A balancing act

[Johnboy]

I have been playing with the color balance on these two photos for a couple of days. Would you say I am close? I keep seeing off color in the backgrounds. I think they should match because they were both shot at the same time. I realize damage may be affecting my results so more eyes please and suggestions. I have used Glenna's curves tut, I have used levels, I have used some of Katrin Eismann's tricks. What I am showing here is by the numbers she uses on pages 122-123 in her Third edition.

Original


My balancing act


Thanks for the help. Once I get the color I think the rest will go easy.

Johnboy

[Hannie]

Hi Johnboy,

I think the levels you did look good. 
(The photo wasn't great to start with, maybe that's way you are not happy with the results?)

Hannie

[glennab]

Hi JB

I agree with Hannie.  The colors look really good to me.  As they say, "You can't make a silk purse... etc. etc." You had a tough color challenge.  It's awesome that you didn't blow out the whites.

If you still wanted to do any tweaking, try using selective color on the whites and neutrals and nudge down the colors a little, keeping as much detail as possible.  It might get rid of the slight greyish cast, but you could send it back as is and it'd be fine.

Cheers!

GK

[Mhayes]

Hi JB,

I agree with both Hannie and GK and think you have done a good job on this one. I think you are getting it close to what it looked like originally.

The funny thing is when I looked at this late last night, I only saw the two originals on the screen and because they were very similar, I thought this was the before and after--gave me a quite a scare until I came to my senses!

Margie

[Johnboy]

Thanks for the replies. My main concern for close color balance is that I want to steal parts from the right to correct the left one. I guess I may need to tweak as needed when I do that. More on this show later.

Margie, I had a similar reaction when I first saw these in Tess's gallery. I thought why put 2 of the same pose in. I really thought it was 2 copies of the same original. When I went back the next day I then realized that there was some damage to the one on the right and parts could be stolen to fix the other one. The only real difference I have noticed so far is that there is ever so slightly more bow showing on the end of the pew in the photo on the right. Otherwise they seem to be dead on.

Johnboy

[Johnboy]

I just opened up the files and what I thought was a bow is a hand. The photos are 8x10 and I have mostly been working at a reduced size to see the whole image for color balance. I enlarged the one on the right to 100%. Thats when I noticed it was a hand because there is a ring on one of the fingers. Had me fooled for a while.

Johnboy