struggling a bit with white balance / colour settings for church wedding shots

rampanthamster

rampanthamster

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hi all, i've been processing a wedding from saturday and i seem to be spending a lot of time tweaking colours for the church shots. I just can't get something that looks 'right'. I shot auto WB in RAW. My monitor is not calibrated by the way, would that make a massive difference?

any way, i've included a sample shot - if people could perhaps cast their eyes over it and tell me what they think, that'd be great. Many thanks

church1.jpg


edit: now that i've seen it exported and posted here it actually looks more or less right? Bump in exposure perhaps but colour wise not too bad?
 
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Trying to edit colours without a callibrated monitor is a bit of a waste of time really as you can't tell if it's right.
It's not bad to be fair, when I use the white balance tool in camera raw I get a slightly warmer version, but then IMHO the pillars in the BG look a litlle to yellow, for an album shots I'd selectivly ajust the various bit I think.
 
Looks a bit 'cold' to me, but that's on my monitor. As Wayne says, you'd best get a bit of calibration. And it may be worth giving the Vibrance slider a bit of a nudge?
 
Mixed lighting innit?

Columns at the back are either getting natural light or for some reason churches seem to use high power halogens there.

Congregation maybe tungsten.

So the B&G are a bit yellow and the rest of the people are a bit magenta.

Balance for one or the other (probably B&G) or layer up 2 corrected versions and mask through. Or black and white.

Hard the tell colour shifts when it's underexposed....
 
Thanks guys really appreciate the feedback. It does need a bump in exposure. I've never really used photoshop extensively before so layering / masks and the like are a bit of a mystery for me. I might try using a graduated filter in Lightroom and putting a slight colour cast on it to see how that balances things.

I've done black and whites of all the church shots using silver fx and they look fantastic, but I can't do the whole album in black and white (unfortunately haha).

As for screen calibration. Is there a tool you'd recommend for a 27 " iMac?
 
You could also convert to B&W and just have the stained glass windows colour.
 
liam4503 said:
You could also convert to B&W and just have the stained glass windows colour.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah - because that image is *all about* the stained glass windows.... just because you can, doesn't mean you should.... :puke:

Back to the image. I think that looks pretty accurate IMVHO, that said the pinks and blues on the pew ends and the blue flowers are making it look a little cool. Add that to my personal preference to have indoor images a little warm and I'd say it could do with a more warmth but not much.

As long as it, and the others inside the church, match then it really is down to your preference. I very much doubt the B&G would notice a few 100k warmer (or cooler). I certainly wouldn't worry about individually correcting areas of it, you'll never get a sequence of images to exactly match... and that would stand out more.
 
thanks Mike - i think you're right really. I'm getting far too precious and anal about it and to be honest, i know the B&G would think it looks great and not question the colour at all.

I think I will certainly look into getting my screen calibrated though :)
 
Looks fine to me on my monitor, just be thankful the church didn't have sodium lights..!!
 
IMHO I think it's more difficult when you weren't there and didn't see the true colours of things like bridesmaids dresses, flowers and other decorations such as pew end ribbons.
 
Colour balance is always a personal thing, so getting close is normally okay for most people as they have nothing to compare it to!

I think the image is very slightly cold, but this is only with a critical eye. As has been said previously, the church is lit with different light sources and it would not be worth trying to mask layers to balance for every light source.

All in all the happy couple will probably never even consider the photograph to be "wrong"

Cheers Glennhttp://www.gmatherphotography.com
 
rampanthamster said:
thanks - that edit looks nice and punchy. Was it using lightroom?
Click to expand...

Believe it or not it was an HDR program - EasyHDRPro2 - then final tweaks in Serif PhotoPlus X2

Find it sometimes a lot easier than using layers and masks which I'm crap at.

.
 
rampanthamster said:
thanks - that edit looks nice and punchy. Was it using lightroom?
Click to expand...
Are you aware that in LR 4 you can brush in WB adjustment using the adjustment brush?
 
The edit is much better IMO, the original has a colour cast that makes the groom's suit look a bit purple and the pink of the ribbons down the aisle is too prominent - the edit fixed all of that ... good old HDR huh?
 
rampanthamster said:
hi all, i've been processing a wedding from saturday and i seem to be spending a lot of time tweaking colours for the church shots. I just can't get something that looks 'right'. I shot auto WB in RAW. My monitor is not calibrated by the way, would that make a massive difference?

any way, i've included a sample shot - if people could perhaps cast their eyes over it and tell me what they think, that'd be great. Many thanks

church1.jpg


edit: now that i've seen it exported and posted here it actually looks more or less right? Bump in exposure perhaps but colour wise not too bad?
Click to expand...


Looks bob on to me (though I usually process them warmer but that's personal taste).

What are you using to process them?

Your working space might be out/working outside the monitor Gamut
 
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