Is this white balance issue avoidable?

[Tinchohs]

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Hi, I've been documenting an old train garage | warehouse for a documentary project. My intention was to do it with the Leica m9. Yet, I have been having a very difficult time with the white balance in the mix lighting conditions of this location (take a look at the attached image). This happened with numerous images in different parts of the warehouse.

 

I shot it with automatic white balance, and also tried other camera white balance presets as well without much success. Somehow, the Canon 5Dm2 in this same lighting conditions, and also in auto white balance seems to be doing a better work at deciphering the color temperature.

 

Any suggestions on how to deal with this? And also, any idea how to remove the 'yellow' in the hair of this image?

 

Thanks in advanced for your help with this.

 

Martin Herrera | Award-winning documentary and travel photography. Assignment freelance photography in South America region.

 

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[wda]

Martin, for such a well-defined project, why do you not shoot RAW and record some reference shots with a calibrated grey card (WhiBal or Xrite ColorChecker)? That is the surest way to reduce or eliminate colour contamination. But you must sample the lighting near the critical part of your subject. You cannot easily correct for mixed areas of contamination. I would not even start such a project without a white balance aid as described.

 

As to removing the yellow cast, I would first work on a copy layer in Photoshop and select Hue/Saturation. Then select 'yellow' and experiment with adjusting the saturation slider until you have your desired result. Zoom in on the head. You may find that there is also some unwanted 'green' in the colour cast. If so, repeat the above step having selected the 'green' channel.

[Luke_Miller]

I believe this is a fairly typical mixed lighting shot. That is, the subject is illuminated by light sources of different temperatures. So there is no one white balance setting that is correct for the entire image. As wda suggests the solution is selective color correction. I normally adjust for the skin tones and then pull the yellow/green (probably from fluorescent lighting) out of the hair. The technique varies with the post processing software used.

[Tinchohs]

Thanks wda. I will follow your advice. I will also try the correction to see how it goes. I am shooting RAW, so it should be easier to fix I guess. Appreciated!

[Tinchohs]

Thanks Luke. I'll give it a try. Appreciate it... I just played with the image in Aperture, and in the color module, with the color picker, I chose the yellow and desaturated it. Perfect! Thanks both!

[Overgaard]

I would use manual white balance (measuring a WhiBal or other greycard or white paper) vertical where the face will be. Vertical to catch the color temperature on his face as it will hit the face (if you hold the paper say 45 degrees, you will capture the light from the ceiling).

 

The rest of the unwanted color temperature colors I would get rid of in Lightroom by desaturating the color channels relevant.

 

Hope this helps.

[Tinchohs]

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Thanks Overgaard... I will try on my next visit to the location. I was able to fix most of it in Aperture with the tips I got on the post. Thanks a lot.

[wda]

I would use manual white balance (measuring a WhiBal or other greycard or white paper) vertical where the face will be. Vertical to catch the color temperature on his face as it will hit the face (if you hold the paper say 45 degrees, you will capture the light from the ceiling).

 

The rest of the unwanted color temperature colors I would get rid of in Lightroom by desaturating the color channels relevant.

 

Hope this helps.

Thorsten, interesting your approach to using a WhiBal. I am not sure balancing light in an M8, when capturing primarily DNG raw files, works. Raw capture is not influenced by in-camera settings; JPEGs are. Raw records raw data only, I thought. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[jaapv]

But- having a half-way decent "as shot" white balance, or a white card in the first shot of the series ( which adds the step of applying a custom white balance to the batch) is very helpful in RAW conversion.

[Tinchohs]

Thorsten, interesting your approach to using a WhiBal. I am not sure balancing light in an M8, when capturing primarily DNG raw files, works. Raw capture is not influenced by in-camera settings; JPEGs are. Raw records raw data only, I thought. Please correct me if I am wrong.

 

If I understand correctly, even if the shot was taken in RAW mode, somehow it assigns a default value of white balance. When I go into my RAW editor (Aperture), even when I shoot in RAW, I get a white balance assigned. I get full freedom to adjust but I do get a default value base don the setting I used.

[wda]

Jaap and Martin, it is my practice always to shoot a reference white balance picture with a WhiBal under consistent lighting conditions. I find it very easy in LR to select all those pictures and sample the WhiBal to neutralize colour balance. If lighting changes, I repeat the procedure. Correction is done within LR, in an instant, although I sometimes tweak individual pictures to suit my requirements. Thorsten's approach is slightly different, whereby he sets his camera white balance based on the WhiBal. He avoids later White Balancing in LR. His procedure seems to be possible in the M9, but not in the M8, although I did adopt a similar technique, some years ago, when I used an Olympus 3030Z. It was a feature in the White Balance menu; not with the M8 unless I am missing something. Thorsten once used an M8 so I welcome his comments.

[sblutter]

Would the client like a few 'artsy' shots in B&W?

[PVB]

The hair didn't bother me but, it does look better to me gray. I used hue saturation selected yellows and then used the history brush to apply.

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[Tinchohs]

Thanks PVB. I did a similar process based on the feedback I got, but in Aperture. I used the color picker, chose the yellow in the hair and desaturated it. Appreciate the tips. Thanks.

[Jamie Roberts]

Martin, any chance you could post or send a RAW file?

 

The mixed lighting is messing you up--it's a worst case situation for a lot of cameras and raw processors.

 

Personally, IMHO the Canons mask this problem the most effectively because they're essentially too magenta most of the time, which most people don't seem to mind in skin these days--and of course magenta cancels the green in the grey hair.

 

I personally find the skin tone results not very appealing, visually, but that's me (though a lot of us used to call it "Canon sunburn"). Certainly in fluorescent light, though, that colour balance helps

 

I personally think C1 would give you the best and most flexible results from an M9 in these conditions.

 

Selective correction is good too (and often the only way to go with a mixed-source light like this), but remember that if you just de-saturate the green from the light source it will look too dark.... a little curve lift will help

 

FWIW, because my Nikon D3 apparently adds cyan and yellow in cases like this (at least with C1), it's much worse than either the M or the Canon... That's when BW becomes the option quickly (or I bring artificial light filtered to match the ambient, just like film days )