No studio :( My daughter :D

LaFoto · Dec 29, 2005

As not to hijack JonK's thread on the photo taken of his daughter using a real studio light (softbox) and a reflector, I shall start a new thread on photos that I took of my daughter, making use of a large, rectangle (totally out-of-date, more 70s-style lamp = tungsten light) and no reflector (duh! :meh: ). Well, actually, these are only snapshots, for she was sitting there, in my parents-in-law's home, on Christmas day, and I wielded around (erm... not really that badly) my "new toy" (i.e. my new Canon EOS 350D, yuppieh

) and said: hang on, stay there, let me try this.

What I don't know (and somehow can no longer find out) is whether I set the white balance to "tungsten". There are other photos where I did and they STILL came out horribly yellow (this does not happen to the same extent with the Powershot!). Anyhow, here is the "reply-pic" to JonK's photo. Mark: in here you can see all you can do wrong... :roll:

After a little bit of PS work in an attempt to get rid of the yellow, but I don't really know what I am doing in Photoshop, so the result is ... erm...

JonK · Dec 29, 2005

I dragged this into PS and hit: image>>>adjust>>>auto colour and the result was pretty good. Prob would be better with the hi-res file.
Other option; shoot RAW and adjust balance after the fact before opening in PS.
You don't mention what WB yer camera was set too. I have noticed on my 350D that the balance is way more yellow when shooting indoors than I get with my 20D (camera set on auto WB)

LaFoto · Dec 29, 2005

You mean something like this? (I looked for "Auto Colours", but there is none to be had in my version, only Auto Levels, which I chose for this):

I find it gets too hot spots in this one...
And shooting RAW is something I still have to learn. (Would require reading the manual to my 350D, blah!)

elsaspet · Dec 29, 2005

The second is much better, colorwise LaFoto. She's a beautiful girl!
The hot spots can be helped a bit in levels. Just move the middle grey slider around.

JohnMF · Dec 29, 2005

auto levels usually sorts it

emayd · Dec 30, 2005

Hi LaFoto, this is my variant of your picture, Sorry that I did it without permition. If you don't like it I'll remove it from my server.

LaFoto · Dec 30, 2005

No worries. I don't mind. Usually my photos are not automatically OTE, but with this one I was coming with a question on how to remove the yellow cast, so it is ok this time.
And I like what you did. You make what became hot spots after I let the "Auto Levels" in Photoshop do their work appear soft and shining mildly and now I wonder how you did it?

(What I have learned is that for portrait photography you need white light and in most cases also a reflector - and I think this would have been such a case. What more I am learning - over and again - is that I still have to learn sooooo much!)

emayd · Dec 30, 2005

White light is OK, but not all times. If you plan to create a b/w and ou make a picture from people without perfect skin, you should select some a light with red shift. It helps to mask skin defects. Yes, you can do it after in PS. But better both. This result i got after pass this image through 3 programs. togetrher about 20 steps. Try to find book from Dan Margulis - "Professional Photoshop" - color correction, retouching, an image manipulation. ISBN-0471018732

The greatest knolage that I got from this book - this is a possibility to use some side effect of some operation to color correction.

Best regards,
Emayd