Color Balance

[plainAlicia]

I was shooting a band and the lighting was less than ideal so a lot of my pics have a blue color to them. I just started with photoshop so I don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help. I was told to fix the color balance but this didn't seem to help. I shot in RAW and have CS5. Thanks!

[Steve_S]

Originally Posted by plainAlicia

I was shooting a band and the lighting was less than ideal so a lot of my pics have a blue color to them. I just started with photoshop so I don't know how to fix it. Can anyone help. I was told to fix the color balance but this didn't seem to help. I shot in RAW and have CS5. Thanks!

Alot of the color is from the blue lights, but there is still a blue cast to it. To fix, make a copy of the layer---fill with 50% grey set blend mode to difference---click on quick adjustment threshold---move slider of threshold to left and screen will become all white---move it slowly to the right , just untill you see a few black dots appear---when you see a couple black dots, zoom into the dots (all the way untill you see a few black squares on the screen---click on the color sampler tool (5th one down on the left side)---hit your caps lock ---click on center of one of the black dots (it will leave a marker there)---toss the threshold layer and copy layer in the trash---make another copy layer with blend mode set to normal(you will see now , that the dot you clicked on is med grey)---control L to bring up levels tool---click on the center eyedroper---click on the spot you picked---click ok.


You should now have a corrected color--it still looks a little blue because of the blue lighting, but you can see the blue cast is now gone. If you go up to the left side of the screen, at the top, you can now click clear to clear off the marker point.

Hope this wasn't too complicated, but i don't know of any other way to do it.

[edbayani]

here is a sample of you can do. start with curves then use the middle eyedropper tool and click on the fretboard. fine tune with color balance and/or hue and saturation. anyway, you cannot get the correct color balance with the different color lights.

[Steve_S]

Set the grey point as i described---set the white point off the dot on the guitar---set the black point on the top of the neck of the guitar.

[kcoppock]

If you shot in RAW, just adjust the White Balance first; use Curves if the White Balance adjustment doesn't correct as much as you need.

[plainAlicia]

thanks for the tips. im going to try them and hopefully it will work. i am not good with ps yet so we shall see...

[AdrenoJunkie]

Another way to deal with this problem, which is pretty common with concert photography is to convert it to black and white.