Color Correction

[GP]

I would love some feedback on my color correction on my current WIP. Never mind the damage that still needs to be fixed.

I'm not sure if the lady's jacket should be that white. And I also went with gray for the background, simply I can't imagine it should be pink  ;)

Any input would be very welcome before I start on the damage repair. I also have to adjust the contrast for certain parts of the picture. That is usually my next step after color correction.

[glennab]

Hi Gerlinde

Since I had a little time to play, I downloaded your image and just did some down-and-dirty color correction.  I used the levels sliders, then the curves eyedroppers.  I then went to color balance and moved those sliders back and forth on shadows, midtones and highlights, and what I show here looked the best to me (they basically stayed in the center on all three).  The white isn't quite as blown out as yours, but the other colors are quite different.  I can't really say they're better, just different.  Maybe other eyes can compare the color differences and give you advice on where to go from here. For what it's worth, what I see on the forum appears warmer than what I see on my computer screen.



Cheers
GK

I keep trying to wipe that little squiggly goober in the background off of my screen.  It's making me crazy!

[Pat]

Hi Gerlinde,

Just to confuse things more here is another take on it.

This is the results I got when I adjusted the individual R,G,B sliders on a levels adjustment layer then adjusted for 50% gray with curves.  I selected what appeared to be an undamaged area of the background for the background color. 



Pat

[glennab]

Pat, I definitely like your overall color better, but I prefer the mottled background - it seems more like a studio background.  Wouldn't it be preferable to try to emulate that? Several years ago Mary (who's not active any more and I hate myself for not remembering her last name) did a beautiful tutorial on creating a stunning studio background. I didn't see it in our list of tutorials - probably because it's fairly old, but it was gorgeous.

I also just noticed that both in your version and mine, the lady's jacket has just a smidge of pink. Would that best be remedied with a mask and selective color or an overall shift?

GK

[Pat]

Glenna you are right on both counts.  

The background should absolutely have a mottled look.  My quick go at it was meant more to represent the basic color direction for the background.  Now that you mention Mary's tutorial on creating a studio background I remember seeing it and may have even bookmarked it.  A lot of my bookmarks got lost in one of those confounding computer glitches not long ago but I will see if I can find that post again.  Thanks for reminding me of it. :loveit:

I think your version has less pink in the lady's jacket than mine.

Pat

[Mhayes]

Pat and GK, Gerlinde's colors are probably the closest to being correct and I will tell you why. When we were at Joplin, there was another copy stand---not Mike and Pat's---that had very warm lights. I advised at the beginning they do White Balance first so that all the colors would be correct. I had brought along my Expo Disc that would have been a quick setting for custom white balance for both cameras that were used on that stand. Both volunteers felt that they could color correct either by computer tethered or by their camera settings. Well guess what? They were both wrong and all of those photos I can tell without looking which copy stand they came from. The first clue is that our white sign in sheet is either a pretty pinkish or orange color.  That is what you are see here. The couple's faces are not the color of Calamine Lotion.

GK, you mentioned needing to have more of a mottled background, but I think Pat was more trying for color correcting. GP has a good start and while I come up with some blue and green in the background---I like how GP is doing hers.

I hope this doesn't happen again and the distributors were warned about some of these coming through. With something like this, do a simple auto Curves would give you an idea of how it should look. I think the couple will have a little more yellow to their skins, but not the PINK. This time it is a case of doing a simple color correction and not trying to force the colors to where you think they should go.

GP, you may want to borrow Athol's pin cushion that Hannie brought up. Sorry for making this worse and make claims that we put the photos through a "grunge machine' seem likely.

Margie

[Mhayes]

Here is the link to Mary's tutorial on studio backgrounds. Unfortunately there are a lot of broken links, but the instructions are still good: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,1266.msg13093/topicseen.html#new

Here is an earlier post that I did of the Expo Disc and how it can really get a correct color balance:
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,933.0.html  There are plenty of other ways to achieve the same end and I believe Shujen said he uses a coffee filter. The nice part about setting a custom white balance while taking pictures is that once set you are ready to go and unless you change your lighting or position---it's done.

And the matching sign in sheet that color coordinates with the photo above.




Margie

[glennab]

Margie, thanks for the heads up.  What baffles me is why the normal color correction routine I use didn't get rid of the unusual color cast.  I go by numbers and the eyedroppers, not usually by what I see, because I don't trust my aging eyes. But even using color balance I couldn't get anything that looked better than what I had. That's why I was hoping for more eyes on the image I posted.  It didn't look quite right - too warm - yet the numbers I'm accustomed to using for skin color, etc. - seemed to be okay. At least I sort of understand the disparity in our color temperature. So now, Ms. Gerlinde, I need to know how you got the cool colors you have on your original.

I'll have to leave the science of photography to you experts.  I love it, but I don't seem to have the knack or the talent, so I'll have to be content to try to repair the ones that have been taken and then taken away.

And Mary's last name finally came to me: Schoner.  Gads.  What a lapse.  I adored (adore) her for her amazing talent and her sense of humor. She's now dedicating all of her time to digital painting, and her art is absolutely gorgeous. I don't know if she has a web site, but she does sometimes post on Facebook.

GK

[GP]

Thank you guys for chiming in. I expected some different opinions on the colors and also there is no agreement, Margie's clarification makes me confident, that I'm going in the right direction.

All the other things that came up, like look of the background and contrast issues, I will address later in my restoration. This is only my starting WIP.

And thank you also for the tutorial links.

GP, you may want to borrow Athol's pin cushion that Hannie brought up. Sorry for making this worse and make claims that we put the photos through a "grunge machine' seem likely.

:funny:   ;D   :funny:

Thank you again and I will be back once I made some progress.

:loveit:

[GP]

Hi Glenna, to answer your question....
I started with a Levels Adjustment Layer and corrected each channel on its own. Simply move the little triangle sliders to where the histogram starts on each side. After that it looked already a lot better, but still had the pinkish tint to it. For that, I added a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer, selected the Red channel and moved the Saturation slider to the left until I liked the look.

[Mhayes]

GP, I added the sign in sheet so everyone will see what I mean and how it changed the color cast of the photo.

GK, I would think what you and Pat do for color correcting works great most of the time, but I think that when this photo was taken without correcting the lightening added another problem to the equation.

You will all be happy to know that all of the Hummelstown photos do not have this problem.

Margie

[GP]

Yikes! That sign in sheet looks exactly like the color cast on the photo.  :wow:

You will all be happy to know that all of the Hummelstown photos do not have this problem.

That is good to know.  :up:

[Mhayes]

Exactly my reaction---only worse! On the other hand look at this as a "learning experience where:

A. All photos have been tampered with by the distributors for fun.
B. All photos were really in that bad of shape.

And the verdict?

Margie

[GP]

I favor A!  ;D

[bobbydazzler]

Glennab I did a little search for ya.....

http://www.paintermagazine.co.uk/show_profile.php?username=Mary%20Schonher

Bob