SO today when I was shooting Easter pics, I didn't switch to raw and my tungsten setting didn't really do anything to get rid of the yellow. Is there any post-processing that can be easily done to reduce the yelloweyness of my pics?
Without having any idea of specifics, we can only guess. Kinda like calling the autoshop and saying your car isn't working right and asking what's wrong with it, and hoping the shop can guess what kind of car it is. Can you show us an example of one straight out of the camera? If you are using Photoshop, often odd color casts can be corrected by going Image, Adjustments, Match Color, checking the Neutralize box, adjusting the Fade slider to suit, then play with the Luminance slider if need be. Real easy one-step adjustment in there that doesn't have a lot of settings, yet can yield amazing results.
I'm gonna just throw this out, your millage may vary - use the mid ton eye dropper in levels to click on a black, white, or true gray area of the photo. Try different spots and you may just hit the perfect one. This would work especially well if you have some white on the eggs still.
I've tried a lot of tutorials. They can get the dress, the background, & the skin tone to look relatively "normal", but the eyes remain black pits and the hair gets brassy & dark.
Here's my attempt:
1. Brightened a bit
2. Rotated a bit
3. Adjusted colors (according to Photo Walk Through)
4. Cropped
5. Burned the edges
6. Brightened the eyes
One thing you always want to do when you have muddy-looking color straight from camera is take a stab at image>adjustments>auto level. This will often get the image right to the ballpark where you need it without your floundering around with complex solutions. Then you can fine tune from there. here's the image auto-leveled, no other adjustments whatsoever:
Now obviously that ain't perfect, but it's a great starting point.
One thing that's hurting you is it appears to be a badly underexposed image. Proper leveling is showing extreme noise, in BG especially. In general, color shifts away from optimum balance are exaggerated by underexposure, sometimes dramatically so, so this is part of you problem. That's also the explanation for the "dead eyes"; you'll have to go in and pick those up by hand after the overall balance/exposure is set.
There's still a little sparkle in those eyes ;) Unfortunately with jpg compression you will be limited in just how much you can pull out of them. I use Bibble which I know puts me in the minority but these changes could really be made in any program. It's taking me longer to upload the picture and write this that it did to edit.
One thing that's hurting you is it appears to be a badly underexposed image. Proper leveling is showing extreme noise, in BG especially.
Is it really looking as bad as that? After a dismal use of manual mode (even with the speedlite), I went with the fully automatic settings for portrait for this picture. I have really noticed that *all* my pictures are super underexposed, no matter what settings I use unless I am outside. Not sure whats up with that, if its me (prolly) or not.
One thing that's hurting you is it appears to be a badly underexposed image. Proper leveling is showing extreme noise, in BG especially.
Is it really looking as bad as that? After a dismal use of manual mode (even with the speedlite), I went with the fully automatic settings for portrait for this picture. I have really noticed that *all* my pictures are super underexposed, no matter what settings I use unless I am outside. Not sure whats up with that, if its me (prolly) or not.
Yeah, it's looking that bad exposure-wise. It's hard for me to tell not knowing if the sample you posted is straight-from-camera or "rescued" with photoshop, but it *looks* like an underexposed image lightened up in post.
After a dismal use of manual mode (even with the speedlite), I went with the fully automatic settings for portrait for this picture.
I did notice your use of automatic in the EXIF and your settings of 1/60sec, f4.5, and ISO 100. You also used a flash. If you're noticing underexposure with the flash, try upping the flash exposure by +.5 or +1.
It might be that your flash isn't giving enough power. Was the flash on camera or off? It looks like the lighting is coming from the far left.
I did notice your use of automatic in the EXIF and your settings of 1/60sec, f4.5, and ISO 100. You also used a flash. If you're noticing underexposure with the flash, try upping the flash exposure by +.5 or +1.
It might be that your flash isn't giving enough power. Was the flash on camera or off? It looks like the lighting is coming from the far left.
Thanks for the advice. Yup the flash came on, & the light on the left is from some stand-up lights I had down in the basement. (and yes she looks like she is leaning forward (she is and is was really awkward), I couldn't get her to stand straight for the life of me. SHe complained afterwards how sore her legs were. ok sure, some of it was my tripod being crooked too, but not all ...
