White balance problem or blue daughter?

ShotwellPhotography · Dec 9, 2009

It seems all photos of my 2 year old daughter always have white balance issues, even when photos of other people seem to have no problem. She always seems to be a bit bluer than normal skin tone. Do some people just photograph like this, or do I just need to work on my white balance skills?

robertwsimpson · Dec 9, 2009

post evidence

ShotwellPhotography · Dec 9, 2009

Big Mike · Dec 9, 2009

Is your monitor calibrated?

You can't really make an accurate assessment of your images unless your monitor has been properly calibrated.

I'm not on a calibrated screen here, but she doesn't look blue to me.

robertwsimpson · Dec 9, 2009

judging by the whites of her eyes, I'd say that the white balance is pretty much on. probably all the red carpet around her is throwing off your eyes.

ShotwellPhotography · Dec 9, 2009

Big Mike said:
Is your monitor calibrated?

You can't really make an accurate assessment of your images unless your monitor has been properly calibrated.

I'm not on a calibrated screen here, but she doesn't look blue to me.

I never have, and i guess I probably should. I Googled it, but I saw many ways, and some involving software. How do I do it.

I am just confused that I really only see this problem with my daughter.

Garbz · Dec 10, 2009

Well that picture you posted looks dead set accurate colour wise. Definitely not blue.

Calibration often involves buying a small bit of calibration hardware. That ranges in price around the $100 mark. It takes measurements of the screen and then writes a custom curve to the video card to ensure it's dead on.

It's interesting that you think this only happens with your daughter, can you post a picture of something you think looks right? If things are consistent we should perceive that as yellow.

Dao · Dec 10, 2009

My monitor is not calibrated. And the color of your photo looks right to me.

itznfb · Dec 10, 2009

My monitor is calibrated and to me the shot posted looks pretty accurate in terms of color.

Shockey · Dec 10, 2009

Calibrated monitor here, maybe a slight red cast due to the carpet, definitely nothing blue about it.

PhotoXopher · Dec 10, 2009

POS laptop screen here, looks great to me as well.

ShotwellPhotography · Dec 10, 2009

Garbz said:
Well that picture you posted looks dead set accurate colour wise. Definitely not blue.

Calibration often involves buying a small bit of calibration hardware. That ranges in price around the $100 mark. It takes measurements of the screen and then writes a custom curve to the video card to ensure it's dead on.

It's interesting that you think this only happens with your daughter, can you post a picture of something you think looks right? If things are consistent we should perceive that as yellow.

Well since I really dont have any money to spend right now, I'll just have to hope my screen is fine. I really never see problems with any photos posted here, unless of course there is a problem. I am on a laptop, does that make a difference.

Here is a photo of my son, which I see as being fine. Well, I think I do. Since everyone saw the first one as being fine, I'm all confused about what I think is right.

Garbz · Dec 11, 2009

If anything that photo looks a bit redish to me, but it could just be general richness in colours.

With laptops you have a very big problem in terms of repeatability. On a lot of laptops a slight change in viewing angle can have a dramatic result on the colours. Many laptops don't even show a consistent colour between the top and the bottom of the screen since the viewing angle between those parts is different when viewed straight up.

Short answer is I wouldn't rely on a laptop for accurate colour, but definitely there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the picture of your daughter.

Dwig · Dec 11, 2009

ShotwellPhotography said:
...
Well since I really dont have any money to spend right now, I'll just have to hope my screen is fine. ...

You can do a decent monitor calibration, within the display card's adjustment ability, by eye using one of the test images that you can download from the bottom of this page:

Test Prints

(Note: If you are using Windows XP or newer you can ignore the reference to Stuffit Expander as Windows can open the ZIP files on its own)

It won't be a good or complete a calibration as that which can be done with full blow calibration software and hardward, but it can be a major improvement. I suggest that you start by printing the image on your own printer and then compare the print with the monitor. Making the print monitor match the print is a reasonable approach to an in-house calibration to make your monitor predict the results of your printer.