Purple coming out Blue?

ernieh

ernieh

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Ernie
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Hi all,
I'm sure there is an answer to this, but so far it has eluded me.....My grand-daughter is getting married later this year and we have discovered that what appears to be a purple ribbon and decoration on the bridesmaid's hats is coming out as a deep rich blue when photographed on digital using auto white balance settings in either daylight or using flash. It can be adjusted out using manual WB, but that knocks out the rest of the colours.

It won't be a major problem to me as I'm not taking the photos, although I will in all probability be using the camera, but wondered if anybody has encountered this problem and what was the answer? The other question is...would film do the same? It would be nice to have accurate colours in the final results!

Many thanks for any answers.


Ernie
 
I'd hazard a guess that the purple is outside the gamut the camera can reproduce, possibly caused by the infra red filter over the sensor taking out some of the red component of the purple, leaving you with the blue.
 
That explanation makes sense, and thanks.....but what is the answer? That should mean that film might be OK so I dig out the old FE2 again?

If the worst comes to the worst, which would be the best program to 'replace that with this' in PP?

Sorry for the questions, folks, but it would be nice to know what is best for the day.

Thanks for the help so far.


Ernie
 
Are you shooting raw or JPEG? If JPEG then maybe the in camera conversion is not handling the colours so well. Maybe there would be the option to tweak things more easily with raw files. For example, in Lightroom you have hue adjustment sliders which can target specific colours for change without affecting the whole scene. They would offer more flexibility to fix things.

Alternatively, if you are shooting raw anyway, and using Lightroom, then look at using some alternative camera profiles in the calibration panel. The profile you choose can have a marked impact on how some colours are rendered.

If you want to do straight colour replacements then I guess Photoshop would offer a solution, although don't ask me how as I'm a Photoshop numpty.
 
tdodd said:
Are you shooting raw or JPEG? If JPEG then maybe the in camera conversion is not handling the colours so well. Maybe there would be the option to tweak things more easily with raw files. For example, in Lightroom you have hue adjustment sliders which can target specific colours for change without affecting the whole scene. They would offer more flexibility to fix things.

Alternatively, if you are shooting raw anyway, and using Lightroom, then look at using some alternative camera profiles in the calibration panel. The profile you choose can have a marked impact on how some colours are rendered.

If you want to do straight colour replacements then I guess Photoshop would offer a solution, although don't ask me how as I'm a Photoshop numpty.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions, Tim. I hadn't tried shooting raw, but we have the hats here, so will have a go at that later. I only have an old version of Photoshop and don't have Lightroom, so it might be useful to look at upgrading a bit.

Appreciate all suggestions.


Ernie
 
I have seen a similar case years back, it turned out on that occasion to be something to do with infrared reflectance of the material itself.
 
Almost certainly some IR contamination. Artificial fabrics are known for it, and I know some blue flowers can throw up strange issues. Different cameras may vary, and also the light. Might be okay with flash, but not in IR-rich direct sun, that kind of thing.

It must be possible to fix in post, even if it requires local adjustment.
 
Thanks Wayne and Richard and others; Looks like I need to update my PP to something to something more modern like Lightroom.

As I said, I only have an old version of Photoshop vs 7.0 which I use mainly for levels, crops, hue, clone, etc, fairly basic stuff, most of which could be done easily elsewhere. As I couldn't really justify the cost of Photoshop CS5 or is it 6, do you think LR4 is a reasonable upgrade from PS 7.0 or would you suggest something else?

One other question, if I may, does the facility of Lightroom work better with Raw than with JPEG? I know that there is more flexibilty with RAW but I tend to shoot in Jpeg.....obviously that could be changed and I suppose LR could be downloaded and tried.

Really appreciate all your help and comments.


Ernie
 
I love Lightroom for speed and ease of use, but it does lack features offered by Photoshop, which personally I can't get to grips with at all. Lightroom is great with both raw and JPEG files. It never modifies the originals and you don't have to remember to save your edits and fill up your hard drive with duplicate files and interim versions. Just export to JPEG/TIFF once you've finished editing. You can go back and undo some or all of your edits at any time and start again, for either file type.

There is Photoshop Elements, which is modestly priced and should bring you pretty much up to date, and if you're already comfortable with Photoshop then probably little barrier to getting up to speed. Hopefully someone else can chip in on whether PSE is sufficient to handle this current challenge you're facing.

You can always download the free trials of Lightroom and/or PSE.
 
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ernieh said:
Thanks Wayne and Richard and others; Looks like I need to update my PP to something to something more modern like Lightroom.

As I said, I only have an old version of Photoshop vs 7.0 which I use mainly for levels, crops, hue, clone, etc, fairly basic stuff, most of which could be done easily elsewhere. As I couldn't really justify the cost of Photoshop CS5 or is it 6, do you think LR4 is a reasonable upgrade from PS 7.0 or would you suggest something else?

One other question, if I may, does the facility of Lightroom work better with Raw than with JPEG? I know that there is more flexibilty with RAW but I tend to shoot in Jpeg.....obviously that could be changed and I suppose LR could be downloaded and tried.

Really appreciate all your help and comments.


Ernie
Click to expand...

PS7 will do everything you need to sort out this problem, probably in the same way as CS5.

You do the original batch processing in Bridge, the biggest difference between Bridge and Lightroom is in the cataloging and file management.

I do all my original batching in Canons DPP software, because I find it more intuitive and I like the results. Pixel level editing is then done in photoshop.
 
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Many thanks to you all, Bazza, Phil,Tim and others for your help and useful suggestions. Clearly I still have a lot to learn and especially what is referred to a batch processing. I take that to mean that images are processed as a batch and the same adjustments are applied to each in whatever processing software is chosen? I'll also have a look at Bridge in that respect as I've seen it referred to a few times.

I'll try to acknowledge any further help up until this evening, but we are off to the sunny South for 2 weeks to Sandwich in Kent so I won't see anything for a couple of weeks after that.

As an afterthought, if there are any areas that I could check out while there, I would be glad of any suggestions.

Thanks again,


Ernie
 
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