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Abrupt and off color children's photos
Apr 14, 2019 18:59:29   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
Hello
I shot the attached photos Sunday. Canon 80D, Canon EX 430II flash, Canon 17-mm f2.8 lens. I used AV mode. The children's faces have a peculiar color shadow and very abrupt. Mentadata says flash did not fire, however it did. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. No post processing applied.

Marty


(Download)


(Download)

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Apr 14, 2019 19:10:18   #
rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA
 
My first thought would be white balance settings. If you bring the image into Lightroom and use the WB dropper to select somebody's face, it should correct the image.

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Apr 14, 2019 19:17:10   #
PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place
 
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
My first thought would be white balance settings. If you bring the image into Lightroom and use the WB dropper to select somebody's face, it should correct the image.




Don

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Apr 14, 2019 19:19:00   #
Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington
 
Below is a quick edit with an online app that will give you an idea of how it looks when you even out the exposure (lower highlights, raise shadows, a bit of levels tweaks, a little saturation and hue adjustment). You can do additional contrast, and other adjustments, or change WB, of course.

btw, your thumbnails are not displaying in the same color as the downloads because you must use sRGB color space for web posting.


(Download)

Correct thumbnail color of what you posted.
Correct thumbnail color of what you posted....

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Apr 14, 2019 21:24:53   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
My first thought would be white balance settings. If you bring the image into Lightroom and use the WB dropper to select somebody's face, it should correct the image.


Thanks very much for you input. Greatly appreciated and I will give that a try.

Marty

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Apr 14, 2019 21:26:36   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
Linda From Maine wrote:
Below is a quick edit with an online app that will give you an idea of how it looks when you even out the exposure (lower highlights, raise shadows, a bit of levels tweaks, a little saturation and hue adjustment). You can do additional contrast, and other adjustments, or change WB, of course.

btw, your thumbnails are not displaying in the same color as the downloads because you must use sRGB color space for web posting.

The online exif reader I used does indicate flash on for both shots.
Below is a quick edit with an online app that will... (show quote)


Thank you so much for your input as well. And thanks for a great job evening out the tones. I will attempt that tomorrow. I have burned out for the day!

Thanks again
Marty

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Apr 15, 2019 06:51:39   #
Revet Loc: Fairview Park, Ohio
 
Here are the results using the white balance tool in Camera Raw using the whites of their eyes as the sampled neutral color





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Apr 15, 2019 07:27:06   #
Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington
 
Revet wrote:
Here are the results using the white balance tool in Camera Raw using the whites of their eyes as the sampled neutral color
Much better

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Apr 15, 2019 09:11:02   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
Thanks for your post Revet. It does look much better

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Apr 15, 2019 09:32:14   #
big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada
 
Correcting problems in post is one approach but solving the original problem goes much further. You say you used a flash and in the group shot I do see catch lights in the eyes but I don't see where the flash lit the scene. (shadows from overhead light source) By using A priority you ended up with a shutter speed of 1/40 second coupled with an aperture of 3.5 and 800 ISO told the camera that there was enough ambient light to expose the scene. Because of this the flash was more than likely set to act as a fill flash. I can find no tell tale shadows from the flash but do see the ceiling light shadows. You may have set your camera to ignore setting the flash sync speed in A priority. I would check that and if turned on, definitely turn it off. In the group shot the girl on the far left is out of focus and an aperture setting of f8 would have been a better choice to bring them all into acceptable focus. Hope this helps in the future.

Your meta data as follows:
Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) {0x829A} = 1/40 second ===> 0.025 second
Lens F-Number / F-Stop {0x829D} = 35/10 ===> ƒ/3.5
Exposure Program {0x8822} = aperture priority (3)
ISO Speed Ratings {0x8827} = 800

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Apr 15, 2019 09:57:29   #
Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas
 
Good Morning Marty,
I hope this will help, I worked on your picture as others have and came up with the below results. When I first saw the picture I immediately thought her skin was too grey caused by white balance being off. To prove that theory I opened your picture in Photoshop, my preference for software when doing post production adjustments, and added a curves layer. While the window was open I chose Auto that adjusts for the computer's proper white and black balance.

It did make a slight brightness and darkness adjustment. I then, in same window, got my eyedropper and went around the picture to find a proper grey area to try and fix your white balance. I chose several areas while immediately showing the results. I finally ended up using the white/grey area to the left of the crock pot. To me that made her skin the proper hue.

Because this fixed her skin I would come to the conclusion that the white balance wasn't correct. You might have had your camera's white balance, as I usually do, set to Auto. When I look at the picture it has a lot of warm area of color having the wood cabinets in the background while your overhead lights probably were not color corrected touching off your camera's guess at the proper white balance. I have had on occasion had to change my white balance manually until I became happy with the color when shooting a difficult area or give up and decide to correct in photoshop, Not sure if you have any post production software.

Additional areas that I chose to adjust after the white balance, but not a necessity. Thinking the skin was almost, but not quite, overexposed I reopened the photo in Camera Raw and took the highlights down a tiny bit. That added detail to her skin area. I also added a curve layer with a mask that had all but highlights and lowered the mid to dark areas for additional contrast. These last two steps were not necessary but were used to just fine tune adjusting some contrast.


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Apr 15, 2019 09:58:40   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
Thanks to you as well. I took over 150 shots that day. Some were spot on. Others, as you see NOT! I was playing around with various settings. My goal is to have one "go to starting point" and make adjustments from there. I usually shoot outdoors without flash. I'm wanting to learn more about using my flash and I appreciate your input!
Marty

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Apr 15, 2019 10:01:54   #
MartyM Loc: Monroe, NC
 
Thanks for your input and time Jim-Pops!

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Apr 15, 2019 10:06:12   #
abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois
 
big-guy wrote:
Correcting problems in post is one approach but solving the original problem goes much further. You say you used a flash and in the group shot I do see catch lights in the eyes but I don't see where the flash lit the scene. (shadows from overhead light source) By using A priority you ended up with a shutter speed of 1/40 second coupled with an aperture of 3.5 and 800 ISO told the camera that there was enough ambient light to expose the scene. Because of this the flash was more than likely set to act as a fill flash. I can find no tell tale shadows from the flash but do see the ceiling light shadows. You may have set your camera to ignore setting the flash sync speed in A priority. I would check that and if turned on, definitely turn it off. In the group shot the girl on the far left is out of focus and an aperture setting of f8 would have been a better choice to bring them all into acceptable focus. Hope this helps in the future.

Your meta data as follows:
Exposure Time (1 / Shutter Speed) {0x829A} = 1/40 second ===> 0.025 second
Lens F-Number / F-Stop {0x829D} = 35/10 ===> ƒ/3.5
Exposure Program {0x8822} = aperture priority (3)
ISO Speed Ratings {0x8827} = 800
Correcting problems in post is one approach but so... (show quote)


I agree. The problem here is the camera technique. LR offers other improvements to be mentioned later. I thought the lighting on the girl was very pleasing and presumed you had used indirect flash. Well, I was wrong. As for the second picture, if the flash did work, it produced overexposed and contrasty faces. You would have been too close for direct flash. In both instances, I use a flash diffuser with the flash head aimed up at between 45 and 90 degrees. I usually do not use direct flash for under ten feet.

LR can help both shots. Without going into details, I would increase clarity, apply the medium contrast tone curve, and add a little negative vignette. Other adjustments such as exposure and vibrance would be discretionary. As for white balance, using the eyedropper on skin is wrong because skin is not neutral. I use either ExpoDisc or ColorChecker. If you do not want to get this involved, then stick to auto white balance and adjust arbitrarily in LR. Remember that adjusting white balance is either to reproduce the original colors accurately or to create the mood you want and you cannot remember the original colors accurately.

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Apr 15, 2019 12:51:47   #
cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA
 
This is easy to make better in Lightroom. Best of luck.

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