Very odd lighting

[Palustris]

We were at a plant show today. The lights in the Hall have orange covers on them. It gives a light rather like the street lamps do in some places. It totally changes the colour of many of the plants, white ones appear yellow (in photos I mean) and pink goes orange etc. I did try changing the White balance on the camera, but either I did it wrong or the light was too bad even for that. I did try using flash, but the back ground for many of the plants is reflective plastic sheeting. When I have put a few on Photobucket I will post some for you look at. However, since there are 3 shows in this place and I really would like to get some decent pictures, has anyone any idea as to what I can do?

This is one of them. the card with the name is pure white or should be

Photoshopped . The pink is about right.

Best I can do for the present.

[NightHawk]

Eric,

I have posted the second photo that you worked on - let me know if the colours are close to the real ones.



If they are, post her and I'll explain what I did, and what you can do with your other photos.

I hope this is what you wanted.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

Wow. That  is as close to the correct colours as I can remember them being. Knew I was right in asking on here 

[NightHawk]

I'm pleased to hear that Eric. 

You gave a great clue as to where the problem was when you mentioned the orange lighting effect being cast in the hall.

Also, the little hints that the name card should have been white and your flowers pink.  This got me in the right area quickly to know where to do a colour correction to get the right results.

Now I'll explain what I did.

With your photo open, and using the menu bar at the top select Enhance, Adjust Color, Adjust Hue/Saturation.

Make sure that Preview is selected on this menu so that you can see the results as you're working.

Select Yellows from the drop-down box.

Move the slider bar of Lightness to the right.  Take it to +100.  This will remove the yellow colour cast on the name card.

Now select Reds from the drop-down box.

We need to reduce the orange cast from your flowers, so move the Hue slider bar to the left to get negative values.  I got to about -52 until I got an acceptable pink colour.

That's it.

You mentioned in your posting that you have Photoshop.  I have Photoshop Elements 7, but I imagine the procedure will be very similar to get the same results.

You may need to adjust the sliders slightly one way or the other until you are satisfied with the colours.

Now try this yourself with the photo you posted (the one I worked on) and see if you get the same results.

Hopefully you will.  Then you can play around with your other photos in the same way.

Let us know how you get on.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

That works brilliantly, will now have a go at some of the others. Ta muchly!

[Lynda A]

That has definitely inspired me to put some effort into mastering Photoshop elements.  What a difference.

[Palustris]

A small problem with pictures of yellow flowers though, this method makes them white! 

[NightHawk]

Eric, email me one of those pictures and I'll have a look at it for you.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

Would but I have not got your Email address! Unless it is somewhere on here and I am being thick again.

[NightHawk]

Not to worry Eric.  You could have got it by looking up our Forum Profile.

I've sent you it in a Personal Message.

Laurie.

[NightHawk]

Eric,

I've played around with the photo you sent me and here are the results.

Photo 1 - your original (reduced in size for the Forum).
The problem was that the name label was supposed to be white, and the flowers yellow.  Therefore, the previous procedure I gave you for reducing the orange cast on the flowers and the yellow cast on the name label, does not work - as the yellow flowers became white.



Photo 2 - my enhancements



Let me know if this is a close result.

If it looks good to you, then I'll give you the process.

As I indicated in the PM I sent you, the process is a little bit more complicated, but I think you could do it.

What on earth were the organisers of those shows thinking of to have orange lighting on flower displays, where they must have anticipated people would want to take photographs.    Unbelievable.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

That is better ta.
You should hear the complaints of the people going round the show!. When it first went there the light covers were normal diffused ones (white), and they are still the same in other parts of the College, but for some reason in the Gym, which is where the show is held they have replaced them with these orange covers. There are actually 3 shows there each year too, so getting the white balance correct for it becomes something of a necessitiy. I did get it right for the last show. Another suggestion s to shoot the pics in RAW format then the white balance may be set afterwards, but that is as hard as altering the WB in the first place.

[NightHawk]

I'm so pleased that has worked correctly for you Eric.

Now it's over to you to try it.  Get yourself prepared for the steps involved, preferably with a good stiff whiskey and sitting down.

Okay, here goes.

Step 1 -  Remove Colour Cast:

Enhance / Adjust Color / Remove Color Cast

Use the eye-dropper to select a part of the image that should be either gray, white or black.
In this case I chose the BLACK option, using the surround of the plant label.

This will give a green colour cast, but we will deal with that in a moment.

For now click OK.

Step 2 -  We now want to add some brightness.

Enhance / Adjust Lighting / Levels

Adjust the sliders in the "Input Levels" box as follows:
White slider to the left to number 206.
Gray slider to the right to number 0.92.
Click OK.

Step 3 -  We now need to make another colour adjustment.

Enhance / Adjust Color / Color Variations / Decrease Green / Decrease Blue / Lighten

Click OK.

Step 4 -  One more colour correction needed.

Enhance / Auto Color Correction

Step 5 -  Almost there.  We just need to brighten it up a bit.

Enhance / Adjust Lighting / Levels

Adjust the sliders in the "Input Levels" box as follows:
White slider to the left to number 236.
Gray slider to the right to number 0.82.
Black slider to the right to number 17.
Click OK

You're done!  You may need to alter the sliders in Step 5 to suit your own preferences for the brightness levels.  But first

start with the numbers I've already used, then do some of your own adjustments from there using the same sliders.

Also, once you've done all this and the yellow flowers look either too pale or too dark, you can do one final adjustment.

Step 6 - (optional)

Enhance / Adjust Color / Adjust Hue/Saturation

In the Edit box, select Yellows from the drop-down menu.  Then use the Lightness slider to adjust the colour depth - slide

left to decrease the colour, right to increase the colour.  Use small movements at a time.

Let us know your results here when you've played around.  Again, use the same photo in this example to see if you can get the same results.

Good luck!

Laurie.

 

[ideasguy]

Impressive stuff, Laurie, and very well documented. A terrific help to us all!

[Palustris]

Sadly, most of those Adjustments are not available in PS7, so I will have to play around with what I have to see what I can do. Thanks for trying though.

[Palustris]

Did this with similar method using PS7

Will post the method when I have remembered what I did   

[NightHawk]

That's a great effort Eric, not a bad result.

I was surprised that all the menu options were not available in PS7 though.  Photoshop Elements (PSE) is a slightly stripped down version of it, so I expected PS7 to have at least those options and more.  Ho hum. 

I don't have PS7, so I couldn't compare it with PSE.

Anyway, you've got a very acceptable result.  You've got rid of that horrible colour cast, which was the main stumbling block.  You can always tweak any other things like the brightness later on to your heart's content, until you're completely happy with it, which is much easier to do.

Just hope you can remember those steps you took to get there. 

Laurie.

[Lynda A]

I think I will take a photograph with bad lighting, just so i can use your instructions Laurie   

[NightHawk]

Lynda, if you ask Eric (Palustris) nicely, I'm sure he'll allow you to copy his photo from the Forum and practice on that. 

That way you've got exactly the same conditions to play around with, and to compare your results.

I think Eric has raised a very important point here from the outset by posting this problem he encountered.

It goes to prove that, through no fault of your own, a photo you really wanted could be spoiled by such a silly thing as bad artificial lighting.

But this little exercise has proved that it is not the end of the world.  Software can come to your rescue, as seen here.

Some people may say it's cheating, but you alter your camera settings to cope with all sorts of situations, which is a similar principle.  Cameras are good up to a point, so all you're doing is using software settings to help out where the camera couldn't easily cope.

I hope other members will also see the advantage here.  Of course, not everyone has the graphics software or the necessary experience to enhance their photos this way, but if you do then they all go hand-in-hand to give you that ultimate great shot.

Let's face it, I know professional photographers who end up using graphics software to enhance their photos.  It's no big shame to do that, so if it's good enough for them then it's good enough for me. 

Laurie.

[Eric Hardy]

I have just noticed this topic and have read Laurie's admirable explanation. I just have Elements 3 on the computer (Elements 5 on the laptop). and I tried to see what the simplest method is using Elements 3. I only used two processes. First I clicked Enhance/Adjust Colour/Remove Colour Cast then using the eye dropper I clicked on what I thought would be the whitest bit of the label. This gave the colour you see below. I then clicked on Enhance/Adjust Lighting/Levels and drew the right hand slide leftwards until it reached the right hand edge of the histiogram. The result was this. Only Eric will know how true it looks.



Hope this helps too.

Eric H