WTH is up with this? (Corel)

[limr]

So I was trying to do a white balance adjustment on this picture...



...so I went to the "White Balance" tool and as soon as I opened it, this happened:



I'm trying to look for information online, but all I'm getting are instructional videos from Corel about white balance.

Could I have messed with my settings somehow? I can't remember if this happened before I hooked up my external monitor (which has been a PITA and I'm wondering if it's worth it, though this monitor DOES work a lot better for photo editing...except when I'm trying to fix the white balance...)

(Edit: I just opened the laptop and it did the same thing on the laptop screen. IIRC, this did happen before the new monitor. I was hoping it was a weird fluke and would go away after restarting the program and/or computer. It didn't.)

I have Gimp installed but I hate the need to go to different programs and I don't really have much time right now to devote to learning Gimp well enough to make it my primary editor.

This whole thing displeases me.

 

[pixmedic]

Second shot is pretty awesome
It's all, alien landscape.

 

[limr]

It's definitely funky! I just wish I meant to do it. And I wish I had the option of not doing it

 

[limr]

And here it is with the slider right in the middle.



Kinda reminds me of the old nuclear bomb test pictures.

 

[Designer]

It's definitely funky! I just wish I meant to do it. And I wish I had the option of not doing it

Are there options within the WB command? Maybe something got checked that you were not aware of.

 

[BillM]

Those remind me of the 70's

 

[limr]

There are advanced settings but no matter what I do, I can't seem to get it away from these super-saturated results. The colors do change, but they are all retina-burning.

 

[BillM]

So i was right, it is exactly like the 70's

Well at least as much as i can remember, it's all kind of a blur.


But sorry, I have no actual help

 

[limr]

So i was right, it is exactly like the 70's

Well at least as much as i can remember, it's all kind of a blur.


But sorry, I have no actual help

But you made me smile and feel better, so that was helpful!

 

[BillM]

Then my job here is done

 

[tirediron]

I haven't used Corel in a long time; is the white balance adjusted by sampling a known area ('eye=dropper' tool) or how is it done? My assumption is that you (or the software) simply sampled the wrong part of the image.

 

[Designer]

What?

 

[limr]

No eye dropper tool has been needed to adjust white balance.

I'm poking around in Gimp right now and it seems it requires the eye dropper. It's a pain in the ass. The Corel one was a simple slider.

 

[tirediron]

Hmmm... it looks like the software has sampled a green area assuming it to be white.

 

[limr]

There's something else going on that I just realized.

You can preview on the image itself, which I usually do, but you can also open a before/after viewing option. When I do this, both viewing panes are completely black: