Interior Alaska is awash in pretty dense wood smoke from the 300+ wildfires burning in the state. Apart from everything else – the air is "extremely unhealthy" under federal standards – the light is a yellow orangish. It really fouls up the color balance in ways I find very hard to correct in Photoshop.
I've tried manual white balance settings, using a sheet of white paper in this weird light, but it doesn't seem to help.
Does anyone have ideas or suggsts for getting more accurate, or at less inaccurate, colors?
Jim, as just a thought place a neutral grey, black, and or white card in the scene some place they can be cloned out. At least if you have them to work with in PS you can use the eye dropper on any or all three to figure out a better look overall. They would be known color factors and work the colors toward those objects before cloning them out.
If you include a Grey Card in the scene, you can then create a curves, or levels, adjustment layer in Photo Shop. Select the Grey Point adjjustment eye droper and then click on the image of the grey card. Doing that should get you close. You can than adjust each color channel in the curves layer, or create a Color Balance layer for fine tuning.
Thanks, guys, that's a good idea!!! I have the same problem that Jim does.
Posted by Dennis Plank on July 14, 2015 at 11:07 PM
I like the suggestions above, though given that Jim and I both shoot birds, getting a card in the scene would be difficult. We had an episode of heavy smoke down here, which is thankfully blown out, but if it happens again, I think shooting a gray card at the beginning of the shoot and periodically thereafter if the light changes would make an acceptable substitute.
Discussion
5 repliesInterior Alaska is awash in pretty dense wood smoke from the 300+ wildfires burning in the state. Apart from everything else – the air is "extremely unhealthy" under federal standards – the light is a yellow orangish. It really fouls up the color balance in ways I find very hard to correct in Photoshop.
I've tried manual white balance settings, using a sheet of white paper in this weird light, but it doesn't seem to help.
Does anyone have ideas or suggsts for getting more accurate, or at less inaccurate, colors?
Jim, as just a thought place a neutral grey, black, and or white card in the scene some place they can be cloned out. At least if you have them to work with in PS you can use the eye dropper on any or all three to figure out a better look overall. They would be known color factors and work the colors toward those objects before cloning them out.
If you include a Grey Card in the scene, you can then create a curves, or levels, adjustment layer in Photo Shop. Select the Grey Point adjjustment eye droper and then click on the image of the grey card. Doing that should get you close. You can than adjust each color channel in the curves layer, or create a Color Balance layer for fine tuning.
--P
Thanks, guys, that's a good idea!!! I have the same problem that Jim does.
I like the suggestions above, though given that Jim and I both shoot birds, getting a card in the scene would be difficult. We had an episode of heavy smoke down here, which is thankfully blown out, but if it happens again, I think shooting a gray card at the beginning of the shoot and periodically thereafter if the light changes would make an acceptable substitute.
Soooo, perhaps you could petition the Audubon Society to tag all the birds with grey cards?
--P