That red thing!

[Phoenix_Jackson]

I tried a couple of adjustments and I can't figure out how to avoid the redness of all my shots. Thankfully, it's RAW that I can manipulate it a little. But there still are a lot of them that even changing WB don't do good enough, and with my limited knowledge of Post Processing, I just can't get the colors right. Also, I find it hard to swallow that it takes me to PP all my shots to make it look better. Is there a way to avoid the red of night shots?



I must say, sometimes the extreme red or extreme blue works. But not all the time.

I also ask for critique of my current shot(s) if possible. Be brutal if needed.

Night - a set on Flickr

[HermanVonPetri]

Hi there!

If it's only your night shots that show up with an unnatural reddish/yellow or blue/green glow, then the color tint may be the result of certain types of street lamps. Was there a street lamp behind you? I'm willing to bet that it was a sodium vapor type of lamp. They are the ones that give out a very narrow band yellowish/orange light. On the upside, this is very easy to correct if it's the only or primary light source. Unfortunately, they are rarely ever the only light source. Even the glow of city lights miles away will alter the hue of the entire sky on long exposures, and especially with clouds above.

If your camera allows you to set a custom white balance try to find something that you believe should be white (like a featureless white painted wall or a sheet of bright white paper,) zoom into a clear patch and take a photo of it to use as your custom white balance. Be sure that this white item is illuminated with the same quality of light that will dominate your intended photo subject. This will help you nail true white even when working with RAW files.

Now, the large building in the background is lit with bluish green lamps. These are probably mercury vapor lamps and it will be basically impossible to match these two opposing light colors in one shot with a simple color correction. One thing you can do is embrace the contrasting colors and compose the shot to incorporate them the way you want. Or if you know you can't compensate for the differing colors in a certain location, try shooting with the intention of making a black & white scene out of it.

One problem though is the fact that the human eye has very poor color sensitivity in dim light. Ever see those NASA photos of glowing red, blue, and green nebulae? You can't see that looking through a telescope. The eye just sees them as gray, and the colors only show up over long exposures. I notice that this photo is a long 30 sec exposure (you should add the relevant Exif data to the bottom of your post.) The human eye doesn't do long exposures so the color tint reflecting off of this building may not have even registered for you naturally at the time. Also, our brains determine what is "white" by comparing it to our environment and neighboring colors and adjusts your perception accordingly. If objects lighted by the nearest street lamps dominated your attention at the time then your vision probably just adjusted to it and ignored the tint. Later, when viewing the photo in a more neutral environment the colors become more obvious. When contrasted with the blue sky and the greenish building in the background the building in the foreground is going to look that much more red.

Having said all of that, I don't mind the color of the foreground building except that it makes the color of the background building a bit sickly looking. This could be fixed by careful masking and adding a color correction layer to only those certain parts. The foreground building is a good subject and I like the Asian style of the roof line with the moon behind the silky clouds. I don't think that the other building back there is a suitable subject for the background though. Concrete tower blocks and rustic wooden structures don't often play well together. There is, by the way, a LOT of blurring due to camera shake. How were you bracing the camera? If it was a tripod I'd say that it was probably too windy for it to manage a steady shot. If it was hand-held, even with image stabilization you simply won't be able to hand hold a 30 second exposure for anything other than the most extreme of experimental techniques that incorporate motion blur as a part of the composition.

If it turns out that the lamps are the problem then careful use of camera flash can help correct this. Since most small flashes have a blue tint it can compensate for the reddish tint you want to avoid. You might give it a try. It also has the advantage of allowing you to reduce the exposure time and underexpose other ambient light sources that might be throwing off your colors. This would still be tricky and would ideally involve a combination more sophisticated off-camera flash strobes with variable settings, tinted gels covering the flash heads, and a good knowledge of correcting color casts onsite. Something I admit I am not too savvy about (controlling harsh shadows from the flash would be a concern.)

There are also special lens filters that can eliminate the specific band of light that these lamps give out. This will affect your entire shot though and isn't as adaptable as white-balance correction, strobes, or spending extra time in post production. Sorry, I've been a bit wordy but I hope it helps

[Phoenix_Jackson]

My apologies for not posting EXIF as I was about to edit and add such info, I didn't know it'll take a little time before I can do so, right after submitting the post.

I can not thank you enough for educating me on this. Today I realized how important custom white balance is. I also learned to be more aware of the light sources (aside from just framing the shot) due to the difference of how our eyes and the lens adjust. I only had one shot (since day one) of intentionally putting it in black and white, as I often treat them as my final "band aid" when the images are just not workable. Another lesson to ponder upon. I tried 4 shots (among 30) of this frame using the on-camera flash, but I guess I have to learn more about utilizing flash. So I just have to accept that most night shots need post-processing, be it a lot or just minor. I'm a little disappointed by it (not that I don't like editing, because I love GIMPing, but it just feels like it defeats the purpose of manual-mode shooting), but I just have to deal with it. Use it to my advantage... All these, I've just learned from your long explanation (so the longer, the better). Thank you very much.

About the photo, it was definitely windy as most of the sky on all my shots that night have this painting-effect look. But the blur on this particular shot is my fault. I didn't use a tripod because I was hanging over a ledge just to get this frame. I intend to re-take this scene with proper handling. As for the subjects, I was hoping to send a message by showing this particular scene. The shrine ended up stuck in the middle of the city, surrounded by these buildings. I guess, I should reconsider my composition if I want to make my message clear (another lesson), or just ditch the idea of combining them (another to think about).

I still got a lot to learn. But this time, with more enthusiasm. I was about to give up on night shots since it can not get any better answer than "put it in black and white" until now. Again, thank you.

[HermanVonPetri]

Phoenix_Jackson, (again I'm afraid that brevity is not my strong point.)

Night shots can challenge even the most experienced photographers. The medium is light, and there isn't much of it around at night. I'm actually pretty impressed that you got the shot this steady for a hand-held 30sec exposure. You may have already tried this, but did you consider resting the camera on the ledge to steady the shot? Be sure to wrap the camera strap around your arm or neck so you don't lose that equipment.

As far as hand-held shots are concerned there is a helpful little rule of thumb. Try not to let your shutter speed last longer than 1 divided by your focal length in seconds. In other words, if you shot this at 18mm then you don't want a shutter speed any longer than 1/18th of a second. Your camera may say 1/15th or 1/20th to be close. If you can open up your aperture (lower f/stop number), increase your ISO or add more light through flash this will allow you to speed up the shutter speed. If you can rest your camera on something solid then this won't matter as much.

Try not to get discouraged when some shots don't work out the way you imagined. I've taken the liberty of exploring your Flickr page and you obviously know a good subject when you see it. But that's only one step in a larger process. Lighting, framing, composition, shutter speed, etc... are all just tools that you can use to help you convey the picture that you want to show. A lot of good photos can happen by lucky accident, but the very best photos happen because of a lot of hard work. Honestly, I'm not really there yet myself.

If your interest is to show the shrine encroached upon by modern buildings then I think that is a worthy goal. The way you have it framed in this shot I don't get enough context to learn about that though. Not knowing what this square is like I wouldn't presume to know how you feel best to accomplish that. Maybe you could get up higher and shoot downwards to reveal more around it? Maybe you could get down low so that the shrine towers upwards? Maybe you could stand in the doorway of one of the modern buildings and use the modern doorway as a frame to look through to reveal the shrine in the middle? So don't give up on your vision for a scene too quickly. I'm sure you can work it out and I look forward to seeing what you can do with it

I've taken the liberty of attaching my small attempt at color correcting the redness to make it look a bit more natural, but I don't know how the building looked to your eye. I didn't need to do anything advanced. I just reduced the color saturation in the red, yellow and green channels by about half while leaving the blue the same so as to not wash out the sky. It doesn't fix the other issues but it gives you an idea of how you could adjust other night photos in the future. I do think that in some of the other photos you have that the reddish yellow lights add a great deal of vibrance to the structures, like the one you have of the shrine rising from behind the lighted stone wall. So you may not want to desaturate the colors as much as I have.

Yes, it's great to get a wonderful shot straight out of the camera, but if you are aware of your post processing options then you can experiment with doing even more than you could hope for with just the camera alone. Consider this - would you even have attempted this shot with a regular film camera at night? It's gonna take some time, but with more practice you might just be doing that soon enough.

Most of all - have fun with it

[Phoenix_Jackson]

More information! I love it. I've heard something about that Focal Point vs Aperture but wasn't clear about it. So now I know.

Photography is a lot harder than I initially thought. Composition alone takes a lot of consideration, especially that not everything is under the photographer's control. Then add the other things that affect a good picture. But with such comments, it is more fun.

The longer I stare at this particular shot, the more I see how dull it is. I wouldn't have notice it if it wasn't for the critiques. And now with the way you changed the colors, I now understand how such balance should be done. I honestly thought the green+blue+red (at the very first glance through my camera's LCD screen) were attractive... kinda like Christmas lights. But now I see.

Thank you for the nudge and critique. I will definitely revisit the scene but not too soon. For now, I'd have to absorb all the information here and take it by heart. People like you are one of the reasons why people like us won't quit.