Any suggestions on how to work with stage lights? The multi colored flood and spot lights present a major challenge to me. How do you deal with that? . . .
I do a custom white balance on something gray or white lit by main spotlight, let the other colors fall where they fall and shoot in raw.
If I need to color correct a colored light, then I do a white point balance within that photo and adjust as needed.
Yup, as jbubu said. And if the lights' colors are changing, it's just part of the show.
Revet
Loc: Fairview Park, Ohio
In photoshop camera raw I used the white balance tool using her teeth to get as close as I could then adjusted a bit more using a curves layer going into the 3 channels to adjust colors (Blue: Yellow, Red: cyan, Green: Magenta). I got the skin as good as I could and then desaturated some of the background colors. This is a tough one for sure.
Yes, it's a tough one and am inclined to agree with member dat2ra's philosophy "it's all part of the show".
kymarto
Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy
Since you have mixed light you can never correct it for all of the colors. Find the best compromise and live with it.
The trouble with any kind of mixed lighting is that WB and Tint adjustments will work for some areas but not all. In this case I'd say the important thing to concentrate on is skin tones. The colour of the background isn't critical, and with lighting as mixed as that, who's going to argue with you?
Since the WB and Tint adjustments are going to be limited and therefore can't be depended on on their own, one approach is to use other techniques alongside them, such as HSL adjustments and split toning. The HSL tool can be used to subdue unwanted blue, purple and magenta tints and can be used to turn unnaturally red skin tones into more realistic orange/yellow tones.
Likewise with split toning. You can desaturate the original colours a bit in the main edit and then add more desirable tints using split toning. Since the emphasis is on the skin tones I added yellow to the highlights. And since my large WB and Tint adjustments skewed the blue of the background I added the appropriate blue tint to the shadows.
Some of the original shadows on the dancers' faces were so blue they would need special treatment via a selection to work on them further. But as others have suggested, perfection isn't what you should be aiming for here.
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Your original photo looks fine. That was probably pretty close to how it looked. I don't see the examples others put up as an improvement. My only criticism is that the male dancer appears to be holding the Yamaha keyboard over his head. That was unfortunate.
FotoHog wrote:
Any suggestions on how to work with stage lights? The multi colored flood and spot lights present a major challenge to me. How do you deal with that? . . .
When the lights remain the same, an in-camera WB works just fine. But if the lighting constantly changes, then adjustments in post is required, unless you like it as shot. In post, I like a quick method that gets me close, then small adjustments as necessary. Here is a process I use quite often.
1) Make a copy of the background layer. Blur the background copy using Filter>Blur>Average.
2) Create a Levels adjustment layer. Select the gray eyedropper and click on the blurred background. This sets the overall color shift to neutral gray. Then deselect the blurred background layer.
3) In this example, I slightly desaturated the skin tones using a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
4) At this point, the dancer's skin tones were OK. However, I didn't like the adjustments made to the background. So I grouped the color adjustments together. Then created a mask of the dancers to block the color adjustments to the background.
As noted by a previous poster, I removed the Yamaha sign as an option.
This is a very quick and effective method to color correct or remove color casts in images. Using this method, the color correction takes less than 30 seconds. Creating the mask takes about 1-2 minutes and then your done.
Also note, there are several color correction methods inside the Levers and Curves selections that allow you to try slightly different color correction methods.
Mike
Thanks everyone. It was very enlightening to get your input. I saved all instructions. . . .
I've learned that setting my camera's white balance to the flash setting when shooting concerts outdoors, gives me acceptable overall color balance.
Nice job, SalvageDiver. I'm not sure the WB corrections needed to be made, but, you did a nice job of it. I especially like how you cleaned up the background. That simple change made throw-away snapshot into a nice photograph.
FotoHog wrote:
Any suggestions on how to work with stage lights? The multi colored flood and spot lights present a major challenge to me. How do you deal with that? . . .
If possible, ask the lighting designer what kind(s) of lamps they’re using.
Set 3200K WB with neutral hue for quartz-halogen incandescents.
Try 4200 to 4800K WB with LED. Hue may need a tweak.
Colors will be close to the designer’s intentions.
By all means, record raw images! That’s necessary to avoid bad highlight burnout and shadow plug-up.
10MPlayer wrote:
Nice job, SalvageDiver. I'm not sure the WB corrections needed to be made, but, you did a nice job of it. I especially like how you cleaned up the background. That simple change made throw-away snapshot into a nice photograph.
Thanks 10MPlayer,
I also wasn't addressing whether I thought that color correction was needed. I just presented the OP with a very simple and quick tool to remove a color cast, that works in many cases. Because it's so quick and easy, it's something I check on almost all images I edit in PS. The background removal was just my OCD taking over.
Mike
Thanks again everybody for your comments and suggestions. Notes were taken. . . .
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