Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

I have Roscoe CTO gels for converting flash/daylight to tungsten but I always have to make a magenta/green tint correction for proper skin tones. They always show too magenta. Does anyone have a recommendation for a gel with better accuracy?

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

All I have is a Photofilter Adjustment in Photoshop.

twowindsbear

Set a manual white balance when you shoot in 'unusual' lighting situations. Or, at the very least, set your camera to tungsten for white balance.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Did you, by any chance, contact Roscoe directly? And, did you look at their Strobist collection?

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

Thanks for the Strobist collection recommendation. I’d forgotten about that site. The collection looks cool but I really only need a single gel to convert daylight to tungsten. I ordered Lee 3/4 CTO from Amazon. Hope it gives me the correction without the tint. Still hoping to find a photographer that has experienced the issue and has found the right gel.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

I have a set of MagMod holders and plastic gels for light painting, but it was too intense for what I was looking for. The Advanced Gel Set (sold out - figures) has light modifying gels that may do what you want.

https://magnetmod.com/collections/accessories/products/advanced-gels

However, with your Lee purchase, you can't go wrong.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

I have a hysterically funny story about a Roscoe Smoke Machine if anybody is interested?

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Have you tried to do a custom color balance for the flash with the CTO and seeing where the background falls?
Skin tones will be good/better straight out of the camera. Not having seen an example of how far off the color is, maybe the ambient light in the background is pleasing.

User ID

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Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

Thanks for the suggestion and yes I have. Custom WB works fine most of the time. I'm just disappointed my Rosco gel doesn't balance better SOOC. They have several amber/orange gels that might work better but I don't want to buy them all just to find the right one. I'm hoping someone has experienced the same issue and can steer me to a better match. I'll be testing the Lee filter, hopefully it will work for my needs.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

There is nothing wrong with you Rosco gel material. In terms of precise color temperature characteristics, you won't find anything better than Roscolux gels. There are hundreds of colors available to make every kind of conversion or correction- each color or type has specific color temperature information and the sample swatch kit hs color transmission and wavelength graphs for each and every color.

So...the filter you have is supposed to convert electronic flash to match up with tungsten light sources. In order to get a perfect match you would need to know the exact color temperature of the tungsten source- they are no all the same, and you would need to know the exact color temperature of the electronic flash uni- there are many variations. The filter you have will get you in the ballpark but for perfect SOOTC results, you may need to add, in your case, an additional green or magenta filter. Electronic flash units are supposed to be equivalent to daylight but not every flash unit is exactly the same as to color temperature. Also, when you change the power setting on you flash unit, manually or via the TTL or thyristor controlled circuitry, there are minor changes in temperature as well.

You did not mention whether the shift in color is too green or magenta. Do you mention skin tone- is only the skin tone affected or is the entire image biased to an incorrect color? If you have a mismatch that is tantamount to mix lighting which can result in the color crossover. When that happens you can correct for the skin tone and still get an incorrect color balance in hair, clothing, the background, or props.

Also, consider- the white balance control has two "channels" temperature (blue/yellow) and tint (magenta.green). One filter alone may not be able to address both require correction for your light sources mix.

If a simple custom white balance setting or a minor post-processing color correction does the trick and there is no crossover, you are good to go.

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

Not knowing what/where you're shooting, in a dynamic environment, you're probably not going to get 100%. Lights aren't usually all the same color, you could have ambient light contaminating the skin tones or background more in one setting than another.
Posting a sample of what situation you're shooting would help.

Tomfl101 Loc: Mount Airy, MD

I’m pressed for time at the moment and can’t provide a sample right now but here’s what I know. When I shoot without a gel with my Flashpoint 360 lights I get excellent skin tone every time. If, in the same situation, I add a Rosco gel and adjust white balance in-camera I get a magenta shift which requires 4-8 points of green to overcome. Yes a minor adjustment and sync will correct in LR but in this case I’m shooting Jpeg and need to submit images right away. I would need to import and then export export hundreds of files. I’m looking for a gel that corrects upfront. I may try a very faint green gel sandwich. The reason I go with tungsten from time to time is to balance ambient light on the subject and in the background. I’m aware of unequal shifts from various existing sources but I’m certain through considerable experience the gel is inaccurate. I may have time this evening to provide a sample.

Nicholas DeSciose

Roscoe gels are not the problem. You are

MrPhotog

A few thoughts:
1. How old are your gels. And how have they been stored? Fading and color change happen with age and exposure to UV. If they are very close to the flash tube they get a massive UV and heat shock with each exposure, and between exposures they can bake with the heat of the modeling lamp.

2. You could go with a .10 or .20 green filter over the lens. Do your white balance after attaching that.

3. The gels over the flash may be filtering visible light properly, but may not be filtering as far into the UV and IR range that your camera sensor can detect. When you add the filters you either increase the flash power, or open the lens to allow more light through. But if the filters aren’t blocking UV very well, opening the lens let’s in 3 to 4 times the usual UV. The camera should remove that if you have a UV filter on it.

4. Do you have the same problem with other cameras? Might not be the lights and filters are solely to blame.

5. When I tried using my flash with a ‘salmon’ filter with Tungsten films I found two versions. One was for type A film, balanced for 3200 K and the other was for Type B film, balanced a bit cooler, for 3400K. I believe the correction filter was an 81a. Normal room tungsten room lights Tend to top out at about 2700K for 150 watt tungsten bulbs. Smaller wattage bulbs (60watt) are considerably warmer. All of this is rapidly becoming moot because 150 watt bulbs haven’t been made in years, and most tungsten bulbs will be gone soon. Your problem may not be balancing for Tungsten but balancing for LEDs! I’m thinking ‘cool white’ and ‘daylight’ LED bulbs may be a bit deficient in parts of the spectrum.

6. Do you use a gray card or special target for your white balance? Have you considered adding a patch of magenta to the target? Your camera would then compensate automatically for that excess magenta every time you did a custom white balance. Print a square of magenta on an inkjet printer and see if adding that to your target changes
things—and if it is consistent. Fooling the white balance in the camera to make it match your computer and printer may be faster and cheaper than adding filters or post processing.