim]

^^^ not that I would ever batch process anything, but generally if I find I have a lot of a particular color cast in my shots I create a preset for this in Adobe Camera Raw and just use that each time.

Sounds like you may not have been using raw, however... in which case... shame!!!!

 

[musicaleCA]

Yes, a grey card will help. This is a problem that really should be fixed on-site, and is easily done so. Shoot the grey card, and use it to figure-out how to gel your flashes to compensate for the cast. If they were being warmed-up, use blue gels.

I would also just try to do a batch WB adjustment and see how close that gets you. It'd be a lot faster.

As manaheim mentioned, however, it'd be a shame if you weren't shooting RAW. In that case you're more or less SOL.

 

[B Kennedy]

so basically your flashes have thrown your white balance off correct?

Couldn't you figure out for one photo what the correct custom WB needs to be, and then batch process them in ACR or lightroom?

Hmm, well i shot raw as well, so I'm gonna do a test with that. No clue why I didn't think to do that, although I don't quite know if you can apply a setting with jpeg's to adjust the white balance temperature. I know you can do it in raw, which I just started doing, and the original picture is at around 5300, and it looks much much better around 3700. So I'll have to check around to see what setting I can try and batch process the jpegs with.

On to my other question tho, I'm always trying to better the process in the field with getting the shot as good as possible so that I don't have to keep correcting as much. Since I've never shot with a grey card and setting custom balance in the field, I wonder if thats what most people would do when shooting many pictures in the same type of lighting. Like I wonder if there was a dj stand with all sorts of strobe colored lighting, if it would be pointless to even try and set a custom white balance in the field. Thanks for the response!

 

[B Kennedy]

Yes, a grey card will help. This is a problem that really should be fixed on-site, and is easily done so. Shoot the grey card, and use it to figure-out how to gel your flashes to compensate for the cast. If they were being warmed-up, use blue gels.

I would also just try to do a batch WB adjustment and see how close that gets you. It'd be a lot faster.

As manaheim mentioned, however, it'd be a shame if you weren't shooting RAW. In that case you're more or less SOL.

^^^ not that I would ever batch process anything, but generally if I find I have a lot of a particular color cast in my shots I create a preset for this in Adobe Camera Raw and just use that each time.

Sounds like you may not have been using raw, however... in which case... shame!!!!

Yes I did shoot raw, I almost always do, although I eat up so much space, typically (4) 8gb cards will get me through an event. Can you batch process raw files though for like setting the white balance around 3800? I don't know how to do that with jpeg, or if you even can. I know I can change the white balance on the raw files, I guess by doing that could save me the time of having to apply 2 layers on jpeg and I'll get better image quality. So now I'm off to buying a grey card to start getting the wb right when I'm shooting.

 

[davebmck]

I don't know about ACR, but changing the WB for a group of shots in Lightroom is a snap. Just adjust the balance on one file and then select all the other files and click Sync. Check only the white balance box and click the Synchronize button. Note that you can also sync other adjustments as well. The new version of ACR may have this function as well but I don't know as I have CS3.

 

[manaheim]

I'm leery of anyone using the term "batch processing" with RAW because it tends to result in wasting the benefit of the RAW process to begin with.

That being said, lightroom has lots of ways to handle processing a lot of images quickly. Perhaps that's a way to go for you. I'm not sure. I don't ever have lots of shots that are so close in light needs that a batch process would make sense for me.

 

[RONDAL]

whether or not you shot in RAW or not ACR does allow you the CUSTOM option in the white balance setting, you only get AS SHOT and CUSTOM. so you cant select AUTO, DAYLIGHT, FLASH, etc. like you usually would.

There is nothing wrong with batch processing for white balance if you shot with the lights in the same place. It should throw the same messed up lighting for all the photos.
CS3 Bridge w/ ACR and lightroom make this a snap and its one of the only times batch processing actually works well.

 

[photobazz]

I quite agree if your shooting raw and your colours aren't all over the place a good starting point (in Lightroom) is correct one then Batch process the rest. I'd also go through each individual after a sweeping batch to "tweak" the individual images. You really need to be using a Lightroom or Aperture for stuff like that though. It shortens your workflow a great deal. To do that kinda thing in Photoshop would take a lot longer.

If you want to take your colour accuracy seriously the you should contemplated using X-Rite colorChecker Passport it's a very good.

Watford Wedding Photographer