Dealing with blue casts on outdoor shots?

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loplyg

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Rich
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Hi folks,

I don't know if it's because of the summer weather, because I'm just noticing it more, or because I seem to be shooting at 2.8 on my 80-200 all the time now, but I'm spending an ever increasing amount of time removing blue tones from people and animals I shoot.

Unfortunately because I remove it straight away I have few examples, but here's a typical one. Original and corrected shown. Note the blue on the top of wing as well as bottom of body (so it's not just the water reflecting on the bottom of the body).

I usually use a localised brush in ACR on the affected areas then drop the saturation, but this only works on objects that are white/grey/black. If that doesn't work I have to open it in photoshop and that's a bit lengthy and a pain in the butt.

I have Hoya Skylights on all my lenses but I still find blue casts on people, particularly clothing (especially white clothes), in hair, buildings, all sorts.

I'm sick of brushing it out!

Any tips on this? Do people just leave it in normally?

I swear I never noticed it that much until recently...

bluegull.jpg
 
Possibly. I do seem to be getting it a lot.

If it is a WB issue, I wouldn't know whether it's an ACR thing (I always shoot RAW) or whether it's the AWB on the D700 that's going too-blue.

I should shoot RAW+JPEG a while and compare ACR's interpretation of the RAW, with the D700's JPEG.
 
What wb setting do you have in camera?
 
Just Auto... Then let ACR apply it's 'As Shot' WB interpretation...
 
loplyg said:
Just Auto... Then let ACR apply it's 'As Shot' WB interpretation...
Click to expand...

Well I'm a Canonite and I use Canon software, but I find the Auto WB setting just fine for daylight and for flash shots so I doubt that's your issue.

I note you use a Skylight filter anyway, and I'm not trying to teach granny to suck eggs, but your seagull is lit by direct sunlight so you shouldn't need the skylight filter at all. A skylight filter is for taking shots in the shade on sunny days when your subject is only lit indirectly by light bounced back from that blue canopy overhead, when it does cause blue casts on light surfaces and on skin tones.

The slight blue bits over the top of the wing in your first shot are almost negligible, but I suspect you've become very critical now in looking for them with the problems you're having.

The blue under the bird is a different matter - it's entirely normal for light surfaces to pick up colour casts from nearby objects, but that blue cast does look quite heavy and actuall patchy too - not as uniform as you might expect. Where was the shot taken? Those blues look very saturated by any standards - are you perhaps pushing the saturation a bit too far?
 
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